Pirate Anime FAQ Updated

Joe Curzon writes "The Pirate Anime FAQ has finally been updated, after year of me being far to busy to do anything on the internet! The FAQ would have been released sooner, but my request on Slashdot.org produced some "interesting" feedback via e-mail. This update includes a new and improved Fansub section, which also covers Digisubs. Scanlations have been added as a point of interest. Additionally the Audio CD and DVD sections have been improved with more details on the Pirate Companies and how to spot their "products". I would also like to say that feedback from readers and the industry is critical for keeping the FAQ up to date, and without their previous and continuing support The Pirate Anime FAQ could not exist. Finally I would to remind people to be extremely cautious when buying from on-line auction sites such as eBay. The most common e-mail I get sent is from concerned fans who have just found out that they have bought some pirate goods off a seller who claimed what they were selling was legitimate."

Comments

What about Pirate Pokemon cards?

[egg troll]

That has to be just as much of a concern to the average Slashdotter.

Re:What about Pirate Pokemon cards?

[Anonymous Coward]

DragonBallZ thank you very much.

"...collect all 11 Dragon Balls"
: "well if I collected all 11 DragonBalls, I'd wish for a 12th dragon ball"
"wtf?"

Re:What about Pirate Pokemon cards?

[Tumbleweed]

Hey, don't forget about Pirate Pogs!

"Remember ALF? He's back...in Pog form."
- Milhouse

Re:What about Pirate Pokemon cards?

[gorre]

Should this not be modded funny? Perhaps I am not enough of a nerd after all as this seems like a joke to me.

Re:What about Pirate Pokemon cards?

[kyz]

What's a pirate's favorite letter of the alphabet?

Arrrrrrrrrrr.

Re:What about Pirate Pokemon cards?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you hear about the new Pirate movie?

It's rated Arrr!

So what?

[gloth]

What's so special about this FAQ that it received so much attention here? Wasn't too long ago that even the thought of updating it made it to the frontpage

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Taco doesn't want to go to federal pound me in the ass prison, and he runs the site.

I'm totally disappointed

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought this FAQ would help me pirate Anime... sigh.

Re:I'm totally disappointed

[Tungbo]

What about One Piece or Captain Harlock?

How can we talk about Pirate Animes without mentioning these classics?

so... where can i find the shops?

[Anonymous Coward]

just to make sure i know how the pirate
items feel and look like i'll have to buy _some_
of them.

Obvious joke

[kurosawdust]

I'll bet the pirate anime movies are all rated.....PG-13!

*dodges scurvy*

Re:Obvious joke

[t0qer]

Pirate Anime? Why yes captain Harlock RULEZ!

Re:Obvious joke

[Frogbert]

In australia its rated aRrrrrgh!

Aw MAN.

[Faust7]

The most common e-mail I get sent is from concerned fans who have just found out that they have bought some pirate goods off a seller who claimed what they were selling was legitimate.

I knew that Rei blow-up doll couldn't be a licensed product...

Re:Aw MAN.

[Mononoke]

I knew that Rei blow-up doll couldn't be a licensed product...

No, but the Hello Kitty vibrator is.

(No, I couldn't deep-link directly to it. Look in the 'Toys' section.)

Enjoy!

Re:Aw MAN.

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew that Rei blow-up doll couldn't be a licensed product...

You enjoy fucking a blow-up doll that depicts a 14-year old blue-haired little girl who has deep-rooted psychological problems?
Well, I suppose it's better than acting out your fantasies in real life. Keep on stuffing the turkey.

Re:Aw MAN.

[Anonymous Coward]

For being so judgmental, you seem to know an awful lot about it.

Re:Aw MAN.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, given that its Gainax and all (no, they're not known for deeply insightful anime. Eva is not "deeply insightful". Get over it. They're known for lots and lots of bouncing and well-developed female characters) then that one might well be.

Re:Aw MAN.

[wavelet]

why not?

this seems to work to get to the hello kitty vibrator

Re:Aw MAN.

[Anonymous Coward]

For being so judgmental, you seem to know an awful lot about it.

Yes, I do. It's kind of hard not to, after seeing the anime series she stars in.

OOOOOKAY then...

[bersl2]

It's been updated three times since the last story about it...

Really...how big of a deal?

[neiffer]

I wonder how much of a big deal this is. Sure, protecting copyright is important, but I don't think anime expansion in the United States would have happened as fast or expansively without copyright violation. Are there are real stats (not trumped up RIAA-style statistics) saying how much of a problem this is? Also, would an FAQ be misguided towards the real problem? Younger children buying cheap ripoffs?

Re:Really...how big of a deal?

[TomHandy]

Well, this is an especially big deal to the original Japanese companies. And it's not just a US issue, but the problem of Japanese anime DVD's being pirated and bootlegged throughout Asia. The Japanese companies have generally expressed an even greater concern about this. In terms of how much it affects the US companies, it's more a different issue. Fansubs generally aren't as much a concern as "import" shops that sell bootlegged anime DVD's, even bootlegged DVD's when the show is licensed and available commercially in the US. Same with eBay auctions, where some companies have been more active in trying to clamp down on bootlegs than others (AnimEigo in particular has tried very hard to deal with the bootlegs of some of the shows they have licensed and released commercially like Kimagure Orange Road and SDF Macross).

And you are right..... the US companies in particular do recognize the role fansubs play, and the general thing they ask for is to stop distributing fansubs of shows when they are licensed..... although the digisubs phenomenon makes this more difficult, because it isn't as easy to halt digisub distribution compared to the VHS fansub days, when a fansub distributor could stop distributing a fansub, and the extent of a fansub's spread after that was less, and the quality wasn't that good anyway compared to commercial releases. This is the big issue that is dealt with regarding digisubs, which can be copied and distributed easily to hundreds or thousands of people at a time, and each subsequent copy isn't degraded like when people copied fansubs for friends, etc.

But anyway, the focus, and the big deal is most definitely the actual bootleg anime DVD's, etc..... fansubs and digisubs aren't seen as quite the same kind of issue.

-Tom

Re:Really...how big of a deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

fucking nerd. no one cares

Re:Really...how big of a deal?

[neiffer]

Certainly, a big deal to Japanese companies, but I don't that answers my original concern. These companies wouldn't have a product to care about in US markets minus the piracy. Remember, anime started off as a tiny nitch in the market. Nobody cared 15 years ago when enterprising companies were selling products based on the copyrighted images at county fairs in 1989, because at that time, it was consider publicity. Now that there is a market (again, I don't get it, it's not my taste in popular culture), people whine about their copyright.

Re:Really...how big of a deal?

[TomHandy]

Not really...... the fansubs that helped to pave the way for this were not really being sold (and there wasn't a big market for bootlegged anime)..... most fansub distros distributed fansubs essentially for the cost of the tape and shipping and handling. No-one complained about this because there wasn't much of a commercial anime market anyway, and they did recognize the role fansubs played in getting interest in commercial anime. I don't know about the example you cited.... by 1989 there was a nascent commercial anime market, but i'm not aware of any companies that were selling unauthorized stuff on any significant scale.

As far as people "whining" about their copyright, I don't know exactly what you mean. Which people are you saying are whining? The Japanese companies are "whining" about digital piracy in general to the degree that it is rampant throughout Asia, and it is also devaluing their properties, and there are people profiting from their products. The companies in the US generally are only requesting that people stop fansubbing when they license a show, but they are hardly "whining".... every company is concerned about bootlegging and pirates selling bootlegged material, but I'm not sure what is hard to understand about why companies would dislike this.

Anyway, I hope that clears it up... I'm still not completely sure what you were asking above, but anyway, the US market for anime was helped by fansubbers, fans of these shows who fansubbed and basically helped to distribute anime for no profit, and helped to raise interest in anime, and to some degree to help companies determine what shows might be worth licensing and bringing out commercially. People who sold fansubs or pirated material were never looked upon well..... whatever people were SELLING fansubs or bootlegs at "county fairs in 1989" weren't seen as positive by fansubbers or Japanese or US companies.

Hope this helps. And at least explains the views on fansubbing, and bootlegs sold for profit, etc.

-Tom

Re:Really...how big of a deal?

[neiffer]

Read the FAQ. It's as much about movies and stickers than videos. My point: those companies weren't complaining when they didn't have a market here. But those products were helping build the exposure and cult status in the United States. Now that it has expanded into the mainstream, those same companies are complaing about those unlicensed products.

Re:Really...how big of a deal?

[TomHandy]

I've read the FAQ.... but your premise is incorrect. First off, the Japanese companies have always had a problem with unlicensed material (wallscrolls, posters, stickers, etc.). They've never tolerated them in the US, Japan, Asia, or anywhere else. Your point that these companies weren't complaining about unlicensed peripheral materials is dependent on the assumption that at one time they turned a blind eye to the companies who produced this unauthorized material.... but that's really never been the case.

But anyway, to answer your fundamental question.... yes, now that it has expanded into the "mainstream", there is a larger complaint about unauthorized peripheral materials like models, toys, stickers, posters, wallscrolls, etc. etc. etc. This is because the presence of them is even more damaging now that there is more money to be made because there is more of a market...... but the value of their products is diluted by bootlegged material. This has always been the case though, so it's not like this has changed... it has just become more prominent.

So, again, I'm not sure what exactly your complaint here is. I guess the point you are trying to make is something along the lines of: anime wouldn't be popular today without bootlegged material.... therefore, the companies somehow owe the bootleggers some leeway and should let them continue bootlegging their material, profiting by selling unauthorized products using copyrighted images, etc.

