30 Comments to “Fansubs Killing the Anime Industry? Yeah, Right!”

1. Daelin | October 28th, 2007 at 10:14 am
   

   Fansubs FTW.

2. Josh | October 30th, 2007 at 6:49 am
   

   By the way, I assume people are smart enough to figure this out, but I meant to write “…but if you got it faster, and at a higher quality, for a monthly subscription cost…”

   Just making sure.

   The only problem with my plan, of course, is whether they could get enough subscribers (and ad revenue!) to pay the server and translating costs, and that’s the big risk in starting something like that. They could also include raws as well or something and that way they could get perhaps some Japanese subscribers as well.

   And you could always do something like the Netflix online video thing where it is effectively a $1 an hour to watch, so like $20 to watch 20 hours a month. That’d at least be enough to watch 5 different shows at least. (That could change too. I’m just throwing out an example).

   Someone might worry about the “day after” remark and wonder if a good translation could be turned in that time, but I kind of feel that if a fansubber can churn out a reasonably good translation in less than a week, a professional translator could churn out a translation by the next day, especially given the fact that, I’d imagine, they could get the script ahead of time.

   Heck, the production studios themselves could do the translation if they turn a profit by using the service. And guess what. They could put that sub on the Japanese version of the DVDs too (I don’t know how many people would actually be willing to pay the money to buy those, but if you’re a sub-only person and you want your DVD now…well there you go).

   Of course, distributors may be worried that such a site could hurt DVD sales, though I think there are already some Japanese sites that sell episodes online anyway, and anime DVD sales in Japan are still booming.

   I think there are two things one could do to offset this worry, though. The first is, as I said in my first post: stream the video - ie, you don’t actually “download” it, so you don’t get to keep a copy - it’s kind of like video on demand over the internet.

   Secondly, one could always have a hierarchical pricing system where newer episodes are priced cheaper than older ones, or perhaps do something where episodes are only on the site for a month or two months, then they come down.

   If one is truly only wanting to watch a series for purposes of seeing whether you like it and want to buy it when it comes out in the US, I don’t see this as an unreasonable set-up. If you still demand an actual copy of the episodes anyway, then I have a feeling that the person is one who is probably going to just watch fansubs in place of buying or renting the DVD release of it anyway.

3. Drew | October 31st, 2007 at 12:44 am
   

   I like fansubs so much better than released subtitles mostly because the people doing the fansubs speak both languages fluently. Many of the anime that i like to watch comes in a series, and to save money i buy the boxed sets shipped out of china. Sadly, the subtitles are almost always horrible. And good english dubbed anime is extremely rare. And it’s not worth it to me to spend $20 for 3 or 4 episodes of a 300 episode series.

4. Josh | October 31st, 2007 at 3:18 am
   

   “Many of the anime that i like to watch comes in a series, and to save money i buy the boxed sets shipped out of china. Sadly, the subtitles are almost always horrible.”

   That’s probably because odds on they’re bootlegs.

   I agree that if one is going to buy a 300 episode series will cost $$$ but I mean…it’s a 300 episode series, of course it’s gonna cost a lot is kind of my feeling on that. Even if it was a buck an episode, that’s still $300.

   “I like fansubs so much better than released subtitles mostly because the people doing the fansubs speak both languages fluently.”

   It was my impression that most translators that translate shows - at least in the US - are professional and thus are fluent in both languages. I don’t know Japanese, so can cant compare for myself the actual correctness in translation between fan subs and official dvd releases, but I’ve never really known DVD subs to be bad.

   However, while I know of a lot of good fansub groups where the person doing the translation is fluent in both languages, it isn’t always the case (and if it isn’t, and they don’t have a good QCer who is at least fluent in the language they are releasing the sub in, then it often really shows)

5. L4nce | October 31st, 2007 at 8:15 am
   

   Okay sure. some people will be exposed to anime, few will purchase anything over a 3 dollar keychain. Whoo anime industry wins? Sorry, no. I know an abundance of people with plenty of money to spend on anime, now do they? of course not, its free online! If it wasn’t free online, if there wasn’t a surplus substitutes for any series free online, the sales would increase. Countries such as the US provide a lot of anime income especially since one can pick up Naruto sesion 3 at Bestbuy, Target, Walmart, etc. With that, then DvD sales should be up, right?

