What is the first anime to be fansubbed on the internet?

[Thyrz]

The first fansubbed anime I ever downloaded was Initial D by Central Anime. I got it through Kazaa at like 5-10 kb/s tops. I think this was in the year 2000.

[getfresh]

As far as I understand they did not digisub that. it was tapesubbed then ripped and released. What we are trying to figure out is the start of digisubbing unless I am horribly mistaken.

[Shouta]

Most digisubbing in its current form can be traced to Love Hina as far as I can recall. That was the first one I saw back in 2000. I recall that because I was still doing tapesubs around then. I recall Pilot Candidate coming shortly after.

Originally Posted by bayoab

AC and maybe NLA were the only groups on ETG prior to the efnet ddos.

Hey, don't forget me.

AC, NLA, and my group were on ETG before that big move! Bad bayoab! Can't remember history!

The big move to ETG in June/July of 2001 is what I call the 2nd gen digisubbers, personally. All the major groups during that hectic time popped up after that move. It's funny that all the groups moved on but mine is still on ETG after all these years.

[Tofusensei]

Originally Posted by Shouta

The big move to ETG in June/July of 2001 is what I call the 2nd gen digisubbers, personally. All the major groups during that hectic time popped up after that move. It's funny that all the groups moved on but mine is still on ETG after all these years.

#Live-eviL is still there. Solidarity forever!

[Shouta]

Oh hay, I forgot you guys were still there.

[getfresh]

Originally Posted by Shouta

Most digisubbing in its current form can be traced to Love Hina as far as I can recall. That was the first one I saw back in 2000. I recall that because I was still doing tapesubs around then. I recall Pilot Candidate coming shortly after.



Hey, don't forget me.

AC, NLA, and my group were on ETG before that big move! Bad bayoab! Can't remember history!

The big move to ETG in June/July of 2001 is what I call the 2nd gen digisubbers, personally. All the major groups during that hectic time popped up after that move. It's funny that all the groups moved on but mine is still on ETG after all these years.

Aye, second gen is 2001. it was 2001-2002 for starting date of group. With second gen we saw the start of typesetting to take hold, xvid, bt, and of course after-effects coming into play. Another reason it was second gen was cause it was the era where the original groups saw groups formed made up of staff that split from them, i.e. soldat, live-evil, etc...

third gen imo would be when the vulture subbing groups came about, say around late 2003. This is when speed became the primary thing, and many new groups were created just to start subbing a show ahead of the original group subbing it in order to gain instant "fame" or something. This was contributed to by bt I think, and has really been what cause the major downfall of fansubbing. The quality wars of 2001-2002 weren't really that big of an issue, but when it became something of who care about anything other than how many ppl dl our things, the pride that subbers had in their work suffered and the hobbie became less fun. Whats the point in a hobbie you don't do to become better at and enjoy?

[TGEN]

Originally Posted by getfresh

Whats the point in a hobbie you don't do to become better at and enjoy?

You don't have to become better at a hobby in order to enjoy it; you could extract satisfaction and joy from the being-the-quickest bit just the same. Apparently speedsubbers have fun in that way, otherwise some of the groups would long have ceased to exist, and new people wouldn't appeal to the idea.

[Access]

Originally Posted by getfresh

Aye, second gen is 2001. it was 2001-2002 for starting date of group. With second gen we saw the start of typesetting to take hold, xvid, bt, and of course after-effects coming into play. Another reason it was second gen was cause it was the era where the original groups saw groups formed made up of staff that split from them, i.e. soldat, live-evil, etc...

For me, the big difference between 1st and 2nd generation was the working order. The 1st generation groups I had experience with -- from the inside (private channel, etc.), they had a strong leader and a rest-of-group that was primarily focused on releasing 'popular' shounen anime. Not interested in it, you'd head off on your own track, work with whatever help you could muster to subtitle an episode to the point of release. And then be told 'way too girly... we can't release this...', and that would be the end of it.