But I just don't think this holds water. The bootlegged material is basically just people stealing copyrighted material.... these bootlegs were the same in Asia and the US. The presence of bootlegged products in the US wasn't specifically accountable for the rise in popularity of anime, and there is not anything about imported bootlegged material that merits any special treatment.

I think that's ultimately what this boils down to. It wasn't the bootlegged toys, stickers, posters, etc. that were majorly responsible for building the exposure and cult status of anime in the US. Whatever part it did play (i.e. from import shops importing bootlegged material and selling it as legitimate), it wasn't any different than the legitimate posters, stickers, wallscrolls, toys, etc. that were also being sold in the US and imported legitimately. These things, and fansubs, anime clubs, and some early anime releases in various forms (i.e. Star Blazers, a modifed version of Space Battleship Yamato, followed by Robotech, a modified version of SDF Macross, Genesis Climber Mospeada and Southern Cross) helped to get the ball rolling.

So, just to be crystal clear.... those same Japanese companies have always complained about people and companies who illegally used their copyrighted material without authorization. Nothing has really changed in that regard. And the complaint has always been legitimate.

-Tom

Re:Really...how big of a deal?

[sasami]

Sure, protecting copyright is important

You can take issue with the copyright aspect if you want but that's not the point of the FAQ.

The intent is to allow people who are looking for authentic goods to identify them.

When I first began to buy anime goods, I assumed everything I saw was legitimate. I was lucky to stumble onto this FAQ by accident before I wasted too much money on inferior products. But I did waste some -- and having replaced those bootleg items with originals, I can attest to the serious difference in quality.

Now, the FAQ does strike the correct tone in condemning piracy (resulting in all the usual Slashdot kneejerking) but that's incidental; it would be nonsensical for a bootleg FAQ to condone any other position.

--
Dum de dum.

Re:Really...how big of a deal?

[neiffer]

Perhaps, based on the responses to my original post, I change my attitude to "who cares," like 80% of the others here. :)

Re:Really...how big of a deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

The intent is to allow people who are looking for authentic goods to identify them.

Someone mod this up. Thank you.

I view this under the heading of compensating the original artist. If you're playing that much, it would be good to know that part that is going towards the artist.

Paying $15 for a bootleg CD masqurading as authentic is a very ineffective way of doing this.

And yes, you can find shops here that sell products from bootleg companies.

If you're a leecher, then paying that much for a bootleg is dumb.

-cmh

Re:Really...how big of a deal?

[ShadowcatBlue]

Actually this should be a much bigger deal now when it comes to Anime soundtrack CDs. Companies like Pioneer have recently begun to cater to American fans by releasing their soundtracks domestically.

What does this mean? Well, it means that a CD that is identical to the original Japanese album and totally legal costs the same as most American CDs (Normally most imported and legal Japanese CDs cost upwards of $35). Previously, that was probably the biggest motivator for people to buy the Taiwanese bootlegs which sold for around $15-17 (which is about what Pioneer sells its domestic releases for now).

It's because of this that I am particularly disgusted by stores like Boston's Tokyo Kid, that still do not sell any legitimate Japanese albums despite their domestic availability and equivalent pricing.

American fans really need to wake up and support companies that are going out of their way to bring legitimate import albums at reasonable prices by buying those instead of bootlegs.

Is this correct?

[DAldredge]

"US Citizens should note it is also a federal offence to import, buy, sell or trade these goods."

Doesn't the law saying you have to KNOW the goods are pirate?

Re:Is this correct?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignorance is no excuse to the law.

Re:Is this correct?

[neiffer]

While that might be true in some circumstances, it is not true in copyright law. If they were true for copyright, Hilary Rosen could have sat a K-Mart with pirated (arrrr...) copies of House Party III that *looked* real and brought up federal charges against any poor sap that was unfortunately enough to pick up a copy. I think the same issue applies here with anime.

Re:Is this correct?

[kaltkalt]

Yes but some laws require a mental element, i.e. intent ("mens rea" in legal fancy-latin). That's different from ignorance of the law. If I jump out at you from behind a tree and yell "boo!" to scare you and cause you to have a heart attack and die, it is not murder because I did not have the intent to kill you (even though my act caused you to die and I knew killing someone is murder, which is illegal). If you buy it thinking it is real, it is still contraband and you can't bring it into the country (it will be confiscated by Customs if they find it) but you won't be charged with a crime. Now, bringing in 100,000 units of pirated stuff might get you in some trouble b/c it could imply an intent to sell/distribute the stuff (it's clearly not for your personal use).

Yes, this applies to drugs, too. For example, if someone sticks a bag of pot in your pocket and you had no idea they did it, you're technically not guilty of a crime, even though the stuff is in your possession. But, you'll have a hard time convincing the cops that someone stuck it in there (don't they have the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt? Sure... but these are drugs, and as we all know the Constitution doesn't apply to drug crimes).

Anyway, bottom line is you're not gonna get in criminal trouble for bringing a pirated anime doll or whatever into the US from abroad. It can be confiscated, though (ya won't get it back, no matter how innocent/ignorant you were).

Re:Is this correct?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, this applies to drugs, too. For example, if someone sticks a bag of pot in your pocket and you had no idea they did it, you're technically not guilty of a crime, even though the stuff is in your possession. But, you'll have a hard time convincing the cops that someone stuck it in there (don't they have the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt? Sure... but these are drugs, and as we all know the Constitution doesn't apply to drug crimes).

Pot smokers tid bit from someone who worked in the legal field. If you have to transfer pot in your car, always have it inside a brownpaper bag, out of reach of you, and all your car doors unlocked. such as stuffed in the crack of the back seat. This is not a guaranteed method, but if you are willing to spend the legal fees, you have potentially created "reasonable doubt" since it was not under your control, and anyone could have put it there. Maybe someone who was trying to get back at you. Never put it in a locked area that only you have access to (trunk, glove box).

This is not foolproof, but I have seen it work if you don't mind spending the money to get off. Although the police CAN fingerprint the bag, they seldom will since it is a minor offense. They usually keep a "sample" and destroy the rest. This is most effective if you have a job or license that you would lose if you were convicted of pot possession.

Re:Is this correct?

[kaltkalt]

You're better off putting it in the trunk of the car (in something not clear... a brown paper bag would be fine, albeit more suspicious than, say, a bag of chips). The cops can only inspect the trunk if they have a warrant to do so or in the course of an arrest (or with your permission which you WILL NOT give them if you have something illegal in your trunk!!!). Also, it is out of plain view when it is in the trunk. Note: the back of a SUV "trunk."

Also, if someone gives you a package, tells you not to open it, and tells you to drive it across the border and deliver it to some address, you can't claim that you didn't know there wasn't something illegal in it, because you can't purposely ignore the situation. Just a FYI.

Re:Is this correct?

[Anonymous Coward]

mens rea?!?! I've got mens rea?!?!

How could this be, I use condoms?!!?

How ever could I have mens rea?!?!

Re:Is this correct?

[lgftsa]

Also, if someone gives you a package, tells you not to open it, and tells you to drive it across the border and deliver it to some address, you can't claim that you didn't know there wasn't something illegal in it, because you can't purposely ignore the situation.

Heh, you just described every postal and courier service in existance.

Re:Is this correct?

[Loligo]

>Hilary Rosen could have sat a K-Mart with pirated (arrrr...) copies of House Party III

Maybe with copies of the soundtrack...

Hilary is RIAA.

Jack Valenti is MPAA.

-l

Re:Is this correct?

[kaltkalt]

Well, as common carriers they are not liable for such things, but they have other responsibilities as common carriers in exchange for that immunity.

RIAA for Anime

[vevva]

Hmm.. should be interesting to see how this debate pans out given the parallels with MP3s. At least the Anime/Manga producers haven't got teams of goons issuing subpoenas to come round and inspect our bookshelves. "Excuse me sir, we have reason to believe you may be in possession of some unlicensed tentacle porn - would you mind accompanying us to the station"

The quality of HK DVD

[Sexy Commando]

It's worthy to note that 90% of Hong Kong Anime TV-show DVDs are from the inferior TV captured sources, not from the DVD releases. Of course you can find dedicated pirates who strive to get the same quality as the original, but it's not likely you can find them in Hong Kong made DVDs.

If the show is unlicensed in the US, it is likely that you can download from BT sites like here and here.

Re:The quality of HK DVD

[Jagasian]

The only BitTorrent anime link you need is animesuki.com as it is a portal that tracks current and past releases and links to the respective download sites, tpyically scareywater or animetorrents... but others too like gotwoot.

Animesuki is like Cartoon Network on demand, without all of the filler crap.

Re:The quality of HK DVD

[Sexy Commando]

The reason I brought up scarywater is that I use that site quite often (hint: my nick and e-mail address). meso- *cough*

AAAAHHH!!1

[bersl2]

u got me!!! plzplzplz dont take me to jail!!!

Oh, wait...

Stupid overactive imagination...

Uhh

[Kethinov]

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't selling pirated stuff even more cracked down on that downloading/sharing it? I mean fuck, that's a total kick in the face to the author. It's one thing to acquire stuff illegally, but it's another to go around selling it as if it was your's to sell. Why not just sue the crap out of everyone who sells pirated stuff and skip the consumer FAQ? Because the consumer really doesn't care whether or not it's licensed.

