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American Anime Localization Company Tries Torrents
zalas writes "AnimeOnDVD reports that David Williams of ADV Films is testing out using BitTorrent as a distribution method. Currently, he has a promotional video of Madlax, one of their titles, up for download via a torrent and has "much larger plans in mind." He is looking for feedback regarding this and can be left on the AnimeOnDVD Forums. ADV Films licenses Japanese animation from Japanese studios for distribution in North America and the UK."
Linux/BSD torrents LinuxISOtorrent.com
Madlax is actually pretty good; very Noir-ish, but slightly more lighthearted (but not much).
-- My Sig is a P228.
While I'm not a big Anime fan (tastes are limited to the overly popular Akira and Ghost in the Shell), I wish more media companies would have more open thinking like Mr. Williams and ADV. Instead of vilifying the technology, use it to your advantage. If there is an enemy to the media companies, it isn't the method, but the users, the method can benefit anyone willing to use the technology, including the media companies. So I applaud this move, and I hope it works extremely well for them, so maybe those who want to defend bittorrent have a good arguement in their favor and if they still decide to shut it down; don't worry, something better is waiting in the wings for sure.
"Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
for distribution in North America and the UK.,
I am left wondering how they are going to police people from other countries downloading these shows illegally?
Orationem pulchram non habens, scribo ista linea in lingua Latina
I'm not quite sure what this change plans to achieve. One of the main reasons those who already bittorrent anime buy dvd's is to obtain the physical product, the box art, and to actually own the finished article. Changing the distribution model of for-sale US R1 anime towards bittorrent is surely just going to bring the product into direct comparison with its percieved 'competition', the fansubs that precede the release dates by months and can often have far higher quality/authentic translation. The portion of the anime audience with the technical know-how to operate bittorrent are probably already taking advantage of the great efforts of fansubbers, and those who may be introduced to bittorrent through ADV in some way will surely go on to find these resources.
Business Voyeur
But Capitalizing Every Word In That Headline Really Seemed To Stand Out More Than Usual.
...what. ADV + torrent? Sorry, you just broke my brain.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime .php?id=3714
not id=1429
Distribution? I believe the word you're looking for is 'butchering'.
Butchering? You're looking for 4Kids. ADV hasn't butchered anything in YEARS, and they've never once done anything like what 4Kids has done.
Feel free to mod me into oblivion, it felt good and was worth it.
Seems more like a waste, and a lashing out in ignorance...
Try something original! Doesn't anyone remember the perfectly legal copy of Star Wars Episode III that Lucas Films released a couple of days before it hit the theaters. Genius!
ADV Films is one of the few (only?) anime localization companies that aggressively hunts and shuts down torrents of their releases on bittorrent sites.
Also this is not the first time an anime has made its english-language debut on the free web. Dead Leaves, the omnibus feature The Animatrix, and Armitage: Dual Matrix all come to mind. While ADV may be the first to use bittorrent as the official distribution method for this type of thing, I don't see why that should magically earn them a headline on Slashdot's frontpage, unless it was important that everyone wastes their time to check out the laughably bad first episode of Madlax.
Given ADV's past, I'm much more inclined to believe that rather than testing a new distribution method, they're trying to collect IP addresses for future lawsuits against downloaders.
Yes, this wouldn't necessarily make a lot of sense, I know, but ADV has proven in the past that the stupid is quite strong with them.
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:5IUY2W3Y5J26MG4WCT7J6VLCXPKSFD ER
(NOTE: /. inserts a space at 50 characters, so remember to remove it)
This should still work if the tracker starts to get bogged down.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
Some of us consider using horrible voice actors as "butchering". Not only are the voice actors horrible, there is only a small pool of voice actors that they select from. So the same person who ruined Character X from Series X has gone on to ruin Character Y from Series Y. I haven't gone to an anime convention in two years because I'd probably end up in jail for assaulting anyone who is there to represent the american dubbing companies (I like to think of them all as slaughter houses). Anime and manga from Japan are art. The types of voices that the producer and director select are part of the package. They are part of the vision. What these American dubbing companies do is the equivalent of walking into an art gallery with a sledge hammer and a box cutter. Art galleries have security guards. Who will protect anime from these vandals?
So, they're using BT to reduce the load on their servers for their promos? So what, it doesn't seem like they're going to be actually using BT as their primary distrubition tool -- they'll still keep going with DVDs and most likely still keep C&D sites that have their content provided by BT.
In spite of not having the script, many fansub groups do a superior job of translating as compared with "professional" translation.
One of the major benefits of fansubs is the cultural and translation notes that are becoming more common with digisubbing (assuming a competent sub group).
Part of the problem with DVD distribution is that the technology doesn't really support these notes. ADV has pushed the the DVD spec as far as it can with its "AD-Vid notes" (found on the "Excel Saga" DVDs). I preferred the capsule option that came on the "Akira" DVD, because you could pause for a sec to read a translation of the grafitti or ignore the capsule icon and keep watching the movie.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
4Kids is nowhere near as bad as the people from Nelvana were in their butchering ... they cut the Card Captor Sakura series in complete and utter shreds.
Some of us consider using horrible voice actors as "butchering".
Ah, well then ADV certainly doesn't "butcher." All of their DVD's feature some of the top voice talent in all of Japan!
Oh... you are probably listening to the English dubs... You poor, misguided bastard. You really should know better by now.
(And don't give me that shit about the Bandai dubs like "Cowboy Bebop" being any better. Sure most of the English cast, apart from Wendee Lee, is relatively capable, but they are talking over what were vastly superior performances. Subtitles are the only way to go, short of actually learning the language.)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I hate that fucking bunny.
Could you two go into detail about what exactly the fuck you are talking about? Some context here would be great. When I stopped watching so much anime around 2000 or so, ADV was still fucking shit up with bizarre "hip" translations. Has it gotten worse?