Second-generation groups were composed partly with people who were dissatisfied with the several 1st generation groups, but mostly with new recruits. Their leadership was generally weak to nonexistant, and their working order could be summarized in 'you sub it, we release it'. Generally this would involve splitting into 'working groups'; individual teams of a translator, editor, checker, encoder, etc. -- within the original group and based on individual preferences. Things would get done, things would get released, people were generally happier, basically you started seeing a lot more genres represented than the typical shounen fare like love hina or vandread. 2nd generation groups were also more open, many staff would freelance or openly belong to multiple groups. Less paranoia and security measures all around.

1st generation groups, active, there were only several. 2nd generation groups, about 20 active ones (more toward the end). 3rd generation groups, more than 50. There was a lot of overlap, in terms of time -- many 1st generation groups survived well into the 2nd generation era (with their structure intact) and many 2nd generation groups are still active today.

[Tofusensei]

^ I agree with this.

[CrowKenobi]

Originally Posted by getfresh

third gen imo would be when the vulture subbing groups came about, say around late 2003. This is when speed became the primary thing, and many new groups were created just to start subbing a show ahead of the original group subbing it in order to gain instant "fame" or something. This was contributed to by bt I think, and has really been what cause the major downfall of fansubbing. The quality wars of 2001-2002 weren't really that big of an issue, but when it became something of who care about anything other than how many ppl dl our things, the pride that subbers had in their work suffered and the hobbie became less fun. Whats the point in a hobbie you don't do to become better at and enjoy?

Man, I remember parts of that, specifically Gundam Seed and AnimeJunkies...

"NASCAR class cruisers, anyone?"

[emptyeighty]

[Access]

Yeah, that was the famous line that made Animejunkies an instant classic. No one took them very seriously after that , they became an allegorical punching bag. It was blogged about and then frequently cited by third parties as an example of how bad fan translations were. Which itself was mis-attribution b'cos by that time, many weren't that bad. There were enough groups out there by that time who actually translated from the original japanese, with at least reasonable quality.

I seem to remember there was also a (Ninja Scrolls?) incedent where Ninja Scrolls was announced licensed, and within a few days Animejunkies released a few more episodes of it, while also admitting they were knowledgeable of the licensing. Their excuse (at the time) being that, well, those episodes were works-in-progress at the time of the licensing, so it 'made sense' to finish them.

[Starks]

Killshok's emails in response to the Ninja Scroll TV license and C&D were quite epic and made for a classic AJ moment.

[Garylisk]

OMG AnimeJunkies! I used to refuse to download anything by them. And they seemed to do everything. Ghost in the Shell, Chobits... man, this takes me back.

To add some input on the current discussion, I started watching digisubs in 2000 thanks to a friend of mine who ran a mirror for animedownload.net - It still exists, but just as a reminder of what it used to be. Anyway, it was direct FTP download with ratios for anime. People would upload encoded VHS subs and even dubs. I remember him letting me just hook one of the hard drives he had used for that, and nabbed up some stuff, including early Love Hina episodes. I am pretty sure this was in summer 2000, and everything else on that drive was ripped from VHS. (Flame of Recca, Hand Maid May, DNA2, Kodomo no Omocha, Evangelion, and some other stuff, all pretty crummy quality. The Flame of Recca subs were in .ra format and a TINY frame size! Hard to read the subtitles!)

So, yeah, I am pretty sure it was some time in Summer of 2000 when Love Hina got subbed, and I have heard from almost everyone through the years that Love Hina was the very first 100% digitally subbed anime.

Hope this is helpful.

[mbanu]

Originally Posted by Sindalf

Im more wondering whats the first anime to be fansubbed preinternet releases. Back to the days of VHS fansubs.

I think the current guess is Ranma 1/2 fansubs done by The Ranma Project in 1989. (They were a fansubbing group that was loosely connected to Cal Animage Alpha.)

There are some other contenders, though.

Old-timers have mentioned seeing what appeared to be a fansubbed version of Lupin III in 1986, but nobody has traced the provenance, so it's not quite clear if this is a fansub or some sort of commercial demo.

AnimEigo also claims to be the first fansubber, as before producing commercial VHS, they did a demo sub of Vampire Princess Miyu (probably around 1988) to use as proof-of-concept for getting Japanese licenses. However, since this was commercial rather than non-commercial, I'm not quite sure it counts as fansubbing.