Miaka-chan said:
But hardcore fans develop their own tastes that are not as well served by the industry. Shoujo fans are really hard done by in general
I couldn't agree with you more ^__^
@Laughing Manji: Your post was very interesting and very well written; taking into account every point of view.
Well it is a bit pro-fansub. I have been trying to do some research on this lately - when I defend fansubs I want to be secure in my facts. However there are a lot of fansubbers that are in it only for intarweb fame. The amount of project duplication really pisses me off, theres a lot of fansubbers that I would like to line up against a wall.
Like when yet more groups decide to jump in translating
Strawberry Panic! from episode 1, when the show is nearly fully aired, and there is already about 3-4 groups doing it.
There are shows out there that will never be licensed, but are worthy examples of anime.
In fact I am astounded when fans start declaring that
all new anime is crap. I feel like slapping them. Once you dip beneath the surface popularity there is a huge quantity of excellent shows. Its all too obscure for licensing, its only available on fansub. Once you start seeing the activity on the historical projects ... it would blow your mind away.
Capuchin said:
At least half of the shows that I have watched and enjoyed as fansubs in the last three years or so have not been released or licensed outside Japan.
I would be perfectly happy if my computer stopped me watching shows that had been or would be picked up for distribution, but why should I not be allowed to see the rest?
The ethics of fansubbing has always distinguished between abstract, intangible theft, like copyright infringement, and real theft which is revenue loss from people selling translated versions.
In many cases the numbers of people involved in fansub appreciation of specific titles is tiny.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes one of the most famous space operas ever and reknowned for its story and characters, can't convince more than 2-3000 people to download the episodes for free. Thats barely a break even point for DVD sales, but you would never convert that number to paying customers (not for a 110 ep series anyway, with conventional release strategies). Ditto
any old or classic anime like
Galaxy Express 999,
Captain Harlock,
Touch, or
Space Runaway Ideon. In fact many of those shows have historical implications that can be appreciated by anime fans who consider anime an art form.
Compare with
Air which must have topped at least 100,000 (maybe > 150,000) distinct DLs among all the groups, or
Ouran High School Host Club, which is currently hitting over 50,000. Hell
LOGH isn't even topping
Akagi ~7000 and that show is virtually unknown/untalked about (people not watching it are losing out though).
Capuchin said:
I'd like to know what the Japanese studios think, particularly about titles of theirs that are fansubbed that they know no-one is interested in distributing outside Japan.
Its hard to get studios to say something about it. You do get some odd comments scattered through various sites and interviews. However it should be noted that the majority of fansubbing piggybacks on japanese piracy.
Japanese fans often lurk on western anime forums like animesuki or animenation and they are a mine of information,opinion and perspectives. Some post comments on blogs and such. Some are genuinely curious, some are dismissive, some are supportive or just surprised by how evolved the western anime fandom is, and how current it is due to fansubs. The explosion of
Haruhi Suzumiya popularity was an odd east-meets-west moment.
J-fan:
"How come you guys like Haruhi? I thought all the americans liked Trigun and stuff"
US-fan:
"Gimme a sec, I have nearly trained my dog to do the Haruhi dance - I will send you the youtube link tomorrow"
Capuchin said:
How could we possibly ever work out the difference between :
Loss of sales due to free fansubs + Rise in sales thanks to hype generated by them
and
Hypothetical rise of sales due to the non-availibility of free fansubs - drop in sales due to lack of exposure
Nobody has ever done a proper study of it, and I don't think any good research is ever going to see the light of day on it without industry doctoring of the results to reflect their opinion on the state of play.
There are some facts in the argument:
- US anime has to be released with a dub in order to generate high sales. Releasing sub only means that the licensor is courting a very niche hardcore audience, and they are possibly bypassing traditional distribution methods entirely in order to cut costs and eke profit out of the limited sales numbers (examples: Super Gals! series 2, Patlabor OVA 2, VOTOMS, Cyber Formula).
In theory that means that fansubs can only undermine the sales of sub-watchers.
- many of the traditional pro-fansub ethics arguments are invalid now. Fansubbing used to be part promotion, part awareness generation, usually commenced some time after a show finished airing (often years). Anime is a big business nowadays, and licensors are very connected to japanese studios, negotiations and deals are often conducted or commenced before the first cel is drawn or before the anime is even announced. Companies do not use fansub activity to determine awareness of shows, they have translators, scouts and industry insiders in japan who can determine the viability of these shows.
- the purchasing landscape has changed in the US. The sheer volume of title availability means that people are concentrating their purchases around A-list titles like FMA, GITS, Naruto, Champloo, Elfen Lied etc. And that B list titles which used to sell well, and represented diversity in catalogs, have had their sales cannibalised by the more recognisable A list titles. In particular ADV, who specialised in a diverse catalog, have been very hard hit.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the US industry cannot support diversity of titles
-
opinion: There is no 'fact' here, but online rental has possibly totally changed the anime purchasing landscape. Many US anime fans have no need to ever buy titles anymore, and it is difficult to judge whether online rental is a money spinner for the industry or a disruptive business model. In fact it has probably undermined the whole
buy to watch anime business model, and that DVD sales, are unlikely to grow with increasing fandom - they have probably peaked, and the industry must seek out other revenue sources (like maybe online distro, which will put them head-head with fansubs, merchandising which is limited in its appeal, or TV airing which can only work with mainstream titles)
- The industry has made some really serious balls-ups over the last few years.
1 They ramped up the license fees by splurging on nearly every title they could get. According to insiders, license costs have increased by a factor of
5-10.
2 They undermined individual DVD releases (main source of profit) with the insane repeat discounting of boxsets shortly after individual releases. Between both activities they almost wiped out their profit margins, in addition to radically increasing their costs.
If there was no fansubbing, these two activities on their own would put the industry in serious trouble they would have needed the anime industry to nearly double in growth to support those business practices
- A side effect of this is that retailers became unwilling to act as warehouses for anime stock and halved the wait period before they start to return stock (DVD 1 gets returned before DVD 2 is even out)
Finally: Which do you think is easier to say to shareholders:
a sorry guys, we raised our title acquisition costs by a factor of five and reduced our average margins on product from 55% to 20%
or
b its all fansubs fault! We would have sold three times as many DVDs if it weren't for fansubs!