Am I the only person left on the planet that can't stand Anime?
My Tech Posts on Twitter
Well in the 5 years that you've been out, more or less the industry has changed completely.
ADV got voraciously bitched at about their flaky translations and for the most part have cleaned up their act. Funky dub jobs like the ones Orphen got are a thing of the past, but I don't listen to them as much as I watch with subs, and those are more or less spot in the far majority of cases.
Basically, they can't get away with that anymore without getting called on it hard at a con. And so they don't.
For everyone that wants companies to understand BitTorrent, now's your chance to vote with your Net connection (and indirectly, your wallet). I'm probably the furthest thing from an anime fan (don't hate it; just don't like it), but I'm downloading and seeding this file just to show my support of the technology.
If this trial of BitTorrent goes well for this particular company, then that's one more "good" use of torrents we can use to fight the people who want to shut it down because of its possible "bad" uses.
I encourage all BitTorrent supporters to encourage AnimeOnDVD's test of new technology and new delivery models with me.
The company has laid off over 75% of their staff in the last year. A friend of mine was part of the last round of layoffs.
The company is desperate to try anything to stay in business.
I'm sure there are plenty of Japanese people "taking sledgehammers" to American art as well. Do you think people in Japan watch American made movies with English audio and Japanese subs, or just listen to the dub? I'd rather listen to the dialogue than read it in a video. You can have your subtitled stuff, I'll stick with dubs. As will most people, in the USA, Japan, and the rest of the world.
Watching all the original animes that come from Japan, the Japanese voice actors are no better than the US ones once it has been put on over here. They all fucking suck, so quit trying to sound elite among your anime watching friends.
I'll tell you this.
This past weekend was AnimeFriends (www.animefriends.com.br) in Brazil, the country's largest yearly anime 'congress'. As usual, you have a huge amount of people doing cosplay. This year, a MAJOR part of the cosplaying people was inspired on Naruto.. I'd say, I don't know, around 1/3rd of the cosplayers were based on the series. Not counting the huge number of people with Naruto headbands that can be bought online on a local brazilian ecommerce site, I saw a lot of Narutos, all flavors of Sasukes, several different Rock Lees (even the "young" one), all Kakashis had their own "Gentleman series" booklet (I've forgot the name, sorry), there was a pic someone took that had three Kibas, women impersonating Oroshimaru... and so on and so forth.
But the thing is, Naruto isn't even broadcasted on TV here. It isn't even broadcasted outside of japan for that matter. It's all because of the torrent distribution and the people that buys it on dvd/vcd from other local shops (few, I think). Because the official, bureaucratic series version takes years to reach those countries (apparently we'll get Naruto on the end of this year, when we'll also get the local version of cartoon network's Adult Swim - yay!), people take matters in their own hands and end up getting used to it. Torrent is part of the anime culture now.
I also saw a lot of people from real obscure animes I barely know the name.
Torrent... I don't know *how* anime companies can profit from it.. I personally doubt they can. But that the format has some huge potential for distribution is undeniable.. even here, where broadband isn't so widespread, people are used to going online every thursday to get their weekly Naruto fix via torrent.
Subtitles are the only way to go, short of actually learning the language
I disagree with you for good English dubs. I've a feeling that you don't know how poor most Japanese language tracks are if you can speak the language. As a casual anime fan, I certainly have no objection to a good English dub. It's not like the material wasn't originally dubbed anyway (it's a cartoon).
And yes, Helsing and Cowboy Bebop are two of the best English dubs available. They are far more enjoyable than the Japanese soundtracks. With Cowboy Bebop they used some wonderful accents (like Katerina in episode 1) and the sound effects are better as well since it was remastered (most obvious with the communication chatter). With Helsing they used English actors and actresses (the series is set in England, although Alucard is still American) - and it sounds fantastic.
And even if you dislike the English voices, it's not like the Japanese track isn't on the disk.
Video capture + cheap storage + modest processor + P2P software + internet connection = the end of broadcast, cable and sat TV.
YOU should really know better.
:)
subtitles just plain suck.
and listening to a language that i don't understand simply makes no sense to me to do if i can help it.
i'd rather not read a movie but instead concentrate on what's going on. only elitist "otaco"s would say otherwise. (yes it is intentional, as a way of disparaging your views
if you can read and write japanese, good for you.
most of the world can't.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
If they were in high quality xvid mkv with soft subs and dual audio, I would pay say $4 per episode, or a pack of 6 for $20.
Maybe even allow you to earn credit by seeding a ton, to encourage the BT usage...
A little disappointed this is just a promo. I would honestly pay for an anime download service if the prices were reasonable (read: comparable to my local rental place). The attraction of online anime to my mind isn't the illegal free-ness, it's convenience and a greater selection.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
So that's some kind of symlink ... right?
... Standards and Practices !
PenGun
Do What Now ???
i'd rather not read a movie but instead concentrate on what's going on.
Ritalin is your friend.
actually having just been in japan...
almost exclusively, they watch english products with subtitles. They're literate... meaning they know how to read and would rather hear original audio.
I'll leave the seeder up for a while but really I guess I've been spoiled by Adult Swim.
... Standards and Practices !
PenGun
Do What Now ???
ADV can't sell outside their authorized regions (sometimes it's R1 only, othertimes it's everywhere but R2 Japan/R3 Asia)
How do DVD distributors in Europe prevent a Region 2 (Europe) disc from getting to Region 2 (Japan)? Though the PlayStation 2's built-in DVD player can't convert a PAL disc to an NTSC signal, a lot of other players can.
Not to knock ADV, but who exactly is going to care about this? The majority of the piracy that goes on in the anime community is fueled by the distaste for the piss poor translations and bastardization of the fans' favorite series. Great example is Detective Conan... was renamed to Case Files and a LOT of people went into a flying rage. The addition of Karaoke couldn't hurt either.
