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."

Comments

oh hell yes

[j1mmy]

first post

Good way to get Linux too

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux/BSD torrents LinuxISOtorrent.com

Slight typographical error.

[John Pfeiffer]

ADV Films licenses Japanese animation from Japanese studios for distribution in North America and the UK.

Distribution? I believe the word you're looking for is 'butchering'.

Feel free to mod me into oblivion, it felt good and was worth it.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be a social engineer whore. Let the mods decide whether or not your comment is deserving of a mod-down. Worthless comments are still worthless regardless of how much Reverse Psychology you use.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Microlith]

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...

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Xenkar]

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?

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Golias]

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.)

Re:Slight typographical error.

[LordKaT]

I hate that fucking bunny.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[alan_dershowitz]

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?

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Microlith]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[assassinator42]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[TooncesTheCat]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[KillShill]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[mojo333]

i'd rather not read a movie but instead concentrate on what's going on.

Ritalin is your friend.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[LtOcelot]

A listener is not capable of judging whether the original voice acting "vastly superior" without knowing the language it's spoken in.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[qengho]

only elitist "otaco"s would say otherwise.

Sounds like something you'd get at a Mexican restaurant in Ireland. Perhaps you meant otaku?

Re:Slight typographical error.

[John Pfeiffer]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Mahou]

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

Re:Slight typographical error.

[alan_dershowitz]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Bloodlent]

I disagree - the jazzy flavor of Cowboy Bebop was best watched in English. It just fits the show better. I hate the Japanese voices.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Maian]

while dubs > subs, subs > crap dubs

That's especially true for comedies (which is what I mainly watch).

Re:Slight typographical error.

[KillShill]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Firethorn]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Firethorn]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Golias]

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.)

Re:Slight typographical error.

[MrChom]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[KillShill]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[John Pfeiffer]

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

Re:Slight typographical error.

[MrChom]

I've got to say that I really disagree with you on the dropping of suffixes. It makes me cringe whenever I hear them because it shows me that the company doing the script for the English version hasn't bothered to try and give us a version where that relationship is implied.

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Firethorn]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Sketch]

> 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. ;)

Re:Slight typographical error.

[neko9]

amen to that. dubs suck. subs rule. and not only in anime.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[CorkieVII]

Mass naked child events, Baka-chan. ;)

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Firethorn]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Fallingcow]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[MrChom]

Technically Abeno was outsourced, it just happens that ADV had at the time a limited number of "separate" companies it worked with for dubs.

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Slight typographical error.

[alan_dershowitz]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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 /. 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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[John Pfeiffer]

Damn, and all this time I've lived happily under the assumption that you were DEAD. :P

Re:Slight typographical error.

[MrChom]

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).

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Golias]

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.)

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Bloodlent]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Golias]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[scribblej]

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

Re:Slight typographical error.

[MrChom]

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.

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).

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Firethorn]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Golias]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Golias]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[mink]

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.

Re:Slight typographical error.

[mink]

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.

beware

[Anonymous Coward]

anthrax nukes osama bush cia carnivore clinton extremists chopper pgp department of defense fbi echelon tank new world order united nations takeover wtc korea file china rumsfeld electronic implant fema nwo satellite com communism saddam ammo mao anti-aircraft nuke overthrow coup 911 9/11 bomb ashcroft terrorist coverup national government eyeball hostage data holograph black helicopters arpanet deepthroat nsa watergate d.o.d. homeland security encrypted document uplink nasa b.e.a.s.t. biometric haarp star wars gas cyanideanthrax nukes osama bush cia carnivore clinton extremists chopper pgp department of defense fbi echelon tank new world order united nations takeover wtc korea file china rumsfeld electronic implant fema nwo satellite com communism saddam ammo mao anti-aircraft nuke overthrow coup 911 9/11 bomb ashcroft terrorist coverup national government eyeball hostage data holograph black helicopters arpanet deepthroat nsa watergate d.o.d. homeland security encrypted document uplink nasa b.e.a.s.t. biometric haarp star wars gas cyanideanthrax nukes osama bush cia carnivore clinton extremists chopper pgp department of defense fbi echelon tank new world order united nations takeover wtc korea file china rumsfeld electronic implant fema nwo satellite com communism saddam ammo mao anti-aircraft nuke overthrow coup 911 9/11 bomb ashcroft terrorist coverup national government eyeball hostage data holograph black helicopters arpanet deepthroat nsa watergate d.o.d. homeland security encrypted document uplink nasa b.e.a.s.t. biometric haarp star wars gas cyanide

Re:beware

[PenGun]

So that's some kind of symlink ... right?