Re:Uhh

[Hast]

You would think so, but not really. Besides that copyright law doesn't apply in China (de facto) they don't seem to be doing much about it in other countries either. I guess it's easier to c&d teenagers and college students, they don't really have the means to fight back.

Re:Uhh

[Siriaan]

I don't speak Japanese.

Re:Uhh

[dakryx]

The consumer does care whether its licensed or not. When somethings licensed you get less episodes per dvd as well as it costing more. If someones actually passing off unlicensed as pirated you are royally getting ripped off

Re:Uhh

[Anonymous Coward]

As an old retired (analog) fansubber, I can tell you that it is not. My works used to be sold on Ebay all the time, and lord knows I tried to deal with it in a legitimate manner, by contacting Ebay. Ebay informed me that they'd pull the tapes, provided I could prove that I was the copyright holder, which I obviously was not. So I had to resort to making fake accounts and placing multiple MASSIVE to make these people thing twice about selling my free fansubs, along with placing negative feedback to the same effect. Of course, Ebay changed their system after a while so this was no longer possible...

Re:Uhh

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I agree, but there are problems.

The FAQ is an educational tool. Some people don't even know that this stuff is pirated. Some bootleg packages are pretty darn convincing, and only telltake cues and sometimes even comparison to the real thing may be needed for people to spot them.

The licencees often don't have the time to crack down on the biggest sellers. Some licencees do take the time to join eBay's little rights-owner program and get pirated stuff cancelled, but not all.

Most of the pirated stuff is produced in other Asian countries where the government hasn't or can't sign the Berne Convention treaty, so piracy is technically legal (like Taiwan R.O.C) or the government looks the other way and only does a half hearted crack down when the owner complains These titles are imported by small-time dealers and distributors and there are simply too many.

Re:Uhh

[Anonymous Coward]

When somethings licensed you get less episodes per dvd as well as it costing more.

Yes, I hate it when these imbecilic anime companies put high-bitrate episodes on DVD. Who needs quality?

Now go fetch daddy's hard plastic eyes so he can see the TV.

-Carl

Re:Uhh

[stanmann]

If you did in fact sub them, you were the copyright holder for the subs which were an integral part of the whole. Proving that might be difficult... but.

heh

[elmegil]

The most common e-mail I get sent is from concerned fans who have just found out that they have bought some pirate goods off a seller who claimed what they were selling was legitimate.

You mean like that Cowboy Bebop boxed set I bought claiming "english subtitles", only to find that they were Engrish at best. Totally incomprehensible.

Pirate Anime!

[blacklite001]

... Okay, so, I was convinced that this had to be something to do with anime featuring pirates. ... Fansub section, which also covers Digisubs.

Do those not sound like the titles of anime series to you?

Arr, it's driving me nuts...

Darn...

[palp]

I was hoping for some information on Pirate Anime, not pirated anime.

Arr, matey!

Re:Darn...

[Comsn]

One Piece is a currently running anime (163 eps so far) about sea pirates, very cool stuff...
it was licensed by funimation, so expect a long wait until dvds/tv.

word on the internet says ep 112 and movie 4 will soon be out subtitled.

Re:Darn...

[Anonymous Coward]

The show is called "One Piece" and is all about pirates. The main character is a kid called Monkey D Luffy who ate the devils fruit when he was little. The devils fruit gave him the ability to stretch his body like rubber, but in return, took away his ability to ever be able to swim (pretty bad for a pirate).

Luffy's Goal is to become the Pirate King by obtaining the ultimate treasure (One Piece) which was collected by Gold Roger, the previous pirate king. Starting from the bottom he has to find a ship, assemble a crew and fight his way to the top.

You might find a better synopsis at www.animnfo.com or the anime encyclopedia at www.animenewsnetwork.com

and fansubbed episodes can be downloaded from #kaizoku-fansubs on irc.mircx.com

This show is damn cool. The animation style starts out pretty poorly, but gets better as it goes along and the story is fantastic. This show surpasses kenshin IMO.

Fansubs

[neostorm]

Everytime something a little underground get coverage on slashdot, I cringe. I really hope this doesn't cause copyright holders to crack down on Fansub distributions, because I really dig my fansubs.

On top of that, I'm pretty certain that anyone willing to buy dubbed versions of the same anime when they're ported to the US market (100 years after Japanese release) will still buy the DVDs anyways. That is to say, I hope this doesn't become another mp3 crackdown because some greedy bastards decide that fansubs are "ruining their profit".

Re:Fansubs

[RickHunter]

Actually, very few American or Japanese companies have a problem with fansubbers. (Carl Macek, of Harmony Gold, is the only one I can think off of the top of my head) Fansubbers are very nearly their best friends. These are people willing to do the work of obtaining high-quality copies of episodes, translating and subbing them, and distributing them to fans for free. This gives the commercial importers/translators a great chance to judge how popular a series is before dropping loads of money on it. (Though some ignore this opportunity, such as the guys who funded the Ninja Scroll TV, and wind up with flops on their hands. Huh. Big surprise) As long as the fansubbers stop distributing once the show's acquired for US distribution, the commercial companies generally have no problem with it. And there's enough fans out there that respect this (such as the guy that runs animesuki) that the system works.

Re:Fansubs

[Anonymous Coward]

Anytime anything I'm interested in is covered on /., I cringe. There's a 90% chance that the world will be worse off for it, due to good sites getting /.ed and clueless /.ers mouthing off on technical forums related to the story about something they read that was +5 so it MUST be true.

Re:Fansubs

[Tirephus]

Some pretty good links concerning the state of digisubs and a recent conflict between a fansubbing group and Urban Vision:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/editorial.php?id =3 9

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/editorial.php?id =4 3

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/editorial.php?id =4 4

Let's not get crazy...

[cubyrop]

I can appreciate that the prevailing mode of slashdotters, especially when it comes to piracy, is one of legality and reason (or so they would like to seem). Really though, is a FAQ for anime piracy _truly_ relevant?

The reasons that piracy exists in anime is because a) most anime fans do not speak japanese (although they do certainly try, don't they) and therefore require the intermediary of fansubbing (illegal), and b) obtaining imported products, especially soundtracks, are _prohibitively_ expensive. This isn't like "go to Tower and pick up the CD for 15 bucks" ... these things run 30 and 40 dollars for the real mccoy.

And as others have no doubt already said (or are about to say), this is not a situation where the market conditions are changing per se, as is the case domestically with CD sales; rather, this is a case of a market expanding in a way ultimately beneficial to both consumers and producers.

There hasn't been a single case of a Japanese company cracking down on this in the US, at least that I'm aware, so really in all honesty, this FAQ comes off like that one kid in class who reminds the teacher that she forgot to give homework. So you bought a pirated CD by mistake. What are you going to do now, send it back? Or perhaps write a FAQ about it?

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because most anime fans are basically honest, and they like anime and want to support the companies that import it.

From a more practical perspective, sometimes it is hard to tell what is a licensed or unlicensed product if you are new to anime.

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[Nimrodel]

Actually, I've found, those aren't really the reasons that people pirate anime. The most prevalent reason is that when anime are dubbed into English, they tend to be butchered, scenes are cut, translations are totally wrong (not to mention some of the voices are downright terrible). People watch pirated subtitled anime because it's 'truer' to the original. The people who pirate these are people who really love the series, so the do as much to preserve all the original meaning. Second, many very good series just aren't brougth to America. Many wouldn't translate very good (I personally know at least one that was so full of of jokes based on Japanese culture/language that it would nearly be impossible to translate and keep the real meaning). Pirated anime has much more variety than whatever you'd find on television or at the store in America. I do agree that actually buying all this anime would be prohibitively expensive. That point you made is extremely true.

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[TomHandy]

I'm not sure about this...... I don't think it's been true for quite a while that when anime is brought out commercially in the US that it tends to be butchered, scenes are cut, translations are totally wrong, etc.

There are only a handful of examples of this I can think of, and most of them involve the company 4Kids, which brings out some kids shows.

Outside of that, the major anime companies like ADV, Bandai, Pioneer, Synch-Point, AnimEigo, Central Park Media, Media Blasters, etc. all generally release uncut anime, complete with Japanese audio and subtitles. The DVD's often have dubs too, but the Japanese audio is still almost always there, except in some rare cases when a company doesn't have the rights to the Japanese audio for some reason.

Pirated subbed anime isn't "truer" to the original than commercial subbed anime (I mean, it sounded like you still thought most anime that is brought to the US is released dub only and edited, which just isn't true), and in fact, in many times the translations on subbed pirated anime is worse (sometimes even when the pirates steal a fansub script to use, they still end up screwing up the timing or replacing names or some other weird stuff).

Saying that the only way to get anime that is "true" to the original is with pirated anime is just too far off the mark. The large large majority of most modern anime brought out commercially in the US is not butchered, etc. (we're not living in the 80's of Streamline and Carl Macek any more with stuff like Robotech and the butchered version of Nausicaa released as "Warriors of the Wind").

I agree that there are still a number of good series not brought out in the US, but a much larger number of series are being brought out now, and a much larger variety than even a few years ago, with many different genres represented.

Anyway, just wanted to respond to this, as it seems to reflect a version of commercial anime that doesn't exist in reality (most specifically the notion that only by buying pirated anime can you get a "truer" version of anime).

This notion that the people who pirate anime are people who really "love" the series strikes me as bizarre to.... most of the anime bootleggers and pirates don't have any particular love for most of what they bootleg.... they just care about doing anything that will sell.

