Do the Anime/Manga Fans have too many choices ?

[ff7799]

Once upon a time, there was a thing called 'anime' that came from a magical land called Japan. Much like the animations that came from a strange land called America, anime was greatly accepted among its people and even influenced their society.

Around sometime in the mid-1980s, anime began to make its way over to America. Curiously, this was not through American companies interested in licensing these series, but through True Fans from America and other parts of the world who loved anime so much, that they worked tirelessly to translate and subtitle series. Despite the fact that this task that could be very difficult. These people, known as fansubbers and scanlators, often subbed for absolutely nothing even though they often had to pay japanese translators to translate anime series. These translators worked tirelessly to share as much anime and manga with the limited but growning number of fans in english speaking countries as they could.

Eventually American companies saw the potential of releasing Japanese cartoons and started cashing in on it. The result was that almost almost half the cartoons shown on popular TV stations, such as Cartoon Network came to be anime.

What happened to the fansubbers? Well quite simply, they grew. As technology changed, it helped people to become more educated and skilled in the field of fansubbing. Then more people took interest in it, and eventually you had hundreds of fansubbing groups and hundreds of anime and manga series being subbed every year. Not only that; the quality and speed of their releases had risen as well. Fans were treated to seeing episodes of their favorite shows subbed and released the day after the episode was shown in Japan, if not the very same day.

These fans with their endless choices began to voice their opinions with increasing volume. They stated what they wanted. Wants became demands. Eventually the bar for translating fansubs was raised to the level of a professional release. Examples of this are the quality of Anbu and Kaizakou Fansubs. Many fans even said that if it's not done right, then don't do it at all. Fansubbers were now forced to fine tune every release made, check every sentence, raise the video quality to DVD levels, and tirelessly release episodes as fast as possible to please the demands of the growing fansub community base.

So at this time I ask, have anime and manga fans become greedy? Have they begun to ask for more than they can even handle? Have the demands grown to a unreasonable level? I notice more and more frequently that the requirements to be a fansubber are growing and the release pace has rushed to a level that's difficult to stand against.

So whats your opinion? Do you think that anime fans have too many choices now and have they become greedy?


Edit : Thanks to NoSannin For Grammerical Editting

[microlith]

I may comment later, but before that please fix your post.

Adding punctuation like periods would help. And breaking it into sentences and seperate paragraphs might be handy as well.

[NoSanninWa]

Originally Posted by ff7799

Once upon a time, their was a thing called anime that came from a magical land called japan. Much like the animations that came from a strange land called american anime was greatly accepted among its people and even influenced their society, around sometime in the mid 1980's anime began to make its way over to america through not american companies interested licensing these series but through True Fans from america and others parts of the world that loved anime so much that they worked tirelessly to translate and subtitle series (A task that could be very difficult) these people were known as fansubbers and scantalators, often subbing for absolutely nothing and often having to pay japanese translators to translate series, these translators worked tirelessly to share as many anime\manga with the limited but growning number of fans in english speaking countries, eventually american companies saw the potential of releasing japanese cartoons and started cashing in out it, the result ended up causing almost almost half the cartoons shown on popular tv stations such as cartoon network to be anime, but what happened to the fansubber, well quite simply they grew, as technology changed and more people became more educated and skilled in the field of fansubbing, more people took interest and eventually you had hundreds of fansubbing groups and hundreds of anime and manga series being subbed everyear, not only that they quality and speed of the releases had risen as well, fans were treated seeing episodes of their favorite shows released subbed the day after the episode had shown in japan if not even the same. These fans with their endless choices began voicing their opinions more loadly and stating what they wanted, wants became demands and eventually the bar for translating fansubs was raised to the level of proffessional releases (Example Anbu and Kaizakou quality fansubs), many fans even said if its not done right then don't do it at all, fansubbers now were forced to fine tune every release made, check ever sentence, get the video quality to the level of dvd, and release episodes tirelesssly as fast as possible to please the demands of the growing fansubb community base, and so at this time I ask have Anime and Manga Fans become greedy, have they begun to ask for more than they can even handle, have the demands grown to a unreasonable level. I notice more and more that the requirments to be a fansubber are growing and the release pace is also at a level thats difficult to stand against. So whats your opinion, do you think that anime fans have too many choice now, have they become greedy.