PenGun
Do What Now ??? ... Standards and Practices !

1st?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jimmy Joe FP

Madlax is decent so far

[Lt.Hawkins]

Madlax is actually pretty good; very Noir-ish, but slightly more lighthearted (but not much).

Re:Madlax is decent so far

[Microlith]

Noir-ish is no coincidence. The studio is Bee-Train and the director is Mashimo, who did Noir (as well as Avenger, .hack//sign), hell even Kaijura Yuuki does the music.

Unsuprisingly, I do not like this show. Mashimo simply isn't that great a director and Kaijura is a bland musician. But there are some people who swear by it.

Re:Madlax is decent so far

[Solder Fumes]

I've seen the whole series, it is a quality anime without much silly humor. There is no overbearing hyperactive female lead as in so many other series. The sound is good, probably one of the strong points. The plot generates more questions than it answers, but that's pretty typical these days. There is balance between quiet scenes and action. Not something to watch if you don't want to devote some attention to the little details. Basically an antidote to Dragonball and their ilk.

Re:Madlax is decent so far

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you not like Noir? I loved that series. I've seen one of Madlax, but it did seem a little too close to Noir that I'll probably not watch it (I like Noir too much).

I think the voice actor for Kirika is back for Madlax as well (possibly others).

Re:Madlax is decent so far

[Microlith]

Noir was decent.

But it had so many nagging problems like piss-poor music direction that have only been exacerbated in later shows (music drowning out dialog, Kajiura's really bland always-the-same music) and leads me to second guess ever watching a Bee-Train show.

Kyoto Animation, Sunrise, and Xebec have a far better track record in terms of stuff I enjoy (Stellvia, FMP Fumoffu, PLANETES, Gundam, etc.)

Re:Madlax is decent so far

[countchoc12]

informative for an opinion?! mod parent down!

Re:Madlax is decent so far

[MasamuneXGP]

Okay if this were .hack or Tsubasa Chronicle, the whole always-the-same thing would be applicable. It is indeed a flaw that Kajiura needs to address. But there's no way in hell you can say that about Kajiura's work in Noir. There are so many incredible tracks that are completely unexpected from her, so much so that I regard Noir as her best work, if not one of the best soundtracks of any anime.

Tracks like "Salva Nos" and "Liar You Lie" are pretty much vintage Yuki, but the piano tracks such as "Solitude by the Window" and "Kirei na Kanjou Piano Version" are beautiful in their simplicity and their originality. Add to that tracks like "Colloseum" and "Le Grande Retour" where she just pulls out something *completely* original... I just fail to see how you or anyone could see Noir's music as bland. If nothing else, there's no denying how varied it is.

Re:Madlax is decent so far

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Madlax was kind of crappy myself, but, then again, I wasn't a big fan of Noir either...

Re:Madlax is decent so far

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem with Noir was you could set your watch by the soundtrack. Like an episode of the A-Team you knew right when that one song was going to start that always is used when the big action seen is about to start.

That and there was a huge overuse of flashbacks. Why do we have to see the same flashback 10 times before any new details are added to it and then see that 10 more times.

Re:Madlax is decent so far

[M1FCJ]

Madlax, Avenger and Noir started interesting and as the series progressed, bored the hell out of me. After 10 episodes there are no character deveopments, no story development, no change in the music. Yes, the characters look cool, act cool but just coolness is not good enough. When you look at the really successful animations like Nadesico, go figure that the actual populer characters are extremely uncool. Tenchi? same. :)

Re:Madlax is decent so far

[terrox]

Eck, just watched the promo. Seemed very contrived, aiming for the lowest common demoninators. Just super heroes playing out a predetermined destiny (again) with "cool" backing music and a lot of unnesessary titilation thrown in. I got bored half way through the ad. Yay someone found a magic book, every superwoman gets involved and kills tons of mindless supporting cast, BTW we got sexy chicks plz watch k thx pay me.

Re:Madlax is decent so far

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the Tenchi OAVs were fine. It just got retarded after it was decided to write 2 reboots of the entire Tenchi storyline, and 3 movies which were anbiguous as to which of the 3 series they were related to (if any at all). Let's also not forget the Pretty Sammy spinoff, the Mihoshi special and the GXP spinoff. If anything brought down Tenchi, it was this glut of stuff that was sort of related, but not totally related, confusing fans across the globe (as if the original OAV wasn't enough, referring to the fucked up family tree of that series).