   Not according to a survey of major anime studios conducted by the Japanese newspaper Nikkei. They found that there is a slowdown in DVD sales leading to low profit forecasts. Toei Animation for sees drop in profits by as much as 28% to 2.7 billion yen (about US$22 million). Bandai Visual says its profits will drop about 3%, to 4.8 billion yen (US$40 billion), although this is attributed primarily to decreasing music sales. Credits to Nikkei though this news story has been plagiarized in many places.

   I guess everyone is downloading the tracks as well. It is quite apparent that fansubs are having a major impact if during a surge of popularity, anime companies are seeing less sales. Though other companies such as G.D.H.are cutting costs rather than relying on DVD sales.

   If you want more people to become exposed to an anime, then get more anime ON TV. Anime industry gets paid via advertising. What is the more high selling anime out there? I’ll give you a hint, they all played on the anime hating network, cartoon network. Oh, guess what,

   Fan subs don’t pay companies at all, 0 nada zilch, nothing at all the the producer. I really don’t need to say this, but the commercials left in some fansub don’t count, well unless you some how credit the original broadcast with your viewing. Exposed viewers via fansubs that continue to pirate just plain do not give anything to the company. At most they will make 20% off that keychain.. for something that should have brought in 30 times that amount.

   So you need it faster? Good thing a large majority are being released in Japan and the US at the same time, such as Grrl Power!. Why are they doing this? Lets say an anime is a very popular fan sub, Its going to sell great when it comes to DVD right? Well, doesn’t sell, at all. This isn’t 2002 anymore, there are very few series that have you wait 3 years, or even 6 months. If they do then that anime will be a complete loss of effort.

   Don’t kid yourself, get a job, and support anime if you like it. If you don’t like it enough to pay for it or even to rally some support for more TV broadcastes, then why would you watch it? I have a job, it took me less then a days pay at minimum wage to afford Eva platinum. I’m sure any of you can handle the responcibility attached to being a true anime fan.

6. Neko Kyou | October 31st, 2007 at 10:27 am
   

   @Josh: Hmm.. Yeah I thought that was pretty clear. Maybe I should have made it more clearer just in case. Some people just don’t get it. Like, I know there are a few who actually thought that this post is condemning fansubs.

   I would be one of those who would grab the DVDs from Japan if they had subs, but that might kill the licensing fees they get for releases outside the country. Then again, it never stopped Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright games on the DS that had both Japan and English version. In fact, the US release recorded more sales due to the wide spread of the Japanese version.

   It’s really not something that can be easily predicted, but I think it’s worth it if the studios and distributors do their homework and appease the fans.

   There is also something “rewarding” about owning a physical copy of something. I’m sure anyone would be happy to receive their new DVDs on their favourite anime that they’ve watched before, and some might never even open it up. So I think DVD sales won’t exactly die off anytime soon even if they provided online downloads.

   @Drew: Yeah, those are bootlegs. The company that bootlegged them is keeping 100% profits and the production studios and distributors gets nothing.

   @L4nce: I’ll reply to your comment in a while.

7. Neko Kyou | October 31st, 2007 at 11:08 am
   

   I was actually thinking whether to turn this comment into a post by itself since its quite lengthy, but decided not to

   @L4nce: You have to realize that not all downloaders are from US or UK where there is a standard, reasonable minimal wage. A regular DVD boxset costs about half or more of a family’s income in many countries, especially those in the 3rd world. So saying that a job at minimum wage is enough to pay for anime isn’t a very good call unless you’re living in the US/UK. But its a valid point that there are still many who doesn’t take this route. However, the numbers of people willing to pay for their anime needs is increasing.

