What is the point of fansubbing?

[Tofusensei]

A note on the top of the screen hinders the experience for you? Really?

-Tofu

[WanderingKnight]

A note on the top of the screen hinders the experience for you? Really?

Really. It makes me have to stop the video, or to divert my eyes from the main text. Reading subtitles is already a hindrance, and adding another layer on top is not a way to help it.

[Blue_Mage]

There are other ways of dealing with the problem. We did a version of Ar Tonelico that was hardsubbed, but had a second subtitle file with all the notes relating to the game. That way you didn't have to see the notes if you didn't want to (for those like WanderingKnight) and anyone who wanted to could. It was just another method of dealing with the same problem. There have also been a number of groups that added notes to the beginning or end of an episode or put out PDFs with the episodes, i.e. Black Sheep's Mononoke.

And back to something vaguely on topic...
Fansubbing is still popular because a lot of people don't like how the DVD companies release anime. Personally, I get tired really quickly of mentally fixing grammar (adding in or taking out commas, changing the order of clauses, switching hyphens to em dashes, you know what I mean), and it seems I have to do it all the time when watching DVDs. Then there are the limitations of the DVD format itself. We're pretty spoiled with the .assa format that most of us use for fansubs. We get our karaokes (for those who actually care), fancy typesetting and fancy timing. We also get to do things our own way. And like any true geeks, we know, deep down in our hearts, that we could do better.

Translation: almost purely mastabatory hobby as you so kindly put it.

[Maids! Maids! Maids!]

Originally Posted by Tofusensei

WanderingKnight, it's a common disease from Asia but not in the West. Japanese fans would have a more likely chance to know what it is than Americans. You raise an obvious, but good point though, that should be obvious for any translator.

I'm going to stray a little further off topic, but curiosity has gotten the better of me.

Please think back a little. You have no recall of nautical beriberi (or scurvy for that matter) coming up a few times in fifth or sixth grade history? I have a funny feeling most Americans were taught about beriberi in middle school or junior high.

I mention scurvy because that particular nautical scourge had a happier ending. People seem to better at remembering happy endings.

[chaos4ever]

Originally Posted by Maids! Maids! Maids!

Please think back a little. You have no recall of nautical beriberi (or scurvy for that matter) coming up a few times in fifth or sixth grade history? I have a funny feeling most Americans were taught about beriberi in middle school or junior high.

I mention scurvy because that particular nautical scourge had a happier ending. People seem to better at remembering happy endings.

Limeys are more of a British history thing thing than American. But that being said, American history doesn't deal with vitamin deficiencies. It's mostly dealt in biology and health classes, and we generally don't care much for those kind of classes, nor do we (as a whole) remember stuff from middle school and high school.

There are some interesting segments on American television that quiz random folks on the street for "common" knowledge (and the show "Are You Smarter than a Fifth-Grader?)... and see what the "average Joe American" knows....

[comatose]

because of:

- fun
- "you guys have the best quality!" (glory, praise - epenis)
- cringing at low quality subs (both DVD and occasionally fansubs) and wanting to sub better than them.
- R1 subs are insanely slow compared to fansubs, and sometimes, the translation's worse as well.

There are also the limits to the DVD subtitle format (I'm puzzled about this, as they are just BMP images... can't they be styled a little bit better? should at least not be so horribly aliased :\ who knows. Maybe there's an actual reason for this x_x)

edit: What the hell? How did this go from "What is the point of fansubbing?" to "nautical beriberi"?

[TheFluff]

Originally Posted by comatose

(I'm puzzled about this, as they are just BMP images... can't they be styled a little bit better? should at least not be so horribly aliased :\ who knows. Maybe there's an actual reason for this x_x)

Yes, they're extremely low-resolution bitmaps that are limited to a total of 4 colors, one of which is reserved for transparency (another is usually used for antialiasing, but that leaves you with only one fill color and one border color, so a lot of DVD's skip the antialiasing and use two fill colors instead).


Edit: debating translation best practices and translation quality in fansubs versus in R1 DVD's has been done from death to purgatory and hell and out through its back door already. It won't matter, because the fact is that fansubs are frequently (by a majority of downloaders?) perceived as better than R1 DVD's. As long as this is the case, the R1 industry is steadily marching towards its inevitable collapse. Piracy when the pirated product is of worse or at best equal quality to the purchased variant is one thing; piracy when the pirated product is perceived as significantly better AND is free is another.