Uggg. I can't read this mess. Excuse me, but I'm going to have to edit this in order to make sense out of it. I'll post it for everyone's edification. Pardon me if it still contains errors and oddities, but I'm just doing a quicky job to improve clarity.

The following is ff7799's post after meeting an editor:



Once upon a time, there was a thing called 'anime' that came from a magical land called Japan. Much like the animations that came from a strange land called America, anime was greatly accepted among its people and even influenced their society.

Around sometime in the mid-1980s, anime began to make its way over to America. Curiously, this was not through American companies interested in licensing these series, but through True Fans from America and other parts of the world who loved anime so much, that they worked tirelessly to translate and subtitle series. Despite the fact that this task that could be very difficult. These people, known as fansubbers and scanlators, often subbed for absolutely nothing even though they often had to pay japanese translators to translate anime series. These translators worked tirelessly to share as much anime and manga with the limited but growning number of fans in english speaking countries as they could.

Eventually American companies saw the potential of releasing Japanese cartoons and started cashing in on it. The result was that almost almost half the cartoons shown on popular TV stations, such as Cartoon Network came to be anime.

What happened to the fansubbers? Well quite simply, they grew. As technology changed, it helped people to become more educated and skilled in the field of fansubbing. Then more people took interest in it, and eventually you had hundreds of fansubbing groups and hundreds of anime and manga series being subbed every year. Not only that; the quality and speed of their releases had risen as well. Fans were treated to seeing episodes of their favorite shows subbed and released the day after the episode was shown in Japan, if not the very same day.

These fans with their endless choices began to voice their opinions with increasing volume. They stated what they wanted. Wants became demands. Eventually the bar for translating fansubs was raised to the level of a professional release. Examples of this are the quality of ANBU and Kaizakou Fansubs. Many fans even said that if it's not done right, then don't do it at all. Fansubbers were now forced to fine tune every release made, check every sentence, raise the video quality to DVD levels, and tirelessly release episodes as fast as possible to please the demands of the growing fansub community base.

So at this time I ask, have anime and manga fans become greedy? Have they begun to ask for more than they can even handle? Have the demands grown to a unreasonable level? I notice more and more frequently that the requirements to be a fansubber are growing and the release pace has rushed to a level that's difficult to stand against.

So whats your opinion? Do you think that anime fans have too many choices now and have they become greedy?

[kj1980]

Your English is close to being incomprehensible. Do you know the proper usage of punctuation and have you learned the rules of avoiding run-on sentences?

Several refutable arguments from the parts that I was able to decipher:

Originally Posted by ff7799

Once upon a time, their [sic] was a thing called anime that came from a magical land called japan.

Our country is not magical....it's a fucked up country like many other first world societies.

Originally Posted by ff7799

Much like the animations that came from a strange land called american [sic] anime was greatly accepted among its people and even influenced their [sic] society

Anime never was accepted by the majority of Japanese populace. You are considered to be a loser if you watch anime well past your twenties. Anime rarely, if at all, have been a major influencer of social trends.

[ff7799]

Your very wrong about this, infact Manga is read by many middle aged people in the country, The live action Gto series finale based on the anime series actually was the highest watched series finale ever in japan.

Originally Posted by kj1980

Your English is close to being incomprehensible. Do you know the proper usage of punctuation and have you learned the rules of avoiding run-on sentences?

Several refutable arguments from the parts that I was able to decipher:



Our country is not magical....it's a fucked up country like many other first world societies.



Anime never was accepted by the majority of Japanese populace. You are considered to be a loser if you watch anime well past your twenties. Anime rarely, if at all, have been a major influencer of social trends.

[Sokar]

There's no such thing as too many choices. It's the simple economics, people who have the best products and get them out the fastest will beat those who don't. The weak gets eliminated and only the strong survive. There are a lot of fansub groups, but if multiple groups compete for the same show then there's usually 1 or 2 that wins out over the rest.

But you have to also remember that the amount of anime been produce has been increasing as well. So usually there aren't multiple fansub groups out there doing the same shows besides the really popular ones like naruto or bleach. For some shows there is currently no choice besides 1 fansub group. Which clearly indicates that there aren't enough choices, as oppose to too many choices.

You make it sound like as if the anime fans are destroying the fansub community, because their demand is so high that fansub groups can't match it. If anything this demand will make the community stronger as better products are being churned out. The more the demand the more the fansubers compete with each other for fame and the better deal the fans get. It raises the level of the fansubbers as oppose to destroying them.