The only thing I can think from some of the things you said were that you were using "pirated anime" to refer to fansubs, but for the purposes of this discussion, although fansubs are of course pirated, this also lumps them in with the anime DVD bootleggers, who many of the statements don't apply to.

But either way..... the point you made about dubbed anime doesn't have much to do with it, as commercial anime does almost always have Japanese audio and subtitles, and it's very rare that commercial anime DVD releases are butchered, cut or feature totally wrong translations (the cases where this does happen are the exception generally, and when they do happen, the company who releases it gets slammed by the anime community).

Lastly, I would say that there are more good series that have come out lately that people thought couldn't possibly translate because they were depenent on Japanese culture and language, but I think both fansubbers and commercial anime DVD companies have generally proven this wrong. A show like Excel Saga, which many thought could never be successfully translated, is a good example of this... and it was a pretty big success too. In most cases, they are able to explain the jokes with footnotes, translation notes, on-screen pop-ups and other ideas.

Anyway, sorry to go on so long....:)

-Tom

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[Yosho]

Actually, the only anime pirates I know who use the "butchered" excuse are ones who don't know a drop of Japanese (or if they do, just a smattering of common words) that automatically assume something must be butchered. In fact, most of the anime pirates I know will willingly buy illegal Hong Kong DVDs of series or movies that have already been given good US releases, just because they don't want to pay for it.

Now, I've been taking classes in Japanese for two years, and while I'm still far from proficient, I can say that most anime translations are very good. The only places where material is regularly edited is when it's shown on TV, or when it's for a "kids'" series, such as Pokemon or Digimon; in general, whenever a company edits something that is commercially released in stores, fans make a huge outcry. The anime industry in America is still small enough that you can't make enough money to survive without support from the dedicated fanbase, so companies generally try to appeal to the fans.

In fact, in my experience commercial companies generally do a much better job than fansubbers. Groups like AnimeJunkies frequently make both the Japanese and English grammar geek sides within me cringe in pain.

Now, the excuse about good series not being translated is more valid; however, most series worthy of note do get translated. Generally, those that don't are of a genre that doesn't sell in America (dating sim, magical girl, etc.), or they're really crap but so focused towards a single genre that fans of that genre like it anyway.

(note that the above observations are based on what I've seen as president of the Texas Tech University anime club for the last two years)

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[Qzukk]

I do agree that actually buying all this anime would be prohibitively expensive. That point you made is extremely true.

Of course. This is why you don't buy all the anime. I pick and choose what DVDs to buy on a regular basis. Sure, I give preference to series I have seen and liked on fansubs, but I don't use my fansubs as an excuse not to buy and support a series I liked.

Think about it this way: BGC 2040 exists because US fans bought enough copies of the original that ADV went to the AIC and said "You know, BGC completely tanked over on your side of the ocean, but look, if you make us a new series, we'll sell it over here." And so they did, and somewhere in there, the idea of the US companies supporting Japanese animators was born. So, if you have a series you like, buy their DVDs. Encourage everyone to buy the DVDs. Just maybe, the Japanese company will say "gee, this is pretty popular over there, lets make another season." And so Big O season 2 was born (just in case you thought it was an isolated incident that wouldn't happen for your favorite series. While the Japanese economy continues to slump, expect this to happen more often).

As for your "totally wrong" translations, what are you comparing these to? Hopefully not the horrid engrish subs on some HK discs. The fansubs? Not translating a word because you can't think of a good way to do it is a cop-out. Throwing more subs on the screen to explain the word is great for an educational video, but would never fly on cartoon network. And thats when the college student with a couple of semesters of Japanese over what ever he's learned from watching other shows gets the translation correct... When I started getting into anime, the VHS fansub groups actually hired professional translators to do the work. The digisub generation has decided that doing it right isn't worth not being the first to the servers ("mass naked child events" ring a bell to any AnimeJunkies fans?)

Well, thats the end of my rant. If you're going to pirate a show thats SO GOOD and you don't think the US release will do it justice, buy the Japanese release. I've got several R2 DVDs. With a dvd-burner, a decent mpeg2 demuxer/muxer, a dvd sub generator, and a script you like you can make your own subtitled DVDs that will be much higher quality than any chinese subbed dvd or divxed-to-hell fansub.

I do, and while I know there won't be a second season for Kokoro Toshokan or Saishuu Heiki Kanojo, I am preordering the pilot DVD for the second season of another show (I won't mention it since I don't want to attract too many "anime is for pedos" trolls. You can figure out which series it is) and I'd like to think that I helped the second season become reality.

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[Yosho]

("mass naked child events" ring a bell to any AnimeJunkies fans?)

I would just like to comment that that is the exact scene I was thinking of when I made my below post. ;-)

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[euxneks]

I wouldn't consider Fansubbed anime pirating. Most groups are very concerned with the Anime business in general and stop fansubbing as soon as they find out a company has licensed the Anime for distribution in North America. I know I have felt kind of ripped off more than once when I find out an anime or manga has been licensed, but I will probably buy the manga and perhaps the anime when it comes out.

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[Silverhammer]

Blockquoth the poster:

obtaining imported products, especially soundtracks, are _prohibitively_ expensive. This isn't like "go to Tower and pick up the CD for 15 bucks" ... these things run 30 and 40 dollars for the real mccoy

Well, first of all, you're exaggerating the hell out of the import situation. You can find virtually any Japanese CD you could possibly want right here. They do mail order to anywhere in the world, they're fast and reliable, they're 100% legitimate, and depending on the exchange rate, almost every album can be had for less than $25.

But that's all beside the point. The simple truth is you're a lazy cheapskate who just can't be bothered to support the industry. You're not a fan -- you are a parasite.

Hell, buying pirated goods is even stupider than stealing them outright...

There hasn't been a single case of a Japanese company cracking down on this in the US, at least that I'm aware, so really in all honesty, this FAQ comes off like that one kid in class who reminds the teacher that she forgot to give homework.

Translation: "So long as I don't get caught, nobody is hurt."

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[dancingmad]

Many wouldn't translate very good

Was this post also translated from Japanese?

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[sasami]

Most groups are very concerned with the Anime business in general and stop fansubbing as soon as they find out a company has licensed the Anime for distribution in North America.

This used to be mostly true. Now it's at best partly true. VHS fansubbing has a significant startup cost, which kept out anyone who wasn't really serious -- pirates looking to save a few bucks on anime aren't going to spend $3000 on a subtitling rig.

Digisubbing has zero barrier to entry. While there are lots of excellent and ethical digisubbing groups, there are just as many who chase the glory of being first with their "releases." It's exactly analagous to the moronic idea of "0-day warez," except in this case you don't even have to be competent.

There was a well-publicized flap with AnimeJunkies just a few months ago. When Urban Vision politely notified them to stop subtitling Ninja Scroll, they responded with obscenities and other brainless retorts like, "How dare you license a series we're working on?" (Bonus irony: Urban Vision didn't merely license the series; they funded it. They owned it.)

--
Dum de dum.

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[ewombatnet]

There hasn't been a single case of a Japanese company cracking down on this in the US, at least that I'm aware, so really in all honesty, this FAQ comes off like that one kid in class who reminds the teacher that she forgot to give homework. So you bought a pirated CD by mistake. What are you going to do now, send it back? Or perhaps write a FAQ about it?

There hasn't been an official crackdown, but at least one US based anime distro company has had a "quiet word" to the admins of an anime based IRC server requesting material that copyrighted material of theirs be removed from the server.

From my experience, one of the primary pushes for anime piracy (above and beyond good old fashioned 'I don't want to pay for anything'-ism, is the sheer length of time it takes between a show airing in Japan and the DVD showing up on the shelves. The various fansub groups out there can have a release of a show that airs on a Tuesday available by Thursday at the latest. If they were waiting for Bandai, Pioneer, ADV etc, they may not see the show for up to 12 months.

There is a legitimate side to this type of fansubing - a lot of groups will fansub a new show up to the point that a US distro company licenses it, and then they stop releasing new eps, as well as pull the old eps they had on their servers. This doesn't happen very often however...

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[binarytoaster]

Outside of that, the major anime companies like ADV,

Just thought I'd like to point out that ADV does a lot of stuff that makes you both love and hate them at the same time.

They just released the uncut original Sailor Moon first season on DVD. All of it, which is nice because they cut literally half the show when Dic dubbed it. I was amazed at what I was missing. (Shut up, you haven't seen the original if you think it's stupid. :P)

So why do I hate them for it? Well, they did what they've done with quite a few other releases and used the original analog audio. The series is more than TEN YEARS OLD. That's like rereleasing Star Wars without touching up the audio at all. I could have done a better job with five minutes in Goldwave.

And the subs could use a little work; on the canned speech (I am the lovely soldier Sailor Moon, blah blah, I'm a ditz and why don't the enemies kick my ass while I'm talking) they don't get the translation quite right... which makes me wonder how much they missed on the stuff I *don't* know. :) (They missed an entire word in the speech. "Bishoujo" should translate to "pretty" or "lovely" or something; it doesn't even show up in the subs.)

But even with those little flaws, it's nice to see it come out. :)

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[TomHandy]

Yeah, not saying ADV is perfect...... even the best companies have had their share of problems. I guess when it comes to things like audio tracks, etc..... sometimes they just use whatever is provided to them, or they use whatever audio tracks they have the rights to (I don't know, do the Japanese Sailor Moon DVD's have better quality audio?). I think when it comes down to an older show like this though, the amount of audio and video remastering is probably dependent on if it is financiall feasible. If they think there is a market for it and that they can recoup their costs, they might be able to justify doing more work with it. If they feel they couldn't recoup the costs though, they are more likely to just use whatever audio and video they have the rights to and release it like that.