[Access]

Originally Posted by TheFluff

better than R1 DVD's. As long as this is the case, the R1 industry is steadily marching towards its inevitable collapse. Piracy when the pirated product is of worse or at best equal quality to the purchased variant is one thing; piracy when the pirated product is perceived as significantly better AND is free is another.

I would say that, 1) this has already happened, or is in the process of happening, and 2) the piracy thing may be a contributor, but it should not be overstated as being the reason or root cause for the collapse.

The peak of the R1 firms -- their expansion, growth, etc. was 1, 2, maybe even 3 years ago. That should be evident now that we are in the middle of the collapse. And as a whole, has the whole piracy thing grown or changed much in number? BT was around 2-3 years ago and that tracks download numbers, have those numbers grown, shrunk, or stayed the same over these last few years?

If one was growing at the expense of the other, you would expect to see an increase or jump in the piracy numbers _before_ the collapse of the legitimate market; on the other hand if the increase comes after the collapse that would indicate the piracy is not so much a root cause and more just a symptom of another problem.

[Vagrant0]

Originally Posted by Access

I would say that, 1) this has already happened, or is in the process of happening, and 2) the piracy thing may be a contributor, but it should not be overstated as being the reason or root cause for the collapse.

The peak of the R1 firms -- their expansion, growth, etc. was 1, 2, maybe even 3 years ago. That should be evident now that we are in the middle of the collapse. And as a whole, has the whole piracy thing grown or changed much in number? BT was around 2-3 years ago and that tracks download numbers, have those numbers grown, shrunk, or stayed the same over these last few years?

If one was growing at the expense of the other, you would expect to see an increase or jump in the piracy numbers _before_ the collapse of the legitimate market; on the other hand if the increase comes after the collapse that would indicate the piracy is not so much a root cause and more just a symptom of another problem.

I would be tempted to say that there are fewer groups out now who are subbing licensed content, so actually the source of the piracy has probably gone down a bit. However I would be tempted to say that services like You-Tube have made those pirated things easier to get access to, which kinda makes things worse. This is compounded by the fact that often anime is uploaded to You-Tube without permission of the subbing group, which can lead to further problems and an apparent abundance of pirated content (probably what has caused the latest streak of anti-piracy measures more than anything).

This is all really a moot point since even if they decide to really tighten down on pirated anime, there will still be people subbing. They will just be doing it in secret, like the days of old. What needs to happen is companies and governments willing to work with subbers on a good quality product which is accessable, afforable, and within the law. Short of that, or a total media blackout, there will always be people subbing.

*Side note* Anyone else happen to think of some sort of Mahou Shojo anime with the name "Nautical Beriberi", now that it's mentioned? It could work... If it wasn't some sort of terrible disease... Yes, I have considdered help.

[cyth]

Originally Posted by Vagrant0

What needs to happen is companies and governments willing to work with subbers on a good quality product which is accessable, afforable, and within the law.

It's not like the companies couldn't have made more profit on the backs of fansubbers, they were taking advantage of our efforts very poorly. See, their problem was being supportive of the "no licensed material" ethic that had been propagating among the majority of fansubbing groups 5-to-3 years ago in hopes of ending illegal digital distribution that would have stepped aside for the sake of the commercial product. What they should have been doing was maybe cut out dub production and push their DVD release dates as close as possible to the Japanese one; catching the hype, so to speak. Also, if fansubbers were conscious fans, they would have done everything in their power to promote commercial releases. It would be interesting to see the group behind True Tears linking to future Bandai Visual DVD volumes, maybe even include a small solicitation message during the eyecatch. There are probably other ways to make downloaders more conscious of the official releases, that is of course if fansubbers can stomach the legal divide, and official companies are willing to appeal more to the fansub base. Of course, changing laws and business models works, but that's not going to happen over night. Right now we need to assess the damage and see where we can patch things up.

[jfs]

Let me just repeat this: Even if a group stops subbing a show after it has been licensed and they also stop all distribution on their own of the previous releases of it, it does not disappear from the Internet.
It stays.
Once you have published something on the Internet it stays, unless you have the power to bend the laws of physics. (Ie. implement perfect DRM.)

[cyth]

Uh, you seem to be dwelling on the idea that illegal online distribution and commercial distribution of the same product are 100% mutually exclusive. If that were the case, we wouldn't have seen the rise of the American anime industry at all. I'm certain this holds true for the majority of regular entertainment consumers, but not hardcore anime fans, and it's those small margins of dedicated fans the anime industry as a whole stands on at the moment.