   Unfortunately in this time and age, 1-2 weeks is the most anyone could and would wait for what they want. Even in business, if they want it now, they want it *now*. People seldom uses snail mail anymore except for documents, and even those would be using courier services that would have the documents delivered within days.

   Obviously fansubs don’t pay companies. But neither do they get paid. What I posted was that these two can actually work together for the benefit for both sides and for the fans.

   As you can tell from my post, I’m not exactly saying that illegal downloads should continue either. As shown in the music industry, you can’t kill online downloads, but you can make use of it.

   Since you’ve brought up the figures from Nikkei (and I applaud you for being able to get those figures), let me bring up another point from another perspective.

   I think the closest comparison we have to illegal online anime download is the illegal music downloads. So I’ll use the music industry as an example here.

   When cassette tapes first appeared in the 1980s, many companies argued that recording music on tapes off the radio will kill the music industry. That didn’t happen, but instead helped the industry bloom.

   Then during the age of Napster, many started to argue that mp3s will bring about the downfall of the music industry once again. Sure, it’s still a problem now, but those who had taken advantage of it have become very successful, leaving behind those who did not. It even spawned an entirely new industry - the mp3 player industry.

   Speaking of which, Apple with their iPod and iTunes were one of the first few to realize the potential and they bounced back from the brink of bankruptcy to become one of the most successful companies around.

   Again, my POV is that we should move forward, not backwards.

   FYI: I actually spent a lot on anime stuff (and I know many others who do as well), especially on merchandise.

   A local manga publication here actually have caught up with many of the manga released in Japan. They are only 2-3 chapters behind on Naruto compared to the latest releases with decent translations. And they’re doing really, really well because of it. This goes to show that if you give fans what they want, they will give you what you want.

8. L4nce | October 31st, 2007 at 4:40 pm
   

   Its kinda interesting, that my IP seems banned. Plenty o’ way around that. =/

   If your in a country that does not sell anime or wages of said country are too low, then I can believe it to be acceptable.
   That is a bit out of the scope according to..
   http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
   So the 50++ million out of 1.2 billion or 1/10th of the US + UK internet users.

   I would also like to point out that napster was in the begining phases in September of 1999.However the first mass-produced hardware MP3 player/DAP was created in 1997 by SaeHan Information Systems of South Korea which sold its “MPMan” player in Asia starting in the late spring of 1998. Then the wonderful RIO was released in September 1998. Not quite the starting point.

   I strongly disagree with the fan subs don’t get payed. Aside from donations, what is given? Respect, pride, not to mention experience. Course again their not getting paid, clue about their qualifications. People go to huge lengths to feel important, its human nature. Their pay is greater than mine.

   I am very glad to hear that you support your anime by the way.

9. Neko Kyou | October 31st, 2007 at 6:19 pm
   

   You might have triggered one of my blacklisted IP numbers or keywords. I get a lot of spambots trying to spam my comments lol.

   Good call on the MPMan and Rio series. Although they eventually died out (mainly due to Apple, who’s really the only one making a nice profit in the mp3 player industry), they did make a good name for themselves as well as profit at the initial stages.

   You’re also right on the fansubbers part. I mainly took personal monetary gain into consideration. While most of the donation usually goes to server maintenance, respect and pride is a huge.

10. L4nce | November 1st, 2007 at 12:52 am
    

    I remember my first Rio, it broke the first week. =o

11. Neko Kyou | November 1st, 2007 at 11:02 pm
    

    lol I’ve never really owned a real mp3 player before

12. Shadowlite | November 4th, 2007 at 2:10 am
    

    Well, it seems like the companies never get into their heads, that freeloaders will always be freeloaders,no matter if there are fansubs or not. they seem to have this unbelievable optimistic mindset / belief that the freeloaders will buy their goods once they clamp down on fansubs. don’t know if it is me being ultra pessimistic , or they are ultra optimistic.
    Will the number of people buying the animes due to the stopping of fansubs justify the loss of the number of fans due to the clampdown? That remains to be seen.