Re:Madlax is decent so far

[9mind]

Having watched all of Madlax... I can tell you this... NOIR is MUCH MUCH better... Someone was trying to be much to clever with Madlax and it just ended up sucking.

Hooray!

[Adrilla]

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.

Re:Hooray!

[v1]

(foregoing mod pts...)

Basically that is the key - if you are a retailer/distributor and your fans are doing something you don't like... well it probably means you are NOT giving them what they want, or not how they want it. You CANNOT CHANGE what the fans want. Forcing them to settle for what you're offering just pisses them off. They are TELLING you what they want, and are usually very willing to pay you for it if only you offered it to them. Once you realize this, it becomes obvious what you must do.

The sad reality is that it's usually incredibly cheaper to deliver content the way people prefer it, which lowers your overhead and lowers your workload.

Proffit awaits the enlightened.

Re:Hooray!

[John Pfeiffer]

Now if only they would:

Do decent translations.
(All titles except Abenobashi)

Stop recording horrific dubbed audio, and find people who can ACT.
(Most titles, with the notable exception of Abenobashi)

Stop releasing faulty DVDs.
(RahXephon the movie, and others)

Stop manipulating other people's works in ways that should fall outside of their licensing rights.
(Evangelion DVDs 1&2, subsequently un-done and released without manipulations. RahXephon DVD 1, never fixed, told we were SOL. And god knows what others.)

So much being so 'open-minded'. I'm willing to bet this 'trailer' of theirs is DUBBED. Great way to advertise something, expose people to it in its most hideous form first.

Re:Hooray!

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn Japanese. That solves your first two points.

Re:Hooray!

[BVis]

This would presume that the company in question wants (or can afford) to care what the consumer actually wants.

The sad reality is that it's usually incredibly cheaper to deliver content the way people prefer it, which lowers your overhead and lowers your workload.

On the contrary, researching the market for consumer input costs money and time, thereby increasing overhead costs. Unfortunately the average buyer of this product will buy it despite its glaring flaws, because they don't know any better (or don't care enough to change their behavior). As long as the distributors continue to buy their product, they don't have to give a flying whatsit about the consumer.

The bottom line is it doesn't increase profits measurably to listen to the consumer, because the consumer is too stupid to know when the product sucks. Wal-Mart has based an entire empire on this premise. See .sig for more info.

Re:Hooray!

[Shadow99_1]

ADV is known as the 'Terminator' of licensing companies by fansubbers, because as soon as they license a project *normally before it's finished airing in Japan) they sick their lawyers on any and all fansub groups. They also hound bittorrent sites used to distribute fansubs of their licenses at the same time. They are absolutely horrible on fansubbers these days, which is funny (at least to me) since ADV grew out of the fansubbing community in it's early days...

This is simply an attempt by them to give the impression that they might eventually offer online content beyond trailers, while cutting bandwidth expenses on distributing things like trailers. I really doubt they will ever want to release any of their actual products via BT.

Re:Hooray!

[Microlith]

Do decent translations.
Their translations ARE decent I wonder how your skills compare?

Stop recording horrific dubbed audio, and find people who can ACT.
Oh yeah it's soooo horrific. Because it's in English. Japanese is such a better language...

Stop releasing faulty DVDs.
Mistakes happen. ADV fixed the disc and if yours is faulty, contact them and they'll replace it.

Stop manipulating other people's works in ways that should fall outside of their licensing rights.
You don't know how far their licensing rights reach. The OP sequence on the first episode of Raxephon was done because they didn't have a clean sequence. A bad choice, I'll admit, but not "manipulation."

Great way to advertise something, expose people to it in its most hideous form first.
I think the problem with being "open-minded" lies with you.

Re:Hooray!

[Mornelithe]

Oh yeah it's soooo horrific. Because it's in English. Japanese is such a better language...

Perhaps I'm reading incorrectly, but as far as I can tell, his argument wasn't, "OMG, Japanese is teh superior language!" It appears to be that the people they generally get to do the English voice acting aren't too great. I can't say I've done an extensive survey of dubbed anime, but I'd agree that several I have watched aren't stellar, and the good ones have been the few. It certainly isn't impossible to produce good results; plenty of American animation/video games have good voice acting, and I have seen anime that has good dubbing. It just doesn't seem to be the norm.

The Japanese voice acting may be equally bad, but I can't tell, because I don't speak Japanese.

Re:Hooray!

[Smidge204]

I prefer subtitles 9 out of 10, because more often than not the acting (not the translation) is pretty bad. The experience is just as much how the words are spoken than the actual words. You need energy, emotion and inflection in the voice to get the full effect. Unless you have good voice actors instead of just voices and a good director overseeing the dub process, the characters become flat chatterboxes. (And for some reason they tend to find the most shrill voices for children... arg!)