For those fansubbers that can not match the level of quality that people demand for highly popular shows, they can and have reallocated their resources into less popular shows. This again benefits the community as, well, who doesn't want another potential sleeper to be fansubbed.

In conclusion, the demand of the fans have raised the quality of fansubs and fansub groups as a whole as well as increased and diversified the number of shows that are being fansubbed. The demand has lead into the currenty bloom of the fansub community.

One last thought, if the fans don't demand anything then consider how horrible the fansubs will be!!! Right now fan complaints are forcing some groups to release version 2s to fix the problem, but what if those problems stayed and casual anime fans don't notice that's it's wrong?

[NoSanninWa]

ff7799: You seem to have no idea of what anime is in its native Japanese environment, but I won't hold that against you. Fortunately it has no effect on the validity of the real point of this essay.

Personally I feel that fansubbers are pushing themselves way too fast. There's no reason not to take at least a whole week to fansub a show. That keeps up with Japan without killing themselves too much. Personally I consider 2 weeks to be a resonably fast pace and anything under 2 months is good work. If the fans don't like this... let them learn Japanese. As for quality. That becomes a lot easier if they are willing to take their time.

Of course your real question is if choices have made them selfish. Absolutely.That isn't surprising. Everyone comes to expect whatever they can commonly get and upset when it is withheld from them. There's nothing wrong with having choices of course and honestly most fans aren't the spoiled brats that you are pointing out.

The real problem is that those spoiled brats are the most vocal fans. They raise their voices screeching and whining whenever an episode is late or an error is made. They are a thoroughly unpleasant crew, but they aren't the totality of fandom. Many of us are glad to get the episodes we get whenever we get them. Even if we find that the groups have a lower level of quality than we'd like, we accept that different groups have different standards.

The problem isn't choice. The problem is a number of very vocal and very obnoxious fans.

[xris]

Originally Posted by ff7799

Your very wrong about this, infact Manga is read by many middle aged people in the country, The live action Gto series finale based on the anime series actually was the highest watched series finale ever in japan.

So, not only can't you write but you can't read either.

kj1980 said anime, not manga, not live-action, but anime.

Originally Posted by kj1980

Anime never was accepted by the majority of Japanese populace.

Originally Posted by kj1980

You are considered to be a loser if you watch anime well past your twenties.

Originally Posted by kj1980

Anime rarely, if at all, have been a major influencer of social trends.

[kujoe]

I think we also have to consider the freedom of the fans in limiting their choices. Sure, there are a lot of titles being produced every year, but how many of those titles would a person even consider checking out? After all, some fans are only attracted to specific kinds of anime, all the while ignoring the rest unless something interesting catches their eye.

As for greediness--I agree with NoSanninWa. Sadly, there are such instances when fans become annoyingly demanding that I begin to admire the fansubbers for the simple fact of putting up with them. I've seen it happen before. Is waiting for a week or two that long?

Quality first, and speed second, I say.

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by kujoe

I think we also have to consider the freedom of the fans in limiting their choices. Sure, there are a lot of titles being produced every year, but how many of those titles would a person even consider checking out? After all, some fans are only attracted to specific kinds of anime, all the while ignoring the rest unless something interesting catches their eye.

As for greediness--I agree with NoSanninWa. Sadly, there are such instances when fans become annoyingly demanding that I begin to admire the fansubbers for the simple fact of putting up with them. I've seen it happen before. Is waiting for a week or two that long?

Quality first, and speed second, I say.

Hmm, they should test that with naruto. I think the response from the hardcore fans would be quite entertaining, I mean um.. educational.

Anyway, I don't really see the need for professional quality in fansubs. if they're meant simply to introduce fans to new series, do they have to be that good? That leaves little or no incentive to buy the series on dvd when it finally comes out.
Sure there should be some quality involved, but as long as the translation is mostly accurate, and the video and audio are decent, is there a need for more? So in short, yes fans are greedy, but more for quality, than speed.

[ff7799]

Originally Posted by xris

So, not only can't you write but you can't read either.

kj1980 said anime, not manga, not live-action, but anime.

Xris no need for a insult man, Jeez your one hostile person, I know what he said however I thought his statement also pertained to manga since Anime often originates from manga series. No need to get so upset or bash me, I'am sorry my spelling sucks but theirs no reason to rub it it or say "not only can't you spell", stop being so grumpy.