The way I see it the only market they MIGHT reclaim is from those that solely illegally DL DVD "rips".
It's the same old song and dance... the companies refuse to realize that if you treat your customers with respect and give them what they want you will make money, not offer them torrents. Fans don't DL torrents, because it's convienent... it's hell keeping up with the pacing... they just hate the crap the companies are trying to shovel their way.
A lot of anime/manga pirates do it for reasons other than getting it for free.
This is interesting, though there are some companies who are even further out of touch, such as "Pioneer Entertainment" who distribute the great series "Last Exile". Most DVDs generally top out at the $30 CAD price mark here, yet the "Last Exile" DVDs are tagged at $45 CAD, which just sounds like price gouging.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
A listener is not capable of judging whether the original voice acting "vastly superior" without knowing the language it's spoken in.
only elitist "otaco"s would say otherwise.
Sounds like something you'd get at a Mexican restaurant in Ireland. Perhaps you meant otaku?
It appears it is no longer flamebait. Now it's moderated as troll.
Actually, I was referring to doing things such as blurring out large portions of the screen to insert the same english credits that are at the end of the episode in an intro-less ep, or digitally editing signs and stuff, or hey..here's one: Providing the worst subtitles I've ever seen outside of the fansub community. (That's assuming the DVDs even WORK.)
Companies like ADV are why I pay twice as much for Japanese DVDs, and STILL can't introduce my friends to anime.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
bullshit.
dubs suck. (and don't give me that crap about how even the original is dubbed blah blah it's understood that dub used as a noun means something thats been redubbed)
this has nothing to do with anime, dubs just suck. have you seen the french dub of batman? it sucks because it's a dub. when something is translated from language x to language y, suckification happens. when a voice seems unnatural becuase it's trying sync up with lips, suckification happens. this is a fact that you cannot argue.
now add to that crappy voice actors and editing of content and you might be able to understand why people so fervently hate anime dubs
if i'm not immortal, what's the point of living?
...te?
Torrents are already used massively to distribute anime.
Do you mean Commander Otaco? Or his Irish counterpart, Commander O'Taco? Or the honorable octopus O-Tako? I'm confused here...
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
While I agree with your point about dubs sucking having nothing to do with anime directly:
At least in the past, anime production adds the soundtrack after the animation has already been laid down, even for the Japanese audio. No difference between the English and the Japanese there. They both gotta lip sync against the video.
I disagree - the jazzy flavor of Cowboy Bebop was best watched in English. It just fits the show better. I hate the Japanese voices.
That's especially true for comedies (which is what I mainly watch).
where people kept dematerializing and then rematerializing with part of their bodies embedded in the ship? You'd hear a scream, and everyone would run around the corner only to find some poor sap with his torso sticking out of the floor? I used to think it would be sweet if I was a member of the Enterprise crew and Counselor Troy dematerialized and then rematerialized with one of her 3 holes facing into my personal quarters. My own private Star Trek glory hole...
i was just being an "intentional" jerk in order to bring about a point.
some people just don't like subtitles and one of those people is me.
i've often heard those people we're talking about basically bite the head off people who claim they listen to "dubs" and like it better etc etc.
i mean come on.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
Not entirely. There is no formally taught or learned body language, yet we can understand people from entirely different backgrounds by their body language.
You might not understand the *content* of what is said, but the vocal nuances you do pick up. And they aren't always that subtle either, i.e. Cowboy Bebop English Ed vs. Japan Ed or Spike vs. Spike. In the Japan version, Spike is cocky and cool but with a dark and serious side that is easily picked up. His cockiness comes close, but never quite passes the threshold of annoying. It makes him less of your annoying step-brother and more of a fragile/complex/deep character. He has issues and you eventually see them manifest.
The English Spike comes off as some sort of carefree slacker with a pretend serious side. His coolness just isn't the same with the voice. It's a little too high-pitched or whiny. And it's also obvious that it's acting. The lines are very forced.
yeh i understand the part about the lip movement already being drawn but its drawn to be similar to what the person is going to say based on known movements of the mouth associated with producing syllables. in the japanese dubbing they have to sync up with whats expected (like the christmas episode of southpark where stan and kyle made their own little animation), but the american dubbing has to fit completely different syllables and meter into the lip movements.
Man, I wouldn't want to be left on the AnimeOnDVD Forums... oh wait, you meant that the feedback can... er, nevermind. *cough, cough*
I'm only wearing black until they come out with something darker.
I've heard good dubs, and I've seen bad subtitles.
I'll just say that, on average, I feel the japanese voice-acting is far superior to the english voice-acting.
The english Goku is annoying, robotech is painful.
On the other hand, english Hellsing is good. Some of the Tenchi stuff isn't bad.
I don't read AC A human right
Gotta love bittorrent. The only thing we can't slashdot!
Actually, many of them probably watch it in the original English. After all, they teach the english language in school early enough for it to be usefull.
Subtitles are far cheaper than replacing the voices with *decent* voice talent, much less good talent. Also, dubbing is a more developed art for the other languages/countries. It's a relativly new thing for english.
I don't read AC A human right
One of the big challenges Pixar & Disney faced in dubbing "Howl's Moving Castle" (Yes, I know it's credited to Disney, but it was actually supervised by Peter Docter, a long-time Pixar guy going back to Toy Story), was that the name "Howl" in Japanese is two distinct syllables (How-ru), so all the animation was done with two "mouth flaps" every time his name was spoken.