[juggen]

Can't you blame the R1-sales going down on the companies instead of fansubs? Or... as well?
Since the R1s aren't exactly high quality, they are very inferior to fansubs imo (atleast high quality ones).
Only positive things are DVD-quality and dub I guess, the rest is usually worthless (though I think dub is too).
It would be another thing if they were of highest quality, now it's like... you only buy it because it got a nice box.
Is it really that hard to make the R1s... better?


Btw, I fansub because it's fun, I get to know people, I can make my own fansubs (yay), people might enjoy what I do.

[Uran]

>most series nowadays, at some point, get licensed. Yes, admittedly it may take a couple of years before international releases to reach our stores, but the point is, if the series is good, there will be legal opportunities to buy it. So why is fansubbing still, by and large, a popular pursuit? It seems to have achieved what it set out to do (bring anime to the larger world) so what is it's new reason for existing?
Let's speak about this issue. That 90% of anime comes to America and what happens after that? They are horribly censored, crap dubbed, 'childrenized' and raped to the point the original japanese shows die there.
These stuff are given in mass quantity to the younger american audience and that's the test field for the success of the show. Praiseworthy shows then may become popular and also have the chance to get reselled overseas.
So after the proof of blood in the american market, maybe even I, who am Italian may be able to enjoy a new anime title after only some years more wait.
But what if the shows fail in America? They could never cross the ocean.
So America's audience is a great filter and decides what's good or not. And we may argue a lot about how good is real 'good'
Yes, Anime come to you after several filters that you, anime fan hav no power to influence anymore. You just wait your favourite serie to be aired sometime and hope it'was not destroyed in the process.
If fansub now has accompliced its first and highest task, being to promote anime to the US, there's still work to do. It's promote anime worldwide, cause the world it's not just US. Yes an english version does help a lot worldwide distribution, but it's not yet enough.
Now the task of fansub should be more something like a direct link to the original japanese shows. It's a safe link that avoids all of the remastering and censorship added in the process of licensing.
After all who really wants anime will buy it anyway, even aftre watching the subs. Fansub or not, who doesn't want to buy will simply download a pirate rip.
If someone is guessing why fansub DL go high and DVD sells go down, go analyze the quality first. Maybe the two phenomenons are mainly unrelated, and people doesn't buy the DVD cause a general lack of quality and high prices most of all.

[bayoab]

Originally Posted by Vagrant0

I would be tempted to say that there are fewer groups out now who are subbing licensed content, so actually the source of the piracy has probably gone down a bit.

The sense I get is the number of groups subbing licensed content is actually at a peak right now. There are days when there are 10 or 15 releases, but they are all licensed in some form so you don't see any of them appear on asuki.

Originally Posted by Vagrant0

However I would be tempted to say that services like You-Tube have made those pirated things easier to get access to, which kinda makes things worse. This is compounded by the fact that often anime is uploaded to You-Tube without permission of the subbing group, which can lead to further problems and an apparent abundance of pirated content (probably what has caused the latest streak of anti-piracy measures more than anything).

All of the streaming sites have made watching pirated things easier and the lack of enforcement of them is part of the problem. Every month I stumble upon a new site which claims to have all the series in the past 10 years up for streaming, and the companies do absolutely nothing about them. Also, permission of a fansubbing group is a joke. It's not like fansub groups have permissions since they don't own the release and almost every fansubbing group is against having their stuff streaming anyway. Additionally, these places are using fansubbers and their fansubs for profit which should piss off some of them. (And I don't mean the R1 companies here.) I don't think anyone here fansubs so that they or someone else can make money off of the fansubs.

Originally Posted by juggen

Can't you blame the R1-sales going down on the companies instead of fansubs? Or... as well?

Yes, there are things we can blame them for, but not for the perceived lack of quality that you state. You can blame them for poor marketing. You can blame them for making poor contracts with the Japanese.

Spoiler for Getting off topic in the usual direction here.... (Reply to Uran):

Originally Posted by Uran

Let's speak about this issue. That 90% of anime comes to America and what happens after that? They are horribly censored, crap dubbed, 'childrenized' and raped to the point the original japanese shows die there.

By 90%, you mean 1%. This statement is just false. The correct statement would be "around 50% of the stuff on TV in America is edited in some way".

Originally Posted by Uran

These stuff are given in mass quantity to the younger american audience and that's the test field for the success of the show. Praiseworthy shows then may become popular and also have the chance to get reselled overseas.

Again, false. Many shows get an international market before they get a US one or have failed in the US but are still running internationally. The US has proven a horrible predictor of overseas. This statement is slightly more true for DVD releases where the US is more of an accurate predictor for other english companies.