[DingoEnderZOE2]

Question:If Manga is more widely accepted by middle aged people in Japan, why isn't Anime accepted like that as well? I mean Anime is bascially really improved Manga with lots of color,more life,beauty and its on TV isn't it? Don't tell me older people think flashy anime on TV are bad just because of a little Pokemon episode that caused alot of people seizures?

[krispydigital]

...calm down people. you can understand what he's trying to say, so isn't that good enough?

anyways, I don't think that we too much. I still think that it could improve. Like have the animes hosted on a website for direct download. Well, thats that the fansubber's job, but it would still be nice. I know that korea has a huge fansubbing group and they release their stuff 1 hr after the air from japan, all available for direct download over 300 kbps. Not only recent ones either, but old ones too, all neatly archieved. Now, i think that's going overboard, but it'd still be cool if we had that in english. But i would be more than happy if subs came out within a week - or maybe two, for the not-so-popular ones.

[ff7799]

Originally Posted by DingoEnderZOE2

Question:If Manga is more widely accepted by middle aged people in Japan, why isn't Anime accepted like that as well? I mean Anime is bascially really improved Manga with lots of color,more life,beauty and its on TV isn't it? Don't tell me older people think flashy anime on TV are bad just because of a little Pokemon episode that caused alot of people seizures?

Well despite What Nosannin and the Mean Grumpy Mod Xris think regarding my knowledge of japanese culture, to put it in simple terms Japanese people are a bit biased even within their own culture, Manga is respected on the same level as any other literary work would be within our culture, such as a Charles Dickens novel. I will admit that many Japanese people find anime as simply ecchi nonsense, and even in some anime series their are comments made regarding that factor, in the anime industry you will rarely find a great deal of women working on anime projects (don't as me why). The concept of anime however is mainly derived from manga and I won't back down on that, this is evident with such characters as Astro Boy whom is considered a japanese national icon, not all anime is rejected, alot of is is seen as echi but then also alot of it is marvelled over by older japanese adults in the same way many american adults still enjoy watching bugs bunny.

Note To Xris : everytime you say something mean to me I'am gonna say something nice to you, I think you just need a hug pal.

[microlith]

Now that it's been formatted I can chew on it.

Once upon a time, there was a thing called 'anime' that came from a magical land called Japan.

To second kj1980, Japan is not magical. It is merely different. It is a very nice place, if you ask me, but like he says it has its own problems as well. It's no more magical than the US or most of the countries in Europe.

Much like the animations that came from a strange land called America, anime was greatly accepted among its people and even influenced their society.

Again, kj1980 has already settled this non-fact.

Around sometime in the mid-1980s, anime began to make its way over to America. Curiously, this was not through American companies interested in licensing these series, but through True Fans from America and other parts of the world who loved anime so much, that they worked tirelessly to translate and subtitle series. Despite the fact that this task that could be very difficult. These people, known as fansubbers and scanlators, often subbed for absolutely nothing even though they often had to pay japanese translators to translate anime series. These translators worked tirelessly to share as much anime and manga with the limited but growning number of fans in english speaking countries as they could.

This is true. They also had a code of ethics that held until recently.

Eventually American companies saw the potential of releasing Japanese cartoons and started cashing in on it. The result was that almost almost half the cartoons shown on popular TV stations, such as Cartoon Network came to be anime.

Hardly. Most of what's on CN is still US produced. It has, however, gotten to the point that there is a Video on Demand network, shows on at least 2 cable networks, and plans to make The Anime Network 24/7.

What happened to the fansubbers? Well quite simply, they grew. As technology changed, it helped people to become more educated and skilled in the field of fansubbing. Then more people took interest in it, and eventually you had hundreds of fansubbing groups and hundreds of anime and manga series being subbed every year.

And along with that came the arrogant and greedy whose concentrated efforts have made the old fansubber ethics almost completely extinct, changing it from a labor of love that it was in the 80s and early 90s to little more than warez.

Not only that; the quality and speed of their releases had risen as well.

I will contest this "fact" as from what I've seen, the overall quality of releases has not improved, but more seems to have gone down. The mistakes and flaws are simply less noticeable due to the utter DELUGE of mediocre stuff from fansubbers.

Fans were treated to seeing episodes of their favorite shows subbed and released the day after the episode was shown in Japan, if not the very same day.