13. Forbes | November 6th, 2007 at 7:09 am
    

    I pay for what I can simply because I believe in the support of anime and manga.

    but a lot of it is hard to attain, however if there was such a site that had all anime titles listed, and subbed for streaming at a monthly fee I believe a lot more then people assume would be paying for it, especially i f it was faster at streaming, at a better quality and available at reasonable times after releases.

    the majority of my anime/manga is probably 20% payed for 80% free.

    I can see this switching themselves for me personally if not for many others if what you say were to happen.

    a really good idea.

14. Neko Kyou | November 6th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
    

    @Shadowlite: Freeloaders will always be freeloaders, how very true. And it’s also true that many of these freeloaders eventually starts taking out money for anime/manga thanks to the influence of fansubs and the anime/manga community. Which is why I said that studios and distributors have more to gain by picking up the trend here

    @Forbes: One advantage that major companies have over fansubs are their ability to obtain higher quality video and faster servers. So I can definitely see a reason for many people to pay a reasonable price for that kind of service. Heck, many people are paying to access those kind of servers for fansubs/scanlations.

15. B-Kun | November 10th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
    

    Well, I believe that there needs to be some kind of balancing between fansubs and DVDs. Obviously, fansubs don’t contribute to the industry at all, but DVDs are kinda high (33$ for a 3 episode DVD where I live), plus there are plenty of series that never get licensed, so if it wern’t for fansubs, we would never get to watch (and understand) the series at all. I believe that DVDs and fansubs work with each other to some extent. Plus, once a series is licensed, distribution of the fansub is stopped.

16. bratkitty | November 11th, 2007 at 8:14 am
    

    The whole downloading thing has been an issue since we’ve had computers that hold more than a couple of gigs and internet faster than dialup. It’s becoming more and more apparent that cd’s and dvd’s are becoming obsolete (I read an article recently that Blockbuster is doomed for that very reason). And the internet is vast and extremely difficult (one might say. . .impossible?) to keep piracy from running rampant.

    If companies were smart, they’d let people keep downloading fansubs and invest in merchandise. Anime has an insanely dedicated fandom. So much that they buy bootleg merchandise whether they know it or not (either at cons or from China). So anime companies, I think, should capitalize on merchandise to keep the money coming in to keep them going. And we’ll keep watching anime.

    Plushies FTW.

17. Pythonite | November 12th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
    

    While I certainly agree that there are many people who would not pay for anime, regardless of whether or not they can get it for free (and would rather not watch than pay to watch), I also feel that there are a great deal of people who simply will not shell out the amount of money many companies ask for. Assuming the show is even out in the US, unless it gets picked up by a television station, you will probably be stuck getting DVDs. Now, most people cannot afford to pay the $40+ out of pocket every time a new anime comes out in America they enjoy. So they turn to the internet to watch shows. However, those same people would generally gladly watch shows with ads in them, as long as it means they can access the show without clearing their bank account. If VIZ and other companies released the shows on the internet with ads in them, much like how the television channels are funded, I am sure they could keep their profits up without removing subs from the internet.

18. Neko Kyou | November 12th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
    

    Pythonite, that’s also an excellent idea. Instead of just focusing on a single market (i.e. US market) the ads could be targeted for other demographics as well. Not only would it benefit offline companies, but online as well such as Amazon or RightStuf.

19. Ez | January 15th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
    

    Nicely Done.

20. Pat | March 7th, 2008 at 3:27 am
    

    I personally think this is why DeathNote and other popular anime were licensed in the first place. They probably wouldn’t have much of a business without fansubs in the first place.