I assume you know more about DVD authoring to know that you could have done a better job on the audio with 5 minutes in Goldwave.... I don't know much about the process, so I didn't realize it was something so simple for them to do. If so, it is certainly a question. Either way, they are hardly the only company to release older titles with just the audio exactly as the Japanese companies gave it to them without doing any touch-up work themselves.

-Tom

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[Lord_Dweomer]

"And thats when the college student with a couple of semesters of Japanese over what ever he's learned from watching other shows gets the translation correct... When I started getting into anime, the VHS fansub groups actually hired professional translators to do the work. The digisub generation has decided that doing it right isn't worth not being the first to the servers ("mass naked child events" ring a bell to any AnimeJunkies fans?)"

Well, as a member of the old Anime Fury team, I can tell you that we work very hard to get top of the line translators. We ONLY look for people who are fluent in japanese. You'd be surprised how many fansubbing groups will turn down a translator who knows japanese pretty well just because he's not fluent. And we typically had more than one translator to check the script. Now....some groups like Anime Fury were determined to put out high quality, rather than high quantity...like Anime Junkies. It really varies group to group, and once you're in the scene for a while, you tend to pick up on who puts out decent stuff and who doesn't.

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[Qzukk]

Sorry, I fell into the trap of over-generalization. Naturally, groups are all over the spectrum. Picking out which are which though is a little more difficult for me since I know very little Japanese myself, so I wind up relying on word of mouth and flagrant errors.

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[Ominous Coward]

I think it's more important to find people who are fully fluent in ENGLISH, and have decent writing skill too. You can look up the meaning of the phrases said in Japanese, but you really need to be fluent in English to create the subtitles, and have them look good.

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[Lord_Dweomer]

That is why you have translators working in teams. We always made sure we had someone who was a natural english speaker working on the translation team. That is assuming of course that the actual translator wasn't just bilingual. When they weren't, the translator would discuss the best way to translate things with the english person, so they would finally agree upon a translation that stayed as true to the japanese as possible, while still making complete sense to the viewer. If that wasn't possible, as in the case of some cultural/language jokes, we'd put notes in small type somewhere on the screen to explain. In fact, MANY fansubbing groups do this, and it teaches you something about japanese culture instead of just staring blankly and not getting a joke.

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[DeadScreenSky]

$25 plus shipping sounds a lot like $30-40 to me. And even without shipping, that still doesn't compare to the Tower price stated ($15).

As a bit of an aside, I know one of the things that bug me the most about buying real Japanese CDs is just how short so many of them are. All too often, you pay close to $30 for something a little more than a half an hour in length. The fact is that by most people's standards, the CDs are overpriced - Japan at least allows you to rent them at stores (which sell CD-R blanks as well), but that isn't an option for an importer.

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[Silverhammer]

Blockquoth the poster:

$25 plus shipping sounds a lot like $30-40 to me.

If you were an idiot and bought them one at a time, maybe...

And even without shipping, that still doesn't compare to the Tower price stated ($15).

Now you're just being fatuous. It's an import -- deal with it.

As a bit of an aside, I know one of the things that bug me the most about buying real Japanese CDs is just how short so many of them are.

I don't know what albums you're choosing, but mine routinely run 60 to 70 minutes. Yes, really. Want a list?

All too often, you pay close to $30 for something a little more than a half an hour in length.

I could say the same about most domestic releases these days.

The fact is that by most people's standards, the CDs are overpriced

No, only by the standards of self-indulgent wannabes. Real fans support the industry and pay the asking price.

Japan at least allows you to rent them at stores (which sell CD-R blanks as well), but that isn't an option for an importer.

Ahh, there's the truth of it: you want them for free. You parasite.

And none of this changes the fact that it's stupider to buy bootlegs than to steal the music outright.

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[binarytoaster]

It's not really the DVD authoring part that I know that much about (I know enough to encode to MPEG2 and mux an AC3 stream into it, creating a VOB...) - but since that audio was digital, loading it into Goldwave or CoolEdit or (insert sound editor of choice) is trivial, and applying a noise gate and a normalizer would have easily improved the quality about 90%.

For more than that, it's more advanced than I can do, so I couldn't complain at that point :) And I'm still not really complaining, since as you say, they aren't the only company to just release untouched audio. It just bugs me a tiny bit; but it's REALLY COOL of them to do it in the first place (especially since it's an 11 year old series...)

Now I can't wait for them to release R (the second season)...

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[FurryFeet]

Hi, I hope you still see this reply.
I'm extremely interested in subtitling some anime titles. Most of what I've got is legit, plus some fansubs, but since I live in Mexico, I want to translate them to Spanish for the benefit of my wife and familiy.
If you have experience doing it, I'd appreciate some pointers as to what programas to use and what is the procedure.
Thanks a lot.

Re:Let's not get crazy...

[Qzukk]

Sorry, I don't have any software for doing it, I simply presented that as an option.

Looking around, I found a few options quickly though: Several for Linux are listed here. This page lists a ton for DivX movies: here

As for obtaining scripts and stuff, I am not sure where you would go about finding scripts in Spanish. If you or someone else is good at English->Spanish translation, you may be able to find a script at Script Club but you'll need to register for access, and many of the scripts there are either for older and lesser known titles or for the most popular recent shows, very little in the middle.

I would suggest asking on a forum like at AnimeSuki where an actual subtitler might see you.

Thanks!

[PktLoss]

With few places in my area, I often have trouble comparing products, in attempt to acertain their authenticity (thats a lot of a-words). The pictures and examples found here will make this much easier.

Amazon?

[Cyno01]

I probably bought the same set, Cowboy Bebop: The Perfect Sessions? After i ordered it i read some of the reviews, most of them were like "shame on amazon for selling pirate dvds". I got it and sure enough the set is a bootleg, but the entire set in decent quality for only $30, i dont really mind.

Re:Amazon?

[elmegil]

Actually no it's not that one. The one I got looks like possibly a hong kong release or some such (or bootleg of same). Are the subtitles on the Perfect Sessions that bad? The one I have doesn't even have dubbed english, it's all japanese or chinese.

Re:Amazon?

[Cyno01]

Perfect Sessions has English and Japanese sound tracks and English and Chinese subtitles. The english voices are the same as on Cartoon Network. Theres 9 eps per disc and the menus are ok, but the audio loop in the menus is atrocious. Other than some pixelation during gate scenes, esp in the one with the greenpeace searat guys, the set is ok.

Re:Amazon?

[tuffy]

To be fair, it's not Amazon that's doing the actual selling, per-se. The "new and used" link points to external shops that are selling bootlegs of the very much out-of-print boxed set. Such shops are common on Yahoo as well. However, blaming Amazon is like blaming eBay because someone puts a bootleg up for bid. But it's easy to spot such items by price. If someone is selling an entire series, new, on three DVDs for $30, or if someone is selling an anime soundtrack CD for $9.95, you can be sure you're getting a bootleg.

Reputable shops like Amazon, CDJapan, AnimeNation and so forth will never sell you a bootleg straight from their stores.

hogwash...

[segment]

Why do some retailers sell them? Some retailers are unaware that they are selling unlicensed goods, this could be because they don't know enough about anime goods, or maybe they want to make a bigger profit, as unlicensed goods are cheaper. Some retailers knowingly sell these goods for numerous reasons.

In many major cities there are hundreds of retailers selling them, hell I go into my local vid store and find bootlegs left and right. The author did a nice page of trying, but the fact is, many people from here who followed the link probably clicked the back button a few seconds later.

Fact: There are many out there who use the net for an escape, and many of those who do probably don't have the money to amuse or entertain themselves otherwise. So is it that much of a threat for Farmer Bob's son to download something he'll probably use for a week then toss to the side? Most articles only focus on the hardcore bootleggers, and they never exclude people like I just described in their stats. Hell I dont even know where they get their stats from anyway. No one has ever called my house to ask my views on this, yet in most articles you would see something state "The majority of users blah blah blah" I've spoken to my friends, and they've spoken to their friends about these stats and whether or not someone contacted them, and you know what.... No one I know or they know has ever been contacted, and these people are on comps way too much.

So the moral of the story is this... Absolutely nothing... People are going to do what they're going to do, it's happened in every industry, and it will continue doing so... Full circle...

Re:hogwash...

[Hast]

A good reason for consumers to not buy pirated anime (or other HK stuff) is that the quality is often abysmal. I'd rather not pay for stuff that is lower quality than stuff you can download.

Re:hogwash...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fact: There are many out there who use the net for an escape, and many of those who do probably don't have the money to amuse or entertain themselves otherwise. So is it that much of a threat for Farmer Bob's son to download something he'll probably use for a week then toss to the side? Most articles only focus on the hardcore bootleggers, and they never exclude people like I just described in their stats. Hell I dont even know where they get their stats from anyway. No one has ever called my house to ask my views on this, yet in most articles you would see something state "The majority of users blah blah blah" I've spoken to my friends, and they've spoken to their friends about these stats and whether or not someone contacted them, and you know what.... No one I know or they know has ever been contacted, and these people are on comps way too much.

How the HELL did THAT get modded up? And what the fuck does it have to do with the FAQ?

Re:Please stop posting about Anime

[usotsuki]

I watch Bishojo Senshi Sailormoon all the time (in raw Japanese).

-uso.