(Best dub I ever saw, by the way... That's not to say I'm not eagerly looking forward to the DVD so I can hear the original performances.)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Now I help to run an anime society, and we schedule subs there, and I mainly watch subs, but I see nothing wrong at alll with dubs. It's all about accessibility. Most dubs these days (Initial D aside) stay close to the source material and include casting on the good side of the scale. If it continues to be done with that in mind then anime will reach more people which is exactly what I try to promote on a daily basis (Albeit within a small Welsh university...which has the 4th largest anime society in Britain, go figure, we must get a bunch of weirdos at Aberystwyth). I take the opinion that if I want to watch an anime I pick the sub first, but if I want to watch it while eating, or when tired I put the dub on at home because dubs have been getting better and better for quite some time. The only people I know who still cling to the "All dubbing is bad" idea are the last remnants of the community who believe that anime needs to stay niche, and that a good old flamewar about it on a forum will help any anime community.
I use bt a lot to sample stuff fresh from Japan. Even admiting this there are a lot of shows I don't watch partially or completely simply due to a lack of hours in the day to download let alone watch. Offering sample epsiodes by bittorrent is a great idea because hey I may have not seen it the first time around.
One issue the US side has is a lack of advertising. The facts are there are a limited number of ways to advertise your licensed material. Given the way Anime pricing works, its very cut throat and you need to keep it cheap or you eat into any profit you could have had.
The best way to advertise a show like MadLax is to show it on TV (think [adult swim]). There is not enough hours in the day to do this for every show so only a select few make it there. At the moment I can't imagine how much it costs for a shot a midnight Saturday time slot.
The next way to advertise is to buy another ADV show and watch the previews they always include. This represents a small bootstrap problem: how did they find the other show in the first place?
One of the last ways to advertise unfortunately is on the shelf. Competition is feirce here so there is no gain by anyone at this point. In fact its so brutal that someone might not buy Anime at all if a cheaper mainstream US movie is just down the isle for half the price.
What the US side has been trying to do is include "sampler" DVD disks in the mags like US version of "NewType" but this can get cost prohibited and the circulation numbers are down.
Enter this idea from Williams on how to get the word out to more people on the US release cheaper(*) and wider than showing it on [adult swim] or by stuffing mags with disks. I think giving out the sampler episodes on torrent is a great idea if they can figure out how to seed sources cheaply. It sure beats using Netflix or praying it shows up on TV.
in what way is japanese voice acting superior?
for me, i would have to have a far more enormous understanding of japanese culture and people and language to make such a distinction.
i have no such understanding. i just want to enjoy watching a movie/video and not have to learn all the intracacies that go along with having your level of understanding. you see, i don't speak japanese. i don't read japanese. i don't understand in great detail the japanese culture. i also don't want to get a phd in japanese/culture in order to more fully enjoy a video.
that's overstating it but some people want to be more involved and enjoy that sort of thing. for me, all i hear is noise and chatter. i rather want something that i understand and can relax and enjoy the film.
i guess i'm saying that i see it as a form of entertainment rather than an art form. so in that context, is it reasonable to say that i prefer dubs to subs? accounting for disgust with the english voice acting etc.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
You're probably right, but I have noticed audible differences in some shows (Cowboy Bebop for the most popular of them).
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
What the hell? I accuse them of butchery and suddenly I'm a dub-watcher?
I'd still rather eat glass than watch dubbed anime, but what's wrong with the concept that they SHOULD be able to do a decent dub? I mean, I AM paying for it afterall. By buying a crappy, low-bitrate American anime DVD, I AM PAYING FOR IT. And on top of that, 99% of the time anime is on TV in the US, it'll be dubbed. So, don't you think it's in their vested interest to produce something that doesn't suck, so people aren't immediately turned off?
But that's all beside the point; if you think the 'butchering' I'm referring to has something to do with the dubs though, you obviously don't know enough Japanese to know that the subtitle translation is inaccurate, at best, let alone watch it WITHOUT them.
If Japanese DVDs didn't cost twice as much for half as many episodes, I wouldn't have any R1 DVDs in my collection. Since the lack of subs wouldn't be a deal-breaker; the R1s are so bad as it is I usually don't want to watch them with my (non-anime-loving) friends.
Something worth noting: A good Japanese anime DVD with 2 episodes on it, uses more of the DVD's space than a US DVD with 4-5 episodes and English audio.
Would you say compromising the visual quality of the DVDs falls under the heading of 'butchery'? I would.
Would you say that cluttering the disc with crappy dubs no one listens to, and subtitles that sometimes come within a mile or two of an 'accurate translation' maybe, kinda sorta, falls under the heading of 'butchery', or at the very least 'bullshit'? Meh.
Would you say that doing bad things to the original content for no good reason falls under the heading of 'butchery'? I certainly would. Want proof? Rent RahXephon, DVD 1. Watch the first couple minutes of episode 1 and explain to me why they needed to do that.
And what about releasing DVDs that are quite simply...SCREWED? I especially loved the RahXephon movie. They made sure the English audio was perfect...but the Japanese...well, they didn't seem to notice that for half the movie, all the audio was coming from one side. Oops. Atleast they RECALLED that one, no such luck with what they did to the TV series' first DVD.
4kids is another story, their butchery is so far beyond the scope of the normal order of things that it defies a proper definition...
Tokyopop wouldn't be far off, if they hadn't included the ORIGINAL Initial D on the DVDs with their Americanized craptastrophe. (I actually own those, 10 DVDs and counting, even my father loves Initial D...the fact that he drives like Bunta is probably responsible for me never getting behind the wheel of anything not being rendered by a game engine.)
One last thing, when ADV's Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai DVDs came out, I reviewed them sub, dub and all. I thought they'd turned over a new leaf; the dub was actually GOOD (for a dub, anyway), and the subtitles were fairly ACCURATE...they even included these popup bubbles that explained things to the uninitiated, so they didn't have to dumb down the subs! As time passed, I started to suspect that the series was either an isolated incident, or it was outsourced to people who knew what they're doing.
Funimation's work on Fruits Basket isn't bad either...which is surprising, as Funimation is...bad. They have two subtitle tracks, a sort of dumbed down set of English subs, and another that includes name suffixes, and were generally pretty neat.
