Fan subs: Good or bad?

[Paul]

Its the age old debate - are fansubs/digisubs slowly destroying our beloved anime or helping to promote it?

My opinion is that fansubs are doing nothing but helping the anime community. The growth of anime around the world would not have accelerated to this point without the support and distribution of fansubs. I know quite a few of people that have become anime fans based purely on a fansub they downloaded - since then, these people have gone on to start their own anime DVD collections.

I haven't seen any proof that fansubs are hurting DVD sales, in fact, I'm sure a popular fansub series will often go on to sell well on DVD, just purely through good word of mouth and hype.

The only obvious downside at the moment seems to be that popular fan subbed series like Naruto become so popular that the Japanese demand more money from companies who wish to licence it. Having said that, which ever company ends up getting Naruto will make that money back tenfold (lets hope its not 4Kids, mmmk?).

So where to you stand on the whole fansub debate? Good or bad?

 

[Capuchin]

Despite having seen the whole first series of Stand Alone Complex I'm still going to buy it on DVD this month.

I think it can only help sales and therefore growth of animé, or at least decent animé shows.
Remember the huge amount of animé produced in Japan - rarely is it produced with a Western audience in mind, and when it is it's an addition rather than the main drive.
Fansubbing will mainly impact on the distribution and sales in the 'Western' market, and I think that for every sale 'lost' for fasubbing there will a replacement because of it.
You know that many Naruto fans will buy the DVDs even if they've seen the every episode via fansub (assuming the DVD release is handled well), for example.

 

[Jamie]

My thoughts on Fansubbing are that it gives people to shall we say "demo" an anime and gives you taste of the show.

As with me if I watch a couple of episodes of something and I like it then I’ll go and buy it on DVD when it’s released. If I don’t like it then I delete it, so if I hadn’t seen a fansub of a show and went and brought said show and didn’t like it, I would send it back to the shop and get my money back, it’s the same thing really, if I like I keep, if I dont, I dont.

Even in the day of Digi-subbing id still rather watch a DVD. I don’t want to be staring at a DVD case sized screen trying hard to read the subtitles, I want to watch an anime on my 48â€

 

[Capuchin]

The only real knockdown is if someone sticks fansubs on a DVD and tries to sell them, but I haven't heard of this happening yet.

 

[Jamie]

I’ve seen cases of people trying to sell fansubs on Ebay, that and a jar of “authentic London airâ€

 

[Richy]

As I found out about 4 months ago, Naruto is actually being illegally subbed to DVD by various 'companies' in China. They actually tape Naruto off the TV, sub it themselves (extremely poorly) and encode them to a ridiculously small size so that they can fit as many as possible on one DVD. The result obviously being the worst £15 I've ever spent!

On the subject of fansubbing, I'm completely for it. It means I get to see great anime for free. And let us not deny the fact that it is FREE! I also find the whole process of fansubbing quite amazing; the amount of effort these groups put into making a professional-looking result is outstanding.

I've noticed no-one's tried to put a "pro" for fansubbing under the easily misled fact that it's legal unless a Western licensee snaps it up. International law deems fansubbing to be illegal.

BUT (and that's a big but!), none of the current licensee holder's in Japan or in the Western world care about this. This is simply because both sides know that fansubbers help to generate fanbases, which for the large majority of the time, means that the value of the currently licensed anime is boosted, and the future prospect of DVD sales is also boosted.

 

[Noghri]

to be honest the fan subs that are out there are mostly poorly translated and not really worth watching, but by watching you can tell if you want to spend your hard earned miney on the dvd's when they are finally released in this joke of a uk anime market we have.

saying that i have some fantastic fan subs and dubs of full metal alchemist and macross zero

these are exceptions because i just cant wait

 

[Efin]

My opinion:
Funsubs are like demos (as Jamie wrote).
If you like that anime serie you (i hope) buy it.
If you don't then throw funsub away and try to not think about it.
Watch another.

This is like in order

 

[gintoki]

Fansubs are joyous things when done right and even when done wrong still vastly better than the hk pirate dvds which are japanese to chinese to engrish. That said hd capacity keeps me to a steady flow of download, buy, delete or download, delete. I tink fansubs are getting better in general as long as you stay away from the speed subbers but a DVD is always so much better, plus it looks cool as part of a multi shelf spanning collection.

I'm not going to stop getting fansubs of shows I can not buy dvds of. I would like nothing more than for Naruto, Slam Dunk and Macross 7 to be released on DVD, please God Macross 7 for my weekly fill of jrock and transforming mecha, till then I'll continue to download unavailable stuff and add to the dvd collection whatever companies see fit to release

 

[Rayla]

Dunno if its bending the rules but Touhou Kaleidoscope is technically a fan sub and well a fan anime all together and its awesome

 

[ayase]

Last Post: Nov 24, 2004

That's some powerful restoration magic there Rayla.

 

[Rayla]

I am the bringer of life! The light in the darkness! Reviver of dead threads!

 

[Rui]

Um, if it's more than a decade old please make a new thread; the old posts in this topic aren't even talking about the modern era of anime any more...

I shall step into my role as bringer of death! The darkness in the light! Destroyer of revived threads!

R