Gotta love playing outside the law.

These fans with their endless choices began to voice their opinions with increasing volume. They stated what they wanted. Wants became demands.

Yeah, you give people free shit they begin to expect free shit. But there isn't any demand on behalf of the fans, it's just the "fansubbers" pushing for recognition.

Eventually the bar for translating fansubs was raised to the level of a professional release. Examples of this are the quality of Anbu and Kaizakou Fansubs.

No. Not at all. I've noted many bad translations from ANBU, and you can't hold up Kaizoku Fansubs up as an example because the only thing they do is One Peice. Which is licensed now so they're SOL (but they're probably doing it -anyway-, thus my comment about it just being WAREZ now.)

Many fans even said that if it's not done right, then don't do it at all. Fansubbers were now forced to fine tune every release made, check every sentence, raise the video quality to DVD levels, and tirelessly release episodes as fast as possible to please the demands of the growing fansub community base.

After reading this paragraph, I had to conclude that you're looking at the world through a glass full of really bad distortions. Fansubber video quality is NOT DVD level by any stretch of the imagination, unless it was ripped from a DVD to begin with (and even then, it's not as good as it could be since they're working from a compressed source.) And no, they're not releasing stuff as fast as possible to please fans. They're doing is as fast as possible to gain recognition! It's just 0-day WAREZ all over again! First group gets the props!

So at this time I ask, have anime and manga fans become greedy?

If by greedy you mean using fansubs and scanlations as an excuse to never buy legitimate copies of this stuff and pay the creators for their efforts, then yes. No one can demand, nor is anyone demanding, anything of fansubbers.

Have they begun to ask for more than they can even handle? Have the demands grown to a unreasonable level? I notice more and more frequently that the requirements to be a fansubber are growing and the release pace has rushed to a level that's difficult to stand against.

On the contrary, the requirements are dropping. I look at the video quality for many releases and it's obvious they were compressed from an iffy raw. I look at translations and I see words being used that could only have been pulled from a J<->E dictionary without much thought as to how common the word is.

I don't see anything wrong with anime and manga fans having a choice. The problem is that the fansubbing world as a whole has mostly gone to shit with groups like AonE, KAA, and others that call themselves fansubbers when they're little more than warez groups.

[tugatosmk]

Originally Posted by kj1980

Anime never was accepted by the majority of Japanese populace. You are considered to be a loser if you watch anime well past your twenties. Anime rarely, if at all, have been a major influencer of social trends.

Hm... now I'm getting worried. I'm 23, and I like to watch anime... Does that make me a loser as well?

It's odd to me as why is anime so underrated in its homeland. Then again, I'm just a portuguese (european) citizen...

And, kj1980, sometimes you sound so pessimistic when talking about anime on your country it even scares me. Is anime really that hated in Japan?
Are you criticised there because of liking anime? (I'm not trying to be critic or annoying, please don't be offended...)

--------------------------

As for the fansubs issue, well... fansubbing has taken unbelieveble proportions nowadays. And while that can be a good thing, it does have its downsides.

Popular animes have become incredibly easy to download and its quality has increased greatly, even tv-rips.

But there's also a "bias" in fansubbing anime - it variates according to popularity. While a very popular anime can have dozens of fansubbers working on it simultaneously (which I find rather... well... stupid), older and rarer anime are fansubbed by a few or only one, if not forgotten or dropped due to lack of downloading and consequent group self-popularity.

It looks like some groups are just trying to get fame to themselves, instead of doing what the first fansubbers in the mid-90's used to do: divulgate more and more of this awesome fenomena called "anime" to other people out there (whether it's the US or the rest of the world).

And I agree with some comments I read in this thread: some anime fans ARE getting greedy! They can't wait 1 week for an episode that has just been transmitted in Japan! I mean, what is this?!

I have waited for the sequel of ep.22 of Touch for 11 years! (fortunately this waiting ended thanks to central anime, thumbs up to them ) - talk about perseverance and patience!

As a result, this "hurry" only makes the quality of fansubs to decrease - hurry is the enemy of perfection.

I just hope this attitude doesn't spread over the rest of the anime fan community.


Quality subbing instead of quick subbing - it's my opinion that's the way it should be.

[Ending]

So whats your opinion? Do you think that anime fans have too many choices now and have they become greedy?