It'd be nice if more companies followed those two examples. (For one, I really hate it when they drop name suffixes, or God forbid, actually try to 'translate' them. Pioneer's 'x-chan = little x', anyone? The choice and use of particular suffixes is a very important clue to how characters relate to eachother... And the optional pop-up subpicture track would eliminate the need to overexplain typical Japanese stuff, by including notes for people who don't understand Japanese culture. Even fansub groups include notes. Why the hell don't t
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Fansubs now fall under the (in this case bad) wording of the "Family Entertainment and Copyright Act"
Basically by releaseing Anime in another region it has not yet been released/licensed in it is now considered a "pre-release" and punishable by a sentence of up to three years in jail.
The VERY important part is the owner of the license does NOT even have to file the complaint...its now criminal offense, not your ordinary copyright infringement of civil court.
This is a emo drama timebomb waiting to explode I swear -_-
#1 Ask Funimation about Dec Conan...
Answer: They were told "change its name or we sue"
Don't believe me? Email them yourself. They have always been VERY frank with the fans of the series about every chance with that show.
Not to mention I've "never" understood why some people claim fansubs are actually accurate...good god they are not...A few groups maybe but the majority cut so many corners to be the "first" its rediculous...And no, I'm not just taking about the HK bootleg crap.
(Great ex: Kenshin was one of the WORST and I mean WORST fansubs ever done by MANY communities...few even bothered to do half ass research into getting some rather important aspects right...Funniest thing was Media Blasters got ribbed HARD for not using many of the fansubbers mistakes -_- )
Remember above all else the number one rule in anime is:
Nobody but NOBODY screws up anime more than the japanese...
(* most owners/creators are personally responsible for most of the crap that happens to some series. Fans just assumed it was the US copany that had $.$ instead of the owner/creator)
That's because it's from the same people.
Incidentally, almost universal opinion is that Madlax is one of the worst anime titles to come along in quite a while. Animation is poor, the music is horrible, the plot line is boring and confusing at the same time, etc.
Please help metamoderate.
1. Release anything on BitTorrent (or similar P2P network). /. (Get /.'d). ...
2. Get mentioned on
3. Instant brand building with the tech crowd.
4. Anything is better than no PR.
5.
6. Profit!!!
I am currently helping a couple of friends market their music and scifi and plan to use this method (for advertising).
Charles Jo
In English we imply relationships with tone and less formalised versions of the "suffixes" e.g. bro' for anniki. As far as I am concerned you shouldn't even sub them, all it does is exclude people from fandom because they don't know what implications a suffix has, if you can imply that same thing in English then more people understand it without taking the source material and ripping it up into shreds.
Oh, and Abenobashi was oursourced as all ADV projects supposedly were (I don't think it's the case now as some of the "studios" have merged), matter fact it was almost all the same people in the same studio, but never mind that. If you're going to pick on one real bone in the whole dub world it is the fact that almost no US distributor dubs "Ensemble", they record each actor's track separately which can create a horrible stilted feeling to some dubs.
If Japanese DVDs didn't cost twice as much for half as many episodes, I wouldn't have any R1 DVDs in my collection.
Something worth noting: A good Japanese anime DVD with 2 episodes on it, uses more of the DVD's space than a US DVD with 4-5 episodes and English audio.
Sounds like you've already voted with your wallet. You've chosen price over quality.
Foreign fans are only willing to spend a fraction of the money that Japanese fans spend per episode buying DVDs. It shouldn't come as any surprise that they get a fraction of the "respect." Their opinions simply aren't worth as much.
Not sure what i mean?
http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php
or more specifically
http://static.thepiratebay.org/adv_mail.txt
and
http://static.thepiratebay.org/adv_response.txt
"I reject your reality, and substitute my own" - Adam Savage
I wonder how this wold work out legally, since by using BT as a distribution method they are now no longer the only distributor of the product. Anyone on the torrent is also a distributor.
I have no sig yet I must scream.
in what way is japanese voice acting superior?
They spend more effort on it, I guess. I'm hardly a serious critic, but when I hear a squeaky Goku, or Minmay's singing, it's bad. Overacting abounds. The problem does tend to be less with the newer/more popular animes.
for me, i would have to have a far more enormous understanding of japanese culture and people and language to make such a distinction.
It helps if you understand the language of course. My knowledge of japanese is hardly encylopedic, so I often need the subtitles anyways. Then again, I often tend to turn on subtitles for english flicks as well. As for having a Phd, Anime is hardly Shakespeare, and many of the 'in-jokes' remain, even after dubbing. Remember, many titles are 'light' entertainment.
Oh, and I can read at 9600 baud, so reading the subtitles isn't a big deal to me.
Even so, I think I'd prefer dub, as long as the voice-acting is up to at least television standards. It's just that many of my early experiences were so bad that I tend to think of the subtitled version as the 'safe' one.
I don't read AC A human right
...at least from a non-US perspective, ADV's releases are really poor in terms of localisation and sometimes, even content. I can't believe they don't include chapter selection in their DVD menus, which is something really basic (note: I'm *not* talking about episode selection, but individual chapter selection) and it's even more sad since the chapters are there on the DVD, just not used.
Aside that, the presentation is somewhat lacking, and all. Other companies have been doing better efforts (cf. Bandai).
I don't think Bittorrent will help them improve their quality, I think it will just make matters worse (remember ADV Fansubs?).
A CC-licensed illustrated horror novel
i'd much rather save money on the packaging - the movie is what you are really after - buy an art book with the change ;)
497KB/sec before the torrent finished
> Oh, and I can read at 9600 baud, so reading the subtitles isn't a big deal to me.
;)
While I agree with most of what you said, I think there is little chance you can actually read 9600 characters per second.
-- OpenVerse Visual Chat: http://openverse.com
amen to that. dubs suck. subs rule. and not only in anime.