21. watch free anime | March 17th, 2008 at 1:37 am
    

    Fansubs definitely promote the anime industry. Fansubs allow the rest of the world to enjoy the show. Without fansubs, we’d be watching we’d be watching cartoons like… arthur O_o

22. eskribo | April 4th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
    

    Fansubs are much better at promoting Anime. In my opinion Anime is more enjoyable in Japanese,subbed and uncut. The licensed series that are released and shown here in the US are directed at younger audiences, are horribly dubbed and lack the personality the creator intended. Take for example Naruto, Trigun and Bleach. The voices and translations are mediocre at best on these shows. The adult language and content is neutered and replaced with crappy adolescent banter that dull the story and deter character build up. This is harmful because it only seem to annoy and frustrate viewers to shy away from spending money on purchasing “American” licensed versions. Some have seen the light and have recently included the uncut, Japanese subbed versions on their DVD releases but even those subs are lackluster at best. The quality needs to be top notch to attract revenue from all fans.

    Lets face it Anime was never mainstream here and has become popular recently because of sattelite, cable and fansubbing. The internet and fansubbing are an asset to the Anime industry. Fansubs allow you to sample and view different genres of Anime that would normaly be impossible outside of the Japanese Market. I am gratefull for fansubbing. They do no more harm to Anime than a vcr or dvd recorder would do to “Battle Star Galactica”, “Smallville”, “Heroes”, “CSI” etc.

    If the demand is there it will sell…. this is what “quality” in a product can generate. “Family Guy” and “Futurama” anyone!……………

23. Naruto Memorabilia | April 28th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
    

    ugh.. without fansub I doubt I would watch anime again (because I don’t understand nihongo!) XD

24. Bradders | May 15th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
    

    The fansub is an essential part of anime. In the same way that scanlations help reveal manga that would otherwise be unknown outside Japan. Even the God Osamu Tezuka’s manga was hard to find in English until recently. His first full-length manga series to be fully translated was “Adolf” in 1995, 10 years after it was written! (I known he wrote a hell of a lot, but still…)

    Perhaps fans are better at being faithful to the original. The original dub of Akira left out a lot of “themes”. Fortunately, they were put back in years later. A fan probably would have done the story justice from the beginning.

25. f_w | June 17th, 2008 at 1:38 am
    

    They could also go the way of a donation button.
    I personally would like to donate to the great makers of good stuff, but don’t want a hardcopy or such for it.
    Thankfully crunchyroll and gonzo are doing something smart like that.
    Now if only i could donate to all the series i really liked this and last year.

    Then again, they always want us to pay for crap in a box, it is cheaper for them that way, they think.

26. noshit | June 27th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
    

    I, for one, have a different solution in mind.

    I’m a fansubber myself. Why don’t we do it for a fee? Because we’re anime fans that sub for anime fans. It’s like giving money to your little sister because she’s your little sister. We want to share

    Fansubbing isn’t easy, it’s hard stuff. But we prefer to do it for free and without a fee. If legal companies are subbing anime for anime fans, why do they ask for a fee? Because it’s business, and fansubbers aren’t doing business. We’re sharing

    Fansub is illegal.

    Why? That’s BS. Our raw cappers subscribe to the Japan channels with a fee, they have a right to record those and share it. Then fansubbers sub it for free for the public. For free. If we did ask for money when we got our products for free, then that’s illegal.

    Now, any violent reactions?

27. Neko Kyou | June 28th, 2008 at 1:48 am
    

    Rather than looking at whether or not fansubs are making money (in reality they’re losing money on servers, etc), they are looking at how much money they are potentially losing out by NOT selling to you.

    We can only hope that Gonzo’s initiative will start a whole new trend with the other studios and companies
    If they can continue producing series like Tower of Druaga for free, simultaneous online streaming, it might just work out well.

Trackbacks

1. I’m So Famous TBS Knows Me | Goddess Carlie.com
2. Odex Declares War Against The World » Thoughts » Neko Kyou’s Anime Blog
3. ADV Providing Free, Legal Anime Streaming Service » Rants » Neko Kyou’s Anime Blog

Leave a Comment