So after the proof of blood in the american market, maybe even I, who am Italian may be able to enjoy a new anime title after only some years more wait.
But what if the shows fail in America? They could never cross the ocean.

Blame your local companies. How does any of this relate to the point of fansubs...?

If fansub now has accompliced its first and highest task, being to promote anime to the US, there's still work to do. It's promote anime worldwide, cause the world it's not just US. Yes an english version does help a lot worldwide distribution, but it's not yet enough.
Now the task of fansub should be more something like a direct link to the original japanese shows. It's a safe link that avoids all of the remastering and censorship added in the process of licensing.

....so it's to avoid something that doesn't exist?

After all who really wants anime will buy it anyway, even aftre watching the subs. Fansub or not, who doesn't want to buy will simply download a pirate rip.
If someone is guessing why fansub DL go high and DVD sells go down, go analyze the quality first. Maybe the two phenomenons are mainly unrelated, and people doesn't buy the DVD cause a general lack of quality and high prices most of all.

Price is the reason. As they say, "You can't compete with free". And this is just too off topic for me to type a proper respose.

[Tofusensei]

Originally Posted by bayoab

Price is the reason. As they say, "You can't compete with free". And this is just too off topic for me to type a proper respose.

bay, I think speed and availability is more of a factor than price. If there was no alternative to the official release, or if the official release was made available before the free alternative, I think you'd see a much bigger demand for professionally subbed/dubbed content, even at a cost.

-Tofu

[martino]

Originally Posted by Tofusensei

bay, I think speed and availability is more of a factor than price. If there was no alternative to the official release, or if the official release was made available before the free alternative, I think you'd see a much bigger demand for professionally subbed/dubbed content, even at a cost.

-Tofu

Might be somewhat comparable to how most downloaders tend to go for the first fansub that's out and not waiting for something of higher quality (providing that the first release is not of good quality -- ie speedsub or something along those lines), though I wonder about the differences of paid/free vs crap/quality...

[Tofusensei]

Originally Posted by martino

Might be somewhat comparable to how most downloaders tend to go for the first fansub that's out and not waiting for something of higher quality (providing that the first release is not of good quality -- ie speedsub or something along those lines), though I wonder about the differences of paid/free vs crap/quality...

The first fansub release, regardless of quality, will almost always get the most hits.

This is called the Anime Junkies rule.

And you're correct, I see no reason why this wouldn't apply to a legal version (assuming it was made available online). Also, if the legal version was out first, I see no reason why anyone would fansub it (assuming a certain expected level of quality).

-Tofu

[TheFluff]

Originally Posted by bayoab

Price is the reason. As they say, "You can't compete with free". And this is just too off topic for me to type a proper respose.

I disagree; I'm pretty sure you can. Just look at how successful something like Steam is despite the rampant piracy. For the US industry to succeed with something like that though, they'd need to:
- be faster than (or at least on par with) fansubs
- be more convenient than fansubs
- convince people that official subs are better than fansubs. If this means doing flashy karaoke effects then so be it.

They'll never get fansubs to disappear completely because there'll always be people who don't want to pay, but personal experience and talking to people in my surroundings suggests that warez is a lot more attractive when you're 16 years old and have to borrow your mother's credit card than when you're 21 and have a part-time job. I don't think people are opposed to paying, it's just that whether you warez something or not is heavily influenced by the law of least resistance these days.

[Mentar]

Originally Posted by Tofusensei

The first fansub release, regardless of quality, will almost always get the most hits. This is called the Anime Junkies rule.

Wrong. Sorry, I have to disagree, those times are gone. As long as the perceived quality of a later release is deemed higher, and as long as the time difference between the releases isn't too big, it's not uncommon to have later releases net much higher download numbers.

And you're correct, I see no reason why this wouldn't apply to a legal version (assuming it was made available online). Also, if the legal version was out first, I see no reason why anyone would fansub it (assuming a certain expected level of quality).

...and assuming a convenient format and an affordable price, yes.

Convenient format = I want to be able to watch it whenever (so, no expensive-inefficient streaming solutions). I'd also prefer to put it on my fileserver instead of having to go to a DVD rack.

Affordable price will be the key factor. Here, I'd prefer some kind of subscription model. In the very best case, I'd love to have a model which distributes the subscription fees based on popularity (something roughly like this actually exists already in a different form - read up on GEMA on wikipedia).

In any case, the studios have a huge potential time and quality advantage: They have the original material AND the original script, even sooner than anyone else. One day they might get smart enough to act on it.