Let's not forget why they are desperate to try anything... They went on a rampage attacking websites through their ISP with out first talking to webmasters, it created more bad blood then anything else, and people have boycotted their dvds (I know I have) I bite my toungue when I buy their manga even..
They didn't want people to learn about their anime like that, so people couldn't learn about the anime they owned, watching dubs on tv wasn't helpful for that, and so people just decided most of it wasn't worth their time to buy blind.
I don't think they are embrassing BT, they are just trying to get the online community to believe they arn't so bad, too bad some of us remember how their gestopo tactics were and still can't support them.
Besides the fact that in March's NewType USA, an interview with Koichi Mashimo (MADLAX's director and the head of Bee Train) let on that MADLAX is the second part of "a trilogy of works featuring pistol-packing babes", there's some more immediate comparisons you can make. Noir tends to be very serious, but Madlax makes up for it by being more fun. Noir is the long sunset roadtrip speeding across the beautiful countryside, Madlax is the wild loopy rollercoaster ride that you keep taking until your head spins -- in a good way. But I've come up with what I think is the best summary of them all: Madlax is Noir's mischevious Evil Antimatter Twin, but without the goatees.
Kineska: Cinema, soapbox, music & musings
baka!
#1 Assumes he knows japanese better than someone who is a paid translator. Seems to blow off research thinking just because he has a fair amount of knowledge it allows him to critisize professionals.
#2 Assumes he knows more about Audio Video compressing than a professional...Thinks "bigger is better" with filesize.
#3 Thinks no one listens to dubs... Forgets old and recent history of split releases...and the ten-fold difference in sales.
#4 Blames problems on hated commercial target instead of where they belong. Typically acts like it was "done on purpose", just to "screw with him"
#5 Seemss shocked even one good title exhists.
Do you work for ADV or something?
ADV hasn't butchered anything in YEARS
Yes, they have. They put out the first two seasons of Sailor Moon on DVD. The video transfers were barely VHS quality. The sound was barely there at all. Even the case quality was just passable. In the second season they even left an episode out completely!
It was crap, through and through. People only bought it (I bought it used, myself) because they knew that thanks to ADV, this was highly likely to be the only form they'd ever be able to get the first two seasons in on Region 1 DVDs.
Compare the ADV release of Sailor Moon seasons 1 and 2 with the Pioneer release of Sailor Moon seasons 3 and 4. It's not like night and day, on Earth; it's like day on Mercury compared to night on Pluto (the planets, not the senshi). Pioneer's release didn't have comprehensive extras or anything, but they showed a basic respect for the material.
ADV, on the other hand, was putting out a quick piece of crap to get the cash, before DiC's North American license for the first two seasons ran out. Because they released it under DiC's license, rather than wait for that license to expire and relicense it from Tomei, the Japanese rights holder, they had to use DiC's copies of the masters -- which were crap. But ADV didn't care, they wanted the money.
Like I said, I bought them used. It wasn't hard to find them used, or get them less than half price after word spread at how hideous they were. And I'll never buy ADV again. I was sad when ADV released Azumanga Daioh, since that meant I wasn't going to have it on DVD. But I can survive without it. I don't think ADV will survive much longer. Good riddance.
This is heresy! Anime never gets distributed over BitTorrent!
Oh, a lesson in history from Mr. I'm my own grandpa.
Mass naked child events, Baka-chan. ;)
Brevity is the soul of wit. -- Prince Hamlet of Denmark
Hmmm. I'm going out of business because people are downloading stuff off the Internet without paying.
What can I do? Let's see... Teach more people how to download copyrighted stuff off the Internet! That's it!
It could work.
It has been very disturbing to me to see the big corporations villifying file sharing technologies, and the internet in general instead of leveraging it as a distribution and selling point. A hardy amount of money is spent by anime distributors in the US on marketing and packaging. They simply don't sell enough copies in stores to justify the costs being any less than they are! I think i'd be happy to spend 50 bucks to legally download a series from ADV, or even Funimation!(Though that would make me feel dirty) At this point my only options for getting a series is:
a) Chinese ripoffs from ebay or certain websites
b) Get fansubs(some legal others, not-so-much)
c) Spend 120+ dollars
I get anime-on-demand on cable now so I can watch a good deal of stuff and I found Madlax a little lacking in keeping my attention. Not something I'd want to keep a copy of and if I did, my box has DVI and Firewire outputs and I could just record a decent copy on my PC and watch it later because at present VoD doesn't allow saving to hard drive, which would be nice, but it doesn't bother me.
I suppose if I wanted to save a copy through this method it would be nice, but many torrent users know zip about configuring their broadband routers to forward ports to allow full bidirectional sharing and most upstream consumer lines are very asymetric so my bandwidth down is never remotely approached these days.
I give this a big "eh..."
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Baud, bits per second, of which it takes 8 to make a character. That's still 1,200 characters per second, knocked down to about 800 - 1000 if you knock out the with the formatting and control characters. Spaces, commas, paragraph return/linefeeds and such.
I know, because I couldn't read at the speed of the modem anymore when I finally got ahold of a 14.4k. I'll also note that I'm fully capable of reading your average paperback book in less than an hour.
I will admit to it taking a sustained effort to do so, and the processing/retention I was able to do was severly limited.
I don't read AC A human right
On the RahXephon episode 1 thing, did it ever occur to you that ADV might have been contractually obligated to replace all credits in English, yet weren't provided a textless master of those scenes? Discussions on the Anime On DVD forums about this matter back when the disc first released revealed that they themselves thought it wasn't pretty, but it was for some reason unavoidable.
That doesn't make it right, but what do we do when they don't have a choice in the matter?
Abenobashi wasn't outsourced at all; it was done by much of the same people that do everything else. The producers, translators, dub actors, everyone, all in-house ADV.
And your stab at FUNimation really does show how far out of the loop you've dropped. Sure, FUNi is known for being the one to milk the DBZ cash cow, but what company wouldn't? It's what made them rich, and what is allowing them to churn out kick-ass releases one after another.