Markets and consumers are and have always been greedy. When one company succeeds in something, it raises the bar for others to meet. If they cannot meet it, they will be driven out from the market. Thus the fansubbers have to meet the new demands or get wiped out. Easy as that.

[Cornel]

Most media is shit. The majority of poetry (classical and modern), books, movies (live action and animated), and the likes are also shit. Hollywood based production companies go to every dark corner and lay one big pile of it everyday, but hollywood still influences the Western world.
Or maybe, it's a case about anime reflecting society instead of influence it. As with western society, we may buy millions of copies of a hatefilled rap artist but asking if he influences people to act wrong to women, and he'll tell you that it has been a part of society before he ever began his career. Sometimes we scapegoat artists and sometimes we are inspired by them. It is a case by case thing, as someone mentioned Astroboy.
If a person is a loser or not for watching anime, we have to remember that enjoying wasting time is not time wasted and to escape from our natural mind set is a drive of human life. Generally, everything is an influence but also a reflection of the product of society. Yet as time goes by, an artist can be novel if we know less about the history of his art. Take William Shakespeare, he has been labelled (rightfully-so) the greatest playwrite in history that has created a lot of English words we use today and also has influenced theater and storytelling, though we may be less mindful of his own influences.

It may be that anime is looked down upon for those who are watching over 20, but when these people, including myself, were young, we watched anime. It is familiar, just like video games are now played by people over 25. That is the core demographic for the video game makers. Now video games are becoming animated and converted to many other forms of media.
I think that Halo 2 made more money in one day than Spiderman 2 did in three and overall, the video game market brings in more money than any other media. This has influenced artists to be aware of this and product animes that are mixed media. Simply, anime does influence other forms of media and a human society, we are all driven by instinct to enjoy some form of media (wish classical books would be thought over well). So anime has made in impact on the way people live, but it doesn't mean that people have to enjoy it.
I remember looking at the top searches on Yahoo, and of course we have Dragonballz at the top at some point. And sure, people are sometimes at a young age, but fair work is almost expected of today's youth so they are going to dictate what is acceptable and not.
To say it frankly, losers lose out on what they wish to do, within the bounds of being able to survive and live freely in society.

[ff7799]

I'am saddened as I read these comments regarding the quality of fansubbing as going down, sadly most people simply can't remember what fansubs use to look like, old vhs releases were blurry and hard to watch and yet we loved them, their were tons of errors and often the character names were even incorrect, translators simply aimed to get the meaning accross and nothing more. I admit that many fansubbing groups myself include have done fansubbing to recieve recongnition among other things however that doesn't mean that fans should be rude and ungreatful, fansubs are a free service such as animesuki, and while the point was made that not everyone bashes fansubbing groups for errors their are many that do. Kids these days are so treated to perfect quality release that they have become less appretiative to groups that work tirelessly to get releases out, also saying that groups release them in simply a reasonable time frame doesn't cut it, groups work tirelessly to release the next day or as soon as possible, it bugs me that fans seem to think the proccess is simple however being a fansubber is kind of like working in a big office with a deadline over your head, you have other people to work with and if someone doesn't do their job or messes up then your all screwed, and worst of all your not getting paid for any of it so you have to work quickly and hurry off to live a normal life as well. A fan that doesn't know the fansubbing proccess should never have the nerver to talk bad against a fansubber (something I was once guilty of myself which is why I became a fansubber).

[kj1980]

Originally Posted by DingoEnderZOE2

Question:If Manga is more widely accepted by middle aged people in Japan, why isn't Anime accepted like that as well?

Mangas widely accepted by middle aged people in Japan:

Hmm...last time I checked, I've never seen an anime that deals entirely on
A. How to play golf better
B. How to play mahjong better
C. How to suck up to your boss to get ahead in your life
....getting my idea?

I mean Anime is bascially [sic] really improved Manga with lots of color,more life,beauty and its on TV isn't it?

What is the likelihood of someone who has school or has a job the next day staying up well into the night at around 2:00AM to watch an anime?

So you have a DVD-recorder to record those shows....do you record programs that are shown late at night for viewing later? Do you really think normal people will go to such lengths?

Don't tell me older people think flashy anime on TV are bad just because of a little Pokemon episode that caused alot of people seizures?

What is the likelyhood in your country of baby-boomers and the pre-war generation going out the video game store to buy Half-Life 2 for themselves? Same thing.