Oldest Online Fansub Group?

[Nergol]

Time for a "Back in the old days" moment...

Fansubbing has been around since the mid-80s or so. I believe the first thing ever fansubbed was Macross The Movie, circa 1984. There were licensing issues with it which meant that it wasn't going to be released in the US in any form except "Clash Of The Bionoids" - a very bad dub that was also horribly hacked up to make it, as I recall, about an hour long. If I'm not mistaken, it was Mike Tatsugawa (who later went on to found Cal Animage [one of the first anime clubs in the country] and Anime Expo) who got it into his head to produce his own home made subtitled video of it.

The very first fansub I ever got my hands on was "Record of Lodoss Wars" - which I got from Aaron Pilgrim, the guy who founded Fanime Con. That was the spring of 1994. I still have the tapes - when I liquidated my VHS collection around 1999 or so I kept them for sentimental reasons. US Manga will just have to understand.

Those were the days when watching fansubs meant going to an anime club - normally on a college campus; sometimes in a library. A couple of the clubs allowed you to bring in a VCR of your own - BAAS meetings were notorious for people lugging their VCRs in and daisy-chaining them together so they'd all be recording during the showing. Usually you'd have a couple dozen of them stacked up and running. Some people wouldn't even bother sitting in the screenings - they'd just come in every couple hours to change tapes.

If you wanted a fansub of your very own, you could write to a fansub group - if you could find them (they didn't have webpages) - and wait for them to send you one, which they'd probably never get around to. Or you could bug a connection to make you copies of his copies, which usually were about fifth-generation VHS tapes which looked like watching a faraway UHF station in a lightning storm.

Digisubbing is indeed better, but has had bad effects too. It's slowly killing the anime club. Why blow a weekend day to go watch anime someplace when you can watch at home whenever you like? This past year, Foothill Anime - which to my knowledge is the oldest anime club in the States - almost folded due to declining membership. It's kind of sad to see them go. A new age, I guess.

[raikage]

Not to go on too much of a tangent, but I believe the Internet is also responsible for the decline of anime clubs.

As cool as it is to be able to come onto this forum and discuss shows with people all over the world, it also makes the local club much less relevant.

And, let's face it -- the hobby of anime, unlike sports or political debates or whatnot, is one that requires very little social interaction in general. I've never been to an anime club meeting, but I can imagine it being little more than a darkened room where everyone sits quietly as they watch the series and read the subtitles so they know what's going on.

[Heibi]

Originally Posted by raikage

Not to go on too much of a tangent, but I believe the Internet is also responsible for the decline of anime clubs.

As cool as it is to be able to come onto this forum and discuss shows with people all over the world, it also makes the local club much less relevant.

And, let's face it -- the hobby of anime, unlike sports or political debates or whatnot, is one that requires very little social interaction in general. I've never been to an anime club meeting, but I can imagine it being little more than a darkened room where everyone sits quietly as they watch the series and read the subtitles so they know what's going on.

Actually, they're more like a social gathering of friends these days. We get together, watch the latest anime, talk and order dinner, then watch more anime in a lit room. We still sit quietly during each show so as not to disturb others, but for the most part it's a gathering of friends. (At least at Central Anime it is)

Heibi
Central Anime

[Spyre]

Hey, Mugen released our first release 5 years ago today. I guess we're kinda old now!

[Tofusensei]

I know this is a very old thread, but it seems the proper place to post this. Our group, Live-eviL, is one of the oldest groups that has remained truly active (7 years this Summer). We're also purely digital fansubbing from day one. I wrote up a history of the group, if anyone cares to read.

LINK: http://www.live-evil.org/history-of-live-evil/

-Tofu

[jfs]

Interesting read, Tofu!

I happen to know (well, kinda) akahige you credit for the YUA distro feat... since he was at the university I'm enrolled at :P It seems he's mostly left the anime/fansub scene behind now, though.

[Tofusensei]

Originally Posted by jfs

Interesting read, Tofu!

I happen to know (well, kinda) akahige you credit for the YUA distro feat... since he was at the university I'm enrolled at :P It seems he's mostly left the anime/fansub scene behind now, though.

That's what happens when you get your girlfriend unexpectedly pregnant lol

If you see him, tell him we miss him and that I say hi!

-Tofu

[ScR3WiEuS]

hey tofu,
what the hell happened to tanman and digi anyway.
i worked with you guys on (a very bad joint for) Tantei Gakuen, and tanman and i used to talk about the other projects like wandaba style, etc
digi was trying to teach me Go too iirc.
but after i left for a year or so, they were all gone :O
only person i still see around are you and Vash.
been a while since i met Ash2Dust in person too. he lives close by.

*edit* oh, and i guess Teppei is still around too.

[Tofusensei]

Originally Posted by ScR3WiEuS

hey tofu,
what the hell happened to tanman and digi anyway.
i worked with you guys on (a very bad joint for) Tantei Gakuen, and tanman and i used to talk about the other projects like wandaba style, etc
digi was trying to teach me Go too iirc.
but after i left for a year or so, they were all gone :O
only person i still see around are you and Vash.
been a while since i met Ash2Dust in person too. he lives close by.

*edit* oh, and i guess Teppei is still around too.

tanman508 quit fansubs altogether, I think. He pops into the channel on a rare occasion as well.

digitize is the same thing, he just "grew up and moved on" as he says and I don't think has anything to do with fansubs now. He was actually a pretty good encoder when he showed up to work

I ended up having to encode the second half of Gilgamesh b/c he went AWOL :\

Ash2Dust was always a cool guy! I haven't talked to him in YEARS. He was always the black sheep of BakaMX lol

Good old DAQ... That's the project that won't die. I have actually dropped it twice before and each time someone revives it It's turning into a running joke.

Can anyone get me the Shinsen scripts for 36-48? ><

-Tofu

[ScR3WiEuS]

heh, true, the project wouldn't die, but sadly it wouldn't exactly live either.
that shit was almost impossible to finish. i think like, in the first 10 eps alone, we cycled through 5 translators or so.

[cmanimevids3000]

Originally Posted by Tofusensei

digitize is the same thing, he just "grew up and moved on" as he says and I don't think has anything to do with fansubs now. He was actually a pretty good encoder when he showed up to work

-Tofu

Actually digitize just joined Orange-Side today as an editor *_* I think he is getting back into fansubbing. He told me he used to work for ya'll ^_^

-Corey