And as for cultural notes, I like to watch my anime, not read a gajillion notes that either cover half the screen or occupy a separate webpage or insert slip. For the most part, cultural notes are distracting and should always be used sparingly if at all possible.
I agree. I thought the Spike and Jet voices were *way* too similar, and with the way that that particilar anime likes to have audio from characters while the "camera" focuses on something else entirely, it was hard to tell who was speaking sometimes.
Also -- and yes, I know why they do this, but I don't like it anyway -- I couldn't take Jet calling Spike "Spike-uh". Drove me nuts. "Jet-oh" was only *slightly* less annoying, but still bugs me.
That said, I prefer the Subs on just about anything other than Bebop.
The only upside of this would be if it could stop the ridicolous bi-monthly release schedule that's so common in the USA. Where I live (Italy) it is customary to try (note, I say *try*) to ccomplete the distribution of a series ASAP, mostly because the consumer base has been irritated with endless delays in the past. The problem with the bimonthly release is that it's applied also to *long* series. I mean, Funimation doing FMA every two months, 3 ep per DVD? It takes years just to see the end... I can understand the risk of flood, but if the release schedule can't be changed, at least more eps per medium.
A CC-licensed illustrated horror novel
As far as I am aware the dub was done by Industrial Smoke and Mirrors one of the...three...four...whatever dub units ADV is noted for using. The fact that all the units hire the same staff anyway is nigh on irrelevant.
Oh, and for the cultural notes I am a HUGE fan of "ADVidnotes" on DVDs. I can watch Excel Saga or Abenobashi either raw, subbed, dubbed and any combination thereof with a series of cultural notes appearing in a "Popup Video" stylee. It's a great feature that made me watch all three titles through three times because ADV is fantastic at comedy dubs, and the Vidnotes were well thought and pointed out things I hadn't noticed before.
Which Anime Fan (that lives to the title) would choose to download crappy dubs with scenes cut? ADV has earned its reputation, after all.
Either Insightful or Informative. Obviously this guy knows what he's talking about.
They certainly never had a problem driving up costs for their viewers. Renting GANTZ is twice as expensive as most other series.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
I don't get it. How does intentionally misspelling a word and putting quotes about it make you a jerk or bring about a point?
The japanese voice actor had a deep gutteral voice which did not match Spike's personality. It made him sound too old and too serious. THe English voice actor's voice was a better fit. Of course, this is an exception that proves the rule.
Voice acting is a respected and well-paying job in Japan, it is not in the USA. It's as simple as that.
I remember for example, the actor playing Mamoru/Darien in the English dub of Sailormoon, did not come back for the renewal of the series. His reason to his fans was that he simply was not making any money doing it. It was almost actually costing him money to do it based on his pay and the cost of living around maintaining that job.
Abenobashi was NOT outsourced. All those "companies" you see listed in the credits doing the dub work are actually nothing but different groups inhouse at ADV.
/. crowd here got into the 21st century. DVD made that whole argument moot long ago. Most anime fans have moved on to other things to fight about. Personally I watch both subs and dubs dependings on the show and my mood. I'm glad I get both with DVD unlike the old VHS days.
Yeah, the "ADVidnotes" are cool. I'd love to see more and more of their titles use those in the future.
As for the whole "sub vs. dub" bit here, I think it's time the
I have to agree about the inaccuracy of subtitles, though fansub groups are far from perfect there, too. Hell, I've only had two years of Japanese and I can spot half a dozen inaccuracies or poor translations per episode, usually. Half the time the loose translations are obviously intended to make things 'easier to understand' for us dumb Americans, and the other half of the time it's as if the translators were too lazy to figure out how to express some of the nuances of the speech.
The 'dumbing-down' is what I really can't stand about Americanized anime, more than the often-mediocre dubbing. For example, in the English dub of Spirited Away, there's a scene where Chihiro scares the giant baby by showing him her bloodied hands and saying, "Look, it's blood!" But in the dub, for some reason they changed "blood" to "germs." I don't care whether this was to make things easier to understand or less offensive for American kids, but it just boils my 'germs' to see them make completely unnecessary changes like that.
I have a truckload of Region 2 Japanese DVDs, and while the extras suck, they DO have chapter selection.
A CC-licensed illustrated horror novel
Damn, and all this time I've lived happily under the assumption that you were DEAD. :P
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
That isn't necessarily true. There are plenty of bad dubs out there, make no mistake about that, but saying it's the fault of the actors or directors is an oversimplification of the issue. When anime is dubbed into English, it's done on a very limited budget. Voice actors are paid by the hour, and directors only have as much budget as their studios allow to complete the project. As I understand it, different recording studios bid for each project, and it usually goes to the lowest bid.
Now imagine you're a dub director. You have finite resources, very limited time, and producers who can tell you to go back and re-dub anything they don't like, which could also take time. In my experience, voice actors and directors do their best with the situation they're presented with. Also, please take note of the fact that dub actors not only have to match the lip flap of characters speaking another language--which can greatly affect delivery--but also do not know the entire script, nor do they have copies beforehand. Dubbing is just a cold reading of lines in isolation, and sometimes even the director, who is supposed to be giving the actors guidance as to their characters' motivations and the plot at that point in time, has not seen the full show before the session.
So before you blame voice actors for the lower quality of English dubs, think about the conditions they're working under.
Now I could have sworn blind that ISM was at least semi independent having done a dub for SoftCel and at least some of the work for X-Men Legends in recent memory.
However that said I'm none too informed about the internal structure of ADV except in the UK (Met the head bloke once, really nice guy).
And subs vs dubs is outmoded, I agree, you're essentially not even paying for the dub any more, places like Cartoon Network, Jetix, Toonami (At least that's what they're called in the UK) are paying for those. And you get a cheaper DVD than Japan...with more features...and more episodes.