Re:Please stop posting about Anime

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't like it, get yourself an account and block all anime stories. Now stop complaining.

What does this have to do with Linux?

[Tidal Flame]

It's not Linux, who cares? ;P

ugh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I really really really really really would like to hurt you right now.

Why aren't they trying to SOLVE any of these?

[Mitreya]

Ok, so having read the FAQ, I'd like to point out some interesting quotes:

Occasionally the legitimate item might not be available, so fans go for bootlegs in this case too.

And who's fault is this? I wouldn't even call this bootlegging.

Official goods normally have good quality packaging that is well designed.

That just isn't true. Ditto for pirated Anime but all of the Anime I own has average to crappy packaging.

If the price is too good to be true, then it is not the real thing.

That's a wonderfull way to spot a bootlegger! Unless they charge $30 for a 2 to 4 episode DVD they probably aren't legit. Does anyone know why they cost so much? Can't be the English subtitling, since they don't even have to know English to do their work

if it is set to Region 0 or All Regions and has Chinese as well as English subtitles there is a very strong chance that the title is a bootleg.

I am assuming that customers want both chinese and english subtitles, but legit DVDs do not provide those?

Re:Why aren't they trying to SOLVE any of these?

[TomHandy]

Regarding the legitimate item not being available, I'm not sure whose fault you are implying here, but you seem to think that if the product isn't available, it's the fault of some particular company, and therefore isn't even bootlegging in this case. Normally there can be a number of factors, including the rights to a show being in limbo, or some other issue. Either way, it doesn't change it from being bootlegging if you buy a bootlegged company of something. Although it is probably lower on the scale of things people worry about (i.e. if something isn't available commercially in any format).

Regarding packaging, I don't know what anime you own, but either way, just because the anime you own has average to crappy packaging doesn't mean that is true of all commercial anime, especially more recent stuff. Certainly some modern anime releases still have poor packaging design, etc. (you can get a good idea of this by reading the reviews on animeondvd.com, which goes into a lot of detail usually on packaging, menu design, etc.). Either way, the main issue with that entry in the Pirate Anime FAQ is that a lot of pirate anime still ends up with good packaging because they are able to spend more on high quality packaging, and for the artwork they usually just steal art and packaging design from the Japanese or US releases.

Not sure what you mean about "not having to know English to do their work". I'm not sure what commercial anime you own, but generally most subtitling is pretty good, although there are still examples of some shows released with sometimes poor translations (or at least inaccurate). But this is more the exception than the rule, and it makes me wonder what commercial anime you have, as generally it is the bootlegs that are known for very poor English translations, which are generally done by people who know very little English. Or are the bootlegs what you were referring to?

Regarding the pricing, most of the cost has to do with the cost of licensing the show, the cost of producing it, translating it, often dubbing it, authoring it and doing the other things that go into domestic anime releases. There are plenty of costs involved, and it's not like they just take a Japanese DVD and slap on some subtitles and that's it. Aside from that, the only DVD's now with only 2 episodes a disc are usually very expensive OVA series (such as FLCL, which is 6 episodes across 3 DVD's.....compared with 6 episodes across 6 DVD's for the original Japanese release). Some shorter series get spread across 3 and 4 eps a disc, and some more high profile series are released with sometimes 3 episodes a disc in order to recoup costs, but it's becoming more common to have 4 or 5 episodes a disc.... there are even companies experimenting with doing things like 7 and 8 episodes a disc, with a higher MSRP.

But the commercial US releases are still considerably cheaper than the Japanese R2 releases..... the point made in the pirate anime FAQ though is that if the prices are insanely low, like a 26 episode series for only $30, then it is likely a bootleg. The general economics of anime can generally explain why no commercial releases can be anywhere as cheap as a bootleg..... prices of commercial anime are coming down a bit, but they still aren't going to compete with bootlegs because bootleggers don't have to really pay for much at all, thus they can sell their stuff for very low prices.

Your assmption that customers want both Japanese and English subtitles isn't really the reason that bootlegs have Chinese subs in addition to English subs. The Chinese subs are generally because the bootlegs are heavily popular in Asia, and so the bootlegs almost always have Chinese subs. I think you might have been saying this might be a reason why people would buy a bootleg, but that really isn't it. There are legitimate Chinese DVD's with actual Chinese subtitles that are legitimate and commercial, so people who want legitimate Chinese subs can buy commercial DVD's, not resort to bootlegs.

To answer

Re:Why aren't they trying to SOLVE any of these?

[Anonymous Coward]

if it is set to Region 0 or All Regions and has Chinese as well as English subtitles there is a very strong chance that the title is a bootleg.

I am assuming that customers want both chinese and english subtitles, but legit DVDs do not provide those?

No that means it was probably made in China for Americans, and I would venture to say that ZERO major manufacturers (legal anyway) use region zero.

Re:Why aren't they trying to SOLVE any of these?

[peter_gzowski]

I'll try and go point by point here:

Occasionally the legitimate item might not be available, so fans go for bootlegs in this case too.

And who's fault is this? I wouldn't even call this bootlegging.

Translation: Official items are unavailable in certain regions, so consumers in those regions have a right to obtain them in any way they see fit.

Why it's wrong: Owners of copyright have no obligation to distribute their work in every country in the world. As it is pointed out in the FAQ, it is illegal to import unlicensed works into any country that has signed the Berne Convention.

Official goods normally have good quality packaging that is well designed.

That just isn't true. Ditto for pirated Anime but all of the Anime I own has average to crappy packaging.

I have a lot of very nice packaging for my anime dvds. The Evangelion box set packaging is nice, the Escaflowne movie box is georgeous, the FLCL box is cool. Bootleg dvds tend to have ugly packaging, especially on the back. It's not universal, and bootleg packaging is improving, but generally bootleg packaging is inferior to licensed packaging.

If the price is too good to be true, then it is not the real thing.

That's a wonderfull way to spot a bootlegger! Unless they charge $30 for a 2 to 4 episode DVD they probably aren't legit. Does anyone know why they cost so much? Can't be the English subtitling, since they don't even have to know English to do their work

Most DVDs retail for about $30, even popular ones like Daredevil and the like. Large retail chains will discount from these suggested prices, assuming that the increased volume of sales will make them more money than they would have made selling less copies at the $30. Because anime does not have as large a market, there is not as much interest by large retail chains to discount them, or even carry them. When Future Shop, a large retail chain here in Toronto, decided to carry anime, they had discounts on a lot of anime, and it was about the same price as their mainstream releases. Now if some Ebay seller is selling anime at well below what I know is a reasonable rate (basically anything below $20 for a new anime dvd), I'm naturally going to be suspicious.

Re:Why aren't they trying to SOLVE any of these?

[Guppy06]

"And who's fault is this? I wouldn't even call this bootlegging."

Well, it sure as heck isn't a legal copy. Importing a legit copy is legal. Finding an English script on the internet to go along with it is in the legal gray area. But an illegitimate copy, whether it has subtitles added or not, is still an illegitimate copy.

" Official goods normally have good quality packaging that is well designed.

That just isn't true. Ditto for pirated Anime but all of the Anime I own has average to crappy packaging."

Either you're dealing with the wrong publishers, or you have more pirated stuff than you know.

"Does anyone know why they cost so much?"

Because they just don't sell compared to other DVDs and they have to make up their costs somehow. That, and the way they have to pay for twice the voice actors.

"Can't be the English subtitling, since they don't even have to know English to do their work"

Again, perhaps you have more pirated stuff than you realize. I'm pretty damned pleased with the subtitling job on the Maison Ikkoku boxed set I bought last night.l

"I am assuming that customers want both chinese and english subtitles, but legit DVDs do not provide those"

They do that because Hong Kong pirates can't be bothered to release two different bootleg versions of the same source (one for the mainland, one for the states). The vast majority of customers out there only care about one or the other, not both.

Re:Why aren't they trying to SOLVE any of these?

[ShadowcatBlue]

Official goods normally have good quality packaging that is well designed.

That just isn't true. Ditto for pirated Anime but all of the Anime I own has average to crappy packaging.

Yes, but for CDs this is usually very obvious. Anyone who's ever bought a legitimate Japanese album knows that the packaging on Japanese CDs is really, really, nice (One of the reasons I've never felt too bad about forking over the $35+ for a legitimate Japanese CD). They're usually much higher quality and give an overall impression that the artist and/or record label cares a lot more about the product than most American artists/labels do. Many of them even come with neat little toys/goodies/collectibles. Bootlegs from Taiwan and HK never have the same quality in pacakging.

I know the original post was about DVDs, so I should ask, have you ever bought/seen a bootleg DVD from Taiwan or Hong Kong? It makes even the crappiest American release look like gold.

I moderated it

[Anonymous Coward]

"funny" earlier and it does not show up in the totals. Thank Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda for that little stupid nugget of shit.

Pheww!

[__aagmrb7289]

I've been waiting for this so long, I think my face is going to be blue forever. Okay, maybe not. Why do I care? Oh yeah, I don't. Do you?

Digisubs and Incentive

[Entity79]

"Normally when a title is licensed fansubbers stop distributing it, however because digisubs are so much easier to distribute a fansubber can no longer prevent others copying a digisub. Since most digisubs are of reasonable to high quality (again it depends who authors it etc), the incentive to purchase the licensed copy is less, this results in more casual or unconcerned fans not bothering to buy the title when it comes out on DVD." Well, actually, there IS an incentive to buy the series when it is released in the USA (or elsewhere). Bootlegs don't have the extras found in the original.(IE: posters, trading cards, collectible cases) Digisubs are not a replacement for the DVD itself, simply a way of `tiding over` until it is released here. Also, many series are not released into the US, so digisubs are the only way to see certain series. (Crayon Shin-Chan for example)

Re:Digisubs and Incentive

[Anonymous Coward]

They said LESS incentive. Some people don't care about all that stuff, considering that still most anime comes on a disc or tape with not much else. If you can download a DVD quality DIVX file, thats "good enough" for 90% of people out there, pirates or otherwise.