=Smidge=

Re:Hooray!

[Soul-Burn666]

This is not the situation here though.
If a show goes straight to DVD, not passing through TV, the people buying it will be those who have heard about the show before and see the DVDs offered have a good quality/price ratio.

If a DVD is done badly, translation sucks, no editor notes, no song karaoke and an extra price for a useless feature (english dub), people won't buy it.

You are true about the case when there are no other, better, ways of getting the content.

If the companies would have released the DVDs quickly after they aquire the shows, having quality translations that infer the original nuances and don't charge extra for dubs, then people would buy.

Re:Hooray!

[BakaHoushi]

I've read a lot of articles comparing subs and dubs, with both sides arguing good points. I my opinion, a person whould just watch whatever they prefer and leave it at that. Maybe an artist didn't intend for their show to be heard in English, but they never intended for it to be viewed with yellow text at the bottom, either.

I've seen anime that does superb dubbing (Cowboy Bebop being the most well known, and I'd argue Fullmetal Alchemist), some avaerage jobs (most of what I see on TV), some horrible dubs (Love Hina, anyone?) and some that argue all over the board (Excel Saga).

Re:Hooray!

[BVis]

If a show goes straight to DVD, not passing through TV, the people buying it will be those who have heard about the show before and see the DVDs offered have a good quality/price ratio.

These two things should correlate, but in practice, they do not. Chances are the people who have heard about the show and intend to buy it on DVD will buy it regardless of quality.

You are true about the case when there are no other, better, ways of getting the content.

You've come to the point; there is a monopoly at work here, so the localization company can basically do whatever they want so long as the licensing is obeyed.

If the companies would have released the DVDs quickly after they aquire the shows, having quality translations that infer the original nuances and don't charge extra for dubs, then people would buy.

People will buy anyway. The average consumer won't know or care about the difference between a quality production and a steaming pile of digital crap.

Re:Hooray!

[jandrese]

It's even better if you go to cons and stop by the industry panels and bring up Fansubbing. Even if you missed the introductions you can tell right away who the ADV guy is because he'll start foaming at the mouth and launch right into his "Fansubbers are a bunch of no good low down dirty pirates that are pulling the food right out of our babies mouthes!" speech. I especially love when he does this in a room full of Naruto and One Piece cosplayers.

At least Naruto and One Piece have finally been licensed and may be released in the States in a year or two.

Re:Hooray!

[Shadow99_1]

CN still says Naruto this fall, but who knows for sure...

Anyways... Yeah they are bad... I am the Video Director for an anime convention and we play fansubs in our video line-up and one of the ADV guys after lookign at our schedule had a fit... To which I pointed out if that none of the shows we were showing in fansub form where licensed by anyone outside the original creator and we'd be happy to show the series in a none fansub form if they would provide it to us... He still sputtered for awhile, but he couldn't really argue the point...

What about oher territories?

[glowworm]

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?

Re:What about oher territories?

[Adrilla]

It's no more limiting than any other online seller that will ship to other countries. You only eliminate shipping costs, which isn't intended to make a company any extra money anyway. Pretty much anything that can be bought online can be shipped anywhere. Besides, why turn down that extra cash from overseas sales.

Re:What about oher territories?

[Microlith]

Simply enough, they would require credit cards with US addresses.

Beyond that I imagine they don't care, so long as it'd be legitimately paid for.

They might put up a geographical filer like the BBC does, but I don't see them going that far. Hell I've got Full Metal Panic! Fumoffu, one of their latest releases, and it has neither Macrovision nor CSS on it.

Re:What about oher territories?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's no more limiting than any other online seller that will ship to other countries.

Except for those pesky licensing issues.

Re:What about oher territories?

[Microlith]

The only one bound by distribution rules is the licensor.

ADV can't sell outside their authorized regions (sometimes it's R1 only, othertimes it's everywhere but R2 Japan/R3 Asia), but once they sell it to retailers it can go anywhere after that.

People in Europe, indeed all over, import R1 dvds without issue.

Re:What about oher territories?

[Ichigo Kurosaki]

INAL but it isn't exactly illegal to download these shows. As the article states ADV licenses them to distribute in NA and UK however in other countries there is no license holder and it is not violating copyrights. This is why anime fansub groups can flourish with out legal persecution. Btw the only "policing" you ever see is when sites offer DVD-rips for downloading.

Re:What about oher territories?