The DVD is blessing. Subs for when you get some real purists in, and dubs for if you want something over dinner (Though for Hellsing, Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star and a couple more I'll take dub over sub because the dubs just are that good).
I disagree - the jazzy flavor of Cowboy Bebop was best watched in English. It just fits the show better. I hate the Japanese voices.
You mean it fits your expectations better.
1. Faye is not supposed to sound like she a mellow 40-year old. She's a few short years from being cryogenically unfrozen in her late teens. Physically, she's a twenty-something. Furthermore, look at her facial expressions. He's a wild maniac, not a calm seductress.
2. Spike should not sound like he took too much Sominex. In Japanese, he's a punk and a slacker. In English, he's a borderline narcoleptic.
3. Jet is NOT a black guy. Nor is he old and grizzled. (He's a former cop because he quit, not because he retired.)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Fitting the characters better? Perhaps, although I disagree with much of what you say about the voices not fitting the characters. But it cannot be denied that the English voice acting fits the flavor of the show best.
I'm not a subtitle zealot for the sake of "purity."
The truth is that dubs are often closer translations of the original script, because subtitles have to be brief enough for people to read them.
The reason I prefer subtitles (in all foreign-language entertainment, whether it be movies, anime, opera, etc.) is because the actor's vocal expression is a critical part of the performance. Japanese "seiyuu" are, for the most part, superstar talents and a big part of why I watch anime in the first place.
If I can't hear the voices of Ryô Hirohashi and Junko Noda, then I'm not really watching Haibane Renmei. I'm just seeing what it looks like while somebody else reads the script to me.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Baud is NOT bits per second.
Baud is SIGNALS per second. Modems haven't had a 1bit = 1baud correlation for a LONG time.
Picture it like this... if you can signal a 1 or a 0 on the line, then you have 1 baud = 1 bit. But if you can signal a 0,1,2 or 3 on the line, then you can fit TWO bits into each "baud".
Last time I checked into it, most modems were using at LEAST four states per signal.
Here's the first link on a google search for Baud:
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/B/baud.html
That's some advice fansubbers could take to heart. I've seen 5 line cultural notes appear and disappear before anyone in my anime society could read them, leading to speculation that "sub" might stand for "subliminal" and not "subtitle".
As for your reasoning behind liking subs I can see where you're coming from. Personally I don't stick to the mindset you describe but it is perfectly valid nonetheless.
I'd have to state though that some US voice talent is equally great, whether it be the bigger Disney people (Patrick Stewart...anyone who doubts his credentials needs shooting) or some of the people doing normal series such as Monica Rial (I met her once and she is so unlike her ADV casting it is unreal).
Yeah, I didn't mean to imply that it was the sole fault of the actors (in fact, what you quoted was actually my summary of the original guy's point). I figured it ultimately has to do with the fact that anime has limited popularity (even if it's expanding these days), so they're not going to get a Disney or a Fox cartoon budget. Therefore, you fall into all the difficulties that you mentioned.
I was merely saying that, for whatever reason, the average dub turns out to be a little disappointing, from what I've seen, so I'm not surprised when I see people talking about how they think subbed anime is better, especially since there are quite a few very good fansub groups out there (some people even prefer fansubs to official subs, which is another point the original guy implied, but the guy below him missed).
I don't doubt it's a hard job, and it's a shame they don't have the time/budget to do it better. I was just trying to point out that you don't have to be a "Japanese is better than English" dork to appreciate subtitles over dubs, at least in the average case.
I've come for the woman, and your head.
Um, read a little closer. I was talking about the period of 9600kbs modems. I don't know about you, but that was quite a while ago. It was an upgrade from the 2400 baud modem.
I don't read AC A human right
I can't say I diagree with that. I've just seen too many people criticizing English voice actors who don't actually know the constraints they're working under.
But it cannot be denied that the English voice acting fits the flavor of the show best.
I still disagree. The Japanese voices are the flavor of the show.
The American voices are just what you are used to.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
One thing that ADV has been doing well lately is including cultural notes and references in the printed inserts which come with their DVD's.
For example, Azumanga Daioh, a series which is hilarious in Japanese but almost unwatchable in English, includes several pages of translation notes with each disk, so anybody who's curious about the Japan-centric jokes they would otherwise miss can learn about the subtle nuances of the show's humor if and when they feel like it.
That's much better than having the notes appear on-screen, especially for a light comedy like Azumanga.
As much as ADV has improved, Geneon still seems to do the best dubs. R.O.D. the TV and Last Exile were both done really well. (And the commentary tracks with the R.O.D. dub director and the kids who did the voices are uproarously funny.) I still prefer watching both those shows in Japanese with the original casts, but props to the dub teams for the solid work they did.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The link to that anime description is not correct. Which is unfortunate, because I thought for once that an anime company was going to try bringing over a classic, instead of the super new anime (which honestly hasn't been doing it for me lately). I guess it's business as usual for ADV with a slightly different way to download the trailer.
Read the link. Even 2400 baud modems weren't usually 1bit = 1 baud, though I'll give you there may have been some. By all means, keep arguing.
How is the translation?
After seeing Spirited Away first dubbed and then buying the DVD to catch the subtitles, I feel the dub was badly translated.
So much of the impact of the story was changed by things that were not said (totally different dialog used) or poor choice of words that didnt convey the meaning.
The subtitles probably had a few weak points as well, but overall you got the impact of the story and IMO the important bits stayed.
The dub seemed to try to remove the elements of Japanese culture from a film that was clearly set in Japan with Japanese characters.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
Have you seen "The enemy is the pirates!"?
That show is crazy, even for Japanese viewers they put stuff in you have to pause and frame step through if you want to read it.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
That would be 960 CPS over a serial (1 start bit, 1 stop bit) line. And he probably means buffered onto an 80x25 scrolling screen. :)