The ONLY thing that makes me pay for anime I could get for free on the internet is the fact that I would feel guilty for stealing it.

Re:Digisubs and Incentive

[skyknytnowhere]

That and that US companies take so damn long to release a series. Like hell I'm waiting for ADV to finish releasing RahXephon before I watch the ending.

I'm buying the DVDs, but I think I've paid my dues... I commissioned art from Hiroki Kanno.

skye

Some Good Stuff

[EXTomar]

This thing is good because it is a topic that needs to be discussed in Anime fandom. Ignoring does not make it go away. Discussing it doesn't legitimizes it. Its some crazy puritanical non-sense that says one can't know what is wrong or be tempted by it.

In any event, pirates need to die. Its one thing to fansub something and let others pick it up at their own descression. Its something else to pawn yourself off as legit licensed merchandise. Being able to spot fake merchandise at some vendor's table at the con maybe the only thing that stands between these greedy bastards and your money.

No fan should ever buy pirate material. There is enough fan networked support out there now to allow free trades. There is enough infrastructure support to buy real merchandise (no more odd hour calls to Japan tracing what happened to things you ordered). Let the pirates die.

Excuse me, good sir

[Anonymous Coward]

But this seems to be directed towards you.

Paying for Pirated Software

[dasheiff]

What's the point of pirated software if you have to pay for it?

FAQ compression

[noname3]

Under each subheading I was able to replace one paragraph with an asterisk, and I added this at the footnote:

* You can tell a pirate copy by speckles/bad color/low lustre, but then again pirates are getting better equipment and sometimes you can't tell. If there is no hologram or a bad hologram on CD/DVD cases then it's probably pirate, but some pirates are making their own official-looking holograms now.

I trimmed the guide's size by 30%!

Though seriously, I liked how the author explained the "moral but illegals" such as fansubs. It seems like every day a new fansub site pops up, usually powered by BitTorrent.

RTFA

[Daetrin]

This is not "something a little underground," and this is _not_ about fansubs. This is about professional pirates operating out of Taiwan and mass producing physical goods to sell at a profit.

I have no problem with fansubers and file-sharers, for anime or for mainstream media, but it really pisses me off that there are people out there making a profit off of this stuff. If i'm actually going to spend money on a product, i damn well want the profit going to the people who deserve it, not some criminals somewhere.

Yeah, import CDs are expensive, and given the market for cheap pirated ones i can't figure out why the real companies don't make cheaper American versions. The high prices may justify not buying the original in your mind, but that doesn't excuse buying counterfeit goods. Either cough up the extra $10 or $15 for the real thing, or just content yourself with mp3s.

Re:RTFA

[sasami]

If i'm actually going to spend money on a product, i damn well want the profit going to the people who deserve it, not some criminals somewhere.

It's worth mentioning that the "criminals" are well-known: they are the mafia. The vast majority of professional piracy (video, music, and software) is run by organized crime. These aren't small-time copy shops.

And before anyone trots out a "Good, screw the MPAA!" joke, keep in mind that at least some of these outfits utilize "indentured" slave labor. That bootleg DVD on eBay may very well have been packaged by a college student who thought he was paying a nice man to smuggle him out of China.

Hong Kong is the greater culprit, incidentally. There isn't really anyone in Taiwan producing Engrish-subtitled bootleg DVDs.

--
Dum de dum.

The usual questions

[Cyburbia]

Is the FAQ hosted on a server running Linux? What distribution? What version of Apache? Was the FAQ coded using emacs or vi?

Re:The usual questions

[DragonC]

Well it may be tagged as "Funny" but I can certainly answer these questions. I am the owner of the server that hosts Anime Digital.

The server is a Lotus Domino V6.01 running on a Windows 2000 server. The main anime.org.uk application is a Domino Database. We sub-host to a variety of UK organisations and clubs for free.

Joe has done some sterling work in getting this FAQ updated. Since I keep the logs I can tell that quite a few respectable companies have perused it.

Joe has twice attempted to slashdot my server now. And this time he tried it even further by posting on animeondvd and on Anime News Network.

I guess he's going to have to pay at the next London Anime Club meeting.

David "Dragon" Cotterill
President: London Anime Club

Fansub groups

[Anonymous Coward]

For the most part, the fansub groups only distribute unlicensed (meaning not currently being distributed by a legitimate US outfit) anime. Most of the fansub groups don't try to hide either. Tracking them down, would be much easier than chasing after people on P2P networks.

Because the anime copyright holders aren't out suing the fansub groups to oblivion, I assume there's an informal understanding between them. The fansub groups do a lot to promote the anime to an audience that the anime producers may not have the time or resources to focus on. There are many animes that would never make it to the US audience otherwise. Likewise, when the animes do get licensed in the US, the fansub groups almost always stop, even if they are only a couple episodes from completing the series (eg. Wolf's Rain).

Re:Fansub groups

[TomHandy]

Yeah, there has generally always been an informal understanding, although some newer digisub groups seem to disregard the understanding more and more.

For example, Anime-Kingdom agreed to stop fansubbing and distributing Gundam Seed after Bandai said at Otakon that they wanted people to stop fansubbing it, but AK also took a number of jabs at Bandai and seemed upset about being requested to stop fansubbing it.

Some groups have continued on with subbing Gundam Seed anyway in spite of Bandai's request, such as Anime-Kraze. And although Wolf's Rain was stopped by the main fansub group, it seems that a "temporary group" called Wolfnick sprang up to keep subbing it after the licensing announcement.

There are still plenty of anime fansub groups that do stop fansubbing when a show is licensed, but there are an increasing number of groups which disregard the licensing status of a show and keep fansubbing anyway, and get upset with companies when they are asked to stop.

-Tom

Re:corousing the two sites

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is this

:P

[Anonymous Coward]

Real pirates use DVD-ARRRRR

But who's selling it?

[twoallbeefpatties]

The U.S. doesn't have much authority to go after the people that pirate anime. The stereotypical point of sale for this stuff is Hong Kong. Though not everything comes out of there, obviously, the majority is printed and distributed from the Far East, not from within the U.S., and surely you've heard about the rampancy of piracy in countries like China, where more software, music, and movies are sold as pirated material than as the real thing. They have enough trouble as it is going after the niche stuff like anime.

It's important to keep the consumer aware about this stuff because most of it is something "we" have no control over. If you're ever in Boston, go to Tokyo Kid in Harvard Square, an anime-goods-only store, and check out their selection. They don't sell the video ripoffs, but they do have an extremely good selection of pirated CDs. Of course, you wouldn't know that the CDs are pirates. They look just like the real thing, except for the fine print that credits "Ever Anime" as the distributor.

Or check out eBay. I'ma hop over and type "Lain" into the search box and see what comes up. Choose the section of results from videos only. Of the 50 results on the first page, 4 of those results were people selling a region 1 DVD. The rest are selling region-free discs, and some aren't even shy about shipping directly from Hong Kong, Singapore, or Malaysia, while others are proud to be U.S. sellers. And if the sellers aren't even in the U.S., what jurisdiction does even eBay have to do about it? Are they going to go in and hand-pick out every pirate disc they find? Serious caveat-emptor.

Interesting double standard?

[JessLeah]

I'm not trying to incite a flamewar. I AM, however, interested in seeing what SlashDotters have to say about this concept: It seems to me that there is a "double standard" on "piracy" (I hate that word; see this page for some reasons why not to use this word) here. When people "pirate" the MPAA's latest, no one cares, but when people "pirate" anime, people here get upset. Why?

Re:Interesting double standard?

[RealityProphet]

When people "pirate" the MPAA's latest, no one cares, but when people "pirate" anime, people here get upset. Why?

Because, when people pirate MPAA's latest, it is for personal use. The type of pirating done with anime that gets people angry is when it is resold as original merchandise.

Re:Interesting double standard?

[Microlith]

Primarily because the anime companies are not pushing the DMCA.

The companies themselves have stated that they _do not_ want to sue any fansubbers, and that they wanted the fans to pressure them to stop doing fansubs of stuff like Gundam SEED.

The industry is for the most part built by fans, run by fans, and sold to fans. This is contrary to the music industry and movie industry where the majority of people in it are there solely to leech off the millions made on the big sellers.

Re:Interesting double standard?

[glwtta]

Here's the thing, /. has what, 100s of thousands of readers? And replies to stories rarely go over a thousand, does this suggest to you that maybe you are not hearing from the same people every time?

Interesting, but you miss a couple of nuances.

[Inoshiro]

"If I jump out at you from behind a tree and yell "boo!" to scare you and cause you to have a heart attack and die, it is not murder because I did not have the intent to kill you (even though my act caused you to die and I knew killing someone is murder, which is illegal)."

While it is probable that you won't be guilty of murder, you may be convicted of manslaughter.

Also, you mention that "I knew killing someone is murder, which is illegal" -- this has no bearing at all on the legal case. Ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law. The burder of knowledge of what is legal and not is squarely on you; not knowing it is not a way to avoid prosection and conviction.

