There are two kinds of fansubbing groups:
The first take up the risk of working on a new and unknown anime on jp tv, without guarantees for how the show will turn out or how popular it will be and will probably leave it after it’s licensed. They work sorely to make something they like more popular. Borderline legal but ethical.

The second will only work on well known and 99% of the time licensed anime, no risks and less effort required. Likely to work with anime streaming sites and servers that require “donations”. In this kind are also included the ones who will use u.s. released anime dvds, which is simple thievery. Illegal and unethical.

To me, it’s the best of all worlds. The business end of it is taken care of, the creators get money for their work and fansub services are allowed to flourish.

But hey, that’s a good start. And that’s exactly what the majority of fans wanted.

I think if fansubbers really wanted to contribute to the anime market in the U.S. or elsewhere then they would do a few episodes of a series only.

I have never bought legitimate copies of old VHS fansubs that I have. The only ones I ever even thought about buying were those that I had incomplete collections of.

Does this make me less of a fan? Ok, whatever, I still spent a truckload of my income on legit copies of anime that I had never seen before, so whichever way you want to slice it, go ahead.

I get that people want to see anime. I get that it’s nice that you can see it for free and that there are people dedicated enough and devoted enough to bring it to you, and that’s wonderful, but it has reached a critical mass where it has started to do harm. When people had to know someone with copies of copies of copies of a VHS fansub, or “order” a copy through trade or donation, then it made you at least work in some way to get what you wanted. Online streaming of free and fast media that does not create a revenue stream for the content creators is not a good situation if you want to keep seeing new and innovative material.

No one I know buys anime anymore. They watch it online if they can, and if they have to they’ll rent it, but buying is a last-ditch, only for the brave, affair.

Yes, part of this is because companies aren’t providing content in the way you want it. If anime companies released a site where you could pay a subscription for fast streaming episodes with english subs, I’m sure it would be at least mildly profitable, and it may have to come to that, but until then, fansubs probably aren’t helping anymore, which is sad, because they DID help create the U.S. market. It’s just that their time as a force for good has passed.

Look at NarutoFan.com.. it’s banking off of its monthly subscription service. Is it not? Surely this should be getting more attention than those sites/torrents releasing them for free.

Like I said, Japan just needs to implement its own monthly subscription service much like NarutoFan.com or NetFlix. Strictly for anime.

Hell, they could even produce a true anime station over here in America and I’m sure it would receive some activity. That is, on cable. I’m tired of being exposed to Americanized versions of anime, simply because.. they aren’t as good. Any person who has watched fansubs compared to dubbed versions by companies such as Funimation can admit to this.

@Neko

Yeah, I can see your point on Gurren Lagann. Despite its oddities and such, it’s definitely on the top of my list for most favorite anime though.

It’s true that people were forced to pay for anime back then, and they did. I was one of them as well.

However, there were very limited numbers of series available. In your case, you seem to have plenty of choices. But in my case, I had to import most of what I wanted to watch. There were very little choices locally.

The local TV stations do show some anime as well, which is where I got started.

There are 2 types of “new fans” as I see it. The first is someone who has never before been exposed to anime, and the second is someone who already enjoys anime but have yet to stumble across a particular series.

For the first type, I’ve actually managed to get a lot of friends to start watching anime, simply by giving them a few series they might be interested in. Most usually ended up enjoying it, and became anime fans in general.

But just because you are already an anime fan, doesn’t mean you are a fan of every anime out there. Series like Gurren Lagann would not become what it is today if not for the spread of fansubs.

To be honest, me and many of my friends found Gurren Lagann to be rather lame in the beginning. But because its there, many other people just continued to watch it and begin to realize just how great it is. This created a buzz, and sparks interest in others to continue watching it.

The result is the series getting more and more fans, which in turn generates more sales – especially in the form of merchandise.

But with the industry seemingly moving to the online streaming format for free or a small fee, fansubs might be slowly replaced, although probably not anytime soon.

You failed to address the important difference that I mentioned, which is that unlike music and movies, which advertise themselves, the only people who are going to find fansubs online are people who are already interested in anime. And don’t say that they don’t license to North America because the place I rented from had a WALL of legitimate anime VHS ceiling to floor. It existed, it was just harder to get.