Re:Interesting, but you miss a couple of nuances.

[kaltkalt]

Also, you mention that "I knew killing someone is murder, which is illegal" -- this has no bearing at all on the legal case.
I know, I was trying to show the difference between ignorance of law (which the post I was replying to mentioned) and lack of mens rea.


While it is probable that you won't be guilty of murder, you may be convicted of manslaughter.

It's very unlikely. Surprising someone by yelling "boo!" is not in and of itself an inherently dangerous activity sufficient in and of itself to support a manslaughter charge. Now, if I knew the guy I was surprising was really old and had heart problems, and it was the middle of the night and I looked really sketchy (wearing a hood or mask or something)... then manslaughter may be possible. But just surprising someone with "boo!" (without the intent to harm them) is most certainly not sufficiently dangerous to arise to the malice necessary in order to imply the intent to support a murder charge.

(yes, this off-topic, but still abstractly relevant to the original post.)

Question about StarBlazers

[zakezuke]

Last time I looked at the faq... it didn't seem to have any information regarding the quicktime versions of starblasers season 1 which I believe were released legitamatly by the copyright holders. Not sure on that issue but I downloaded them from http://www.studionext.com.

Anyone else have info on this subject, i'm curious whether or not they may be freely redistrubed.

Prince Planet

[Jafafa Hots]

I was thinking about how much I just don't give a shit about this topic... and how lame /. has been the last few days...

then I remembered the only anime I ever liked, before it was called that - Prince Planet. Love that show as a kid. I also know that it has never been released...

So, if I could get a pirated version of it, then hooray for pirates!

DVD Costs

[Midnight Thunder]

One thing that animation companies could do is reduce the cost of the DVDs. Here in Canada a DVD usually costs around $28 (Canadian) excluding tax, yet an anime DVD is usually in the $36-$46 ball park. Then add to that the first DVD in a series usually has four episodes and then all the subsequent DVDs only have 3, yet at the same cost!?

DVDs are already over-priced as they are. Though all said and done, given that I can't rent, anime DVDs, I find myself caving into buying them. There are many people who will quite happily aquire the 'reduced cost' versions, simply because they can't afford the outrageous prices, or out of principle.

Re:DVD Costs

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank goodness for Chinatown, eh! Why pay through the nose when you can have an almost-as-decent (or even better, on a good day) copy for 8 bucks?

It's no big deal to me, 'cuz I wouldn't ever pay full price anyways EXCEPT a few really special ones - and then a fake just wouldn't do.

All non-Japanese released DVDs are pirate

[Anonymous Coward]

(nt)

Pirates?

[Anonymous Coward]

I figured it was about One Piece

Why I've stopped buying Anime

[Anonymous Coward]

It is impossible to resell and get anything respectable back for what you've paid. Look on ebay and Amazon. Tons of pirated versions selling for a fraction of the price.

ugh.

[Tumbleweed]

> I really really really really really would like to hurt you right now.

You know, it's funny, I get that a lot. :)

Renting Anime

[corgicorgi]

I've found a great way to get anime. I rent anime from this site call AnimeForest.com

They are great and affordable. I've been with them for awhile now and I'm very satisfy. I've wait for a long time for a site like this to pop up. For all you anime fans out there, check it out, it's awesome!

Re:Renting Anime

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, I admit that I did click on the url although the post really has no direct relation to the piracy faq subject. The site is interesting but surely it must be new because I've never seen it before until now and I've been to nearly all the anime sites on the net. But that discussion should really belong somewhere else. On the other hand, seeing that brings to mind my opinion about anime piracy so here goes:

In an economic view of piracy, it's all about supply and demand. If legit companies (studios, rental sites, etc) are not able to satisfy the needs and demand of Anime fans then piracy will always exist. And that's exactly what's happening right now.
a.
The suppliers (studios) are not able to translate enough titles in an adequate pace to satisfy anime viewers.
For ex: take Chobits, .hack, or any popular titles, each volume take almost a month or two before it gets released while a quick search on ebay will get you the entire series in no time.
Personally, I try to buy all the region 1 encodes but sometimes it is just damn hard to wait one month to know what happened at the end of the episode.
b.
The quality (english dub) of region 1 encodes are not always the best. They are getting better and better but still far from it. Sometimes the slangs, raw translations made by fansubs are so much better. Take Kenshin, I've watched the whole series through low-quality image fansubs but the subtitling was far superior to what the region 1 did. Given that, if I knew there's a bootleg or fansub that's a better representative of the original anime, I would get it.
c.
The cost of region 1 titles are outrageous. I mean, come on! In Bestbuy, I can get like Lord of the Rings widescreen for $19.99 while an Anime title costs $24.99. And that's only in the better priced stores like Bestbuy, Fry's and such. Try Tower records, suncoast, or most local anime stores and you will see the titles usually go for $29.99.
And I don't care how rich someone could be, but it's rediculous to fork over something like $200.00 just to watch a series. And yes, the argument could be to either only buy the stuff you really want and borrow the rest from friends, trade, or rent from local stores. But seriously, which friend or blockbuster or any local rental store you've been to have all the anime you ever wanted to see? It simply doesn't exists. Which brings my post back to the initial reason why I wanted to post when I saw the previous post about the rental site animeforest.com. It boasts to be dedicated to anime but in fact, it explicity lists that no hentai will be on it. Now, I guess that's a matter of opinion but I do consider hentai Anime. Also, they still don't have all the titles, like sailor moon uncut, to name just a few. So the site is a step forward towards satisfying the needs of Anime fan but it's still not there yet. And the argument goes true for all the companies, they (studios, stores) are trying (I give them that) but still not there yet.
Thus, Anime Piracy will exist until then.

Re:Renting Anime

[Anonymous Coward]

GreenCine.com has all the Hnttai you want to rent. There are only a few titles that are missing in GreenCine. I would be interested in the Hentai if not for the fact that I got a 20-CD set of Hentai avi files off ebay for 15 bux or something.

RTFP

[neostorm]

I never said it was about fansubs, but it touches on pirate communities taking fansubbed work and selling it as legit material.

The term "underground" is loosely applied. Fansubbing is pretty underground as the majority of people on the net know nothing about it.

"The high prices may justify not buying the original in your mind..."
I have quite a collection of domestic anime, and never once have I said I didn't support buying this form of media.

Obscurity breeds longevity on the net. Slashdot has a knack of bringing a lot of little-known aspects of this community to the attention of the mass majority. The purpose of my post was to express my concern over a topic of personal interest now widely known by several thousand readers. Though the article does not mention the fansubbing community at length, anyone who is not immediately familiar with the concept have now been introduced via the specific mention in the slashdot post.

I read the Article/FAQ. Next time read the post more carefully, but don't hit reply. Instead sit back, think (try it, it works), and then respond. I hope I've cleared up any questions you may have had. Thank you.

One Piece!

[twoallbeefpatties]

Gum-gum rocket punch!!!

Finding Cheap Legit Anime

[SailorBob]

and b) obtaining imported products, especially soundtracks, are _prohibitively_ expensive. This isn't like "go to Tower and pick up the CD for 15 bucks" ... these things run 30 and 40 dollars for the real mccoy.

Not true, you just don't know where to look. If you're going to Amazon to pick up your Anime you're out of your mind. Try a place like Deep Discount DVD . I picked up Berserk (the most awesome series ever!) for $18.00 there (4 episodes on the disk) when it's $27.00 at Amazon. Same thing with the Kenshin Samurai X OVA - TRUST & BETRAYAL; $18.00 at Deep Discount DVD and $25.50 at Amazon. Amazing movie by the way.

I've also seen the same thing with Anime posters, toys and soundtracks - you just have to do a little work looking around; if you do you'll find good deals.

Re:Finding Cheap Legit Anime

[DeadScreenSky]

The stuff you are listing is not imports, though. They are domestic releases. Big difference, and not at all what the grandparent was talking about.

Re:Please stop posting about Anime

[lemody]

i usually watch my anime with raw japanese audio and raw english subtitles.

And here I thought this was....

[Anonymous Coward]

a FAQ about Pirates

Arg, Matey!!


-Megabyte

Re:Please stop posting about Anime

[usotsuki]

Subtitled != Raw ;)

-uso.

Let's Eat Salt!

[skyknytnowhere]

Same thing happened to me, the engrish was strangely incomprehensible, when even the english references in the Japanese script having been transated into Chinese, and then back into English.

This led to a bizarre, but now famous scene, where Spike turned to the camera, and shrugged, saying "Let's eat salt!"

I have no idea what that was supposed to mean.

skye

To be supportive

[phorm]

If you really want to be supportive of the artists, but you're tired of some of the sh*t that comes out in the US (and yes, often enough badly dubbed movies/eps with crappy voiceactors are worse than badly-but-understandable done fansubs) I think the best way would be to get the Japanese version and the fansub.

Going with what you've described above, you can figure out the gist of what's going on from the fansub and perhaps some translational articles, and remake them if you have the equipment to do the subbing/burning etc. That's for hardcore, or you could just watch the fansubs that you downloaded off kazaa while still feeling good because you've supported the original artist by actually purchasing a legit DVD as well.

The question is: How many times do you watch anime where you don't know the language, and the subs are bad but you can figure out what they're trying to say? Must be nice to have the burner and time to sub, as I'd love to correct some of these awful translations myself.

Oh, and as a question: another issue is timeframe. How long does it take for the ripping/re-burning of a DVD (subbing I suppose depends on the episode and translations done) on an average DVD burner now?