[russ_allegro]

How is it not violating copyrights? The united states respects the copyrights of many countries.

Have you never heard of the Berne Convention back in 1886? Now it is handled by the WTO.

When a anime gets licensed it means they are allowed to repoduce a copyrighted work with the permission of the original copyright holder. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to.

So fansubs are illegal. Unless you are part of a country who is not a part of the WTO.

See: Licensing and See: Berne Convention

Re:What about oher territories?

[ptegan]

By seeing where in the world you're from via IP address. I can't all the BBC contect in Europe mainland even when others in the UK have no problem. I know you can get past it with a proxy but most people out there won't know or bother trying.

Re:What about oher territories?

[MrScience]

Why turn down that extra cash from overseas sales.

Probably because the are not licensed to distribute in a competing territory. Imagine if they could sell in Japan cheaper than the licensing organization... I don't think the Japanese firm would be too happy.

Re:What about oher territories?

[line.at.infinity]

The actual product is being distributed in a limited area, but the company could care less about where the promo (advertisement) that they are distributing over BitTorrent gets downloaded.

Now if they were officially distributing the product itself, without any DRM and over BitTorrent, that would be newsworthy.

NICE AD!

[Anonymous Coward]

How much do I have to pay to get my site featured on slashdot.com?

Money Making Plan

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Produce Crap.

2. Use BitTorrent to get other people to distribute your crap.

3. Profit.

Perhaps the wrong distribution model

[Sv-Manowar]

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.

Re:Perhaps the wrong distribution model

[Microlith]

the fansubs that precede the release dates by months and can often have far higher quality/authentic translation.

They only beat them to market by ignoring copyright (which is disrespectful in and of itself) and the quality of fansub translations is significantly lower than what was common 5 or so years ago, before digisubbing appeared and anyone and their random IRC buddy could start fansubbing.

Having actual scripts helps a lot with the translation, a luxury fansubbers do not have.

Re:Perhaps the wrong distribution model

[Sv-Manowar]

My point was more that this would be a move away from the notion of licenced releases as value-added products and tend tend to lead to more direct comparisons with otherwise available fansubs. Obviously the two operate in completely different legal and business areas, but the end products and their distribution methods would end up the same, and those are the things that are consumer facing.

Re:Perhaps the wrong distribution model

[NanoGator]

"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."

One of the reasons that I don't have a broader anime library right now is that I basically have to order on-line to get it. (I live in a small town that doesn't have a lot of selection...) Speaking for my household specifically, the instant gratification factor of this distribution model is quite attractive. Yes, I could go download episodes on the web. I really don't want to. I don't want to go looking for them. I don't want to deal with questionable quality. I don't want to put together a bunch of .RAR files. (Note: Yeah, yeah, I know, bittorrent downloads don't typically use that.)

I'm not saying your point is invalid. I don't know what the masses will do. I can tell you that for the shows I'm fanatical about, I want them now now now and I'm willing to pay a reasonable price for the convenience. I doubt I'm alone.

Re:Perhaps the wrong distribution model

[corpsiclex]

put together a bunch of rar files?
*blinks*
all you have to do is unrar the main file and the rest take care of themselves. its just split for convenience.

Re:Perhaps the wrong distribution model

[NanoGator]

Excepts when the incompetent jackass on the other end doesn't make one of them available.

I'm actually talking about news groups, though.

Re:Perhaps the wrong distribution model

[hackwrench]

copyright (which is disrespectful in and of itself)

I understand what you meant, but read another way it can mean that copyright is disrespectful in and of itself, a thing I find true

Re:Perhaps the wrong distribution model

[Anonymous Coward]

Blizzard uses bittorrent for World of Warcraft patch updates. So I don't think torrents are for "advanced" users, only searching for one is.

Re:Perhaps the wrong distribution model

[sugar824]

I've direct downloaded, bittorrented, and bought much anime over the years. The purpose of bittorrent for most of the people who do respect the basic belief of laws is that you can get the series and episodes that are not available here. Try watching Naruto for example. It is currently at episode 143 and wont be released in the US under actual distribution till next year. Most of the general community cancel the fansubbing and distribution of series once they are licensed in the US.
This being said I would not want to pay for something that I don't have the actual copy of. I watch my bittorrent anime and then the ones I like I support through dvds and merchandise. But if I'm going to be paying for it, it better come with a case and a disc and some sort of nice cover.
As far as the translations are concerned. Most of the fansub groups do a better job than the dvd companies. I have several commercial dvds that the translations are horrible but the fansubs were great.
I just don't see how they are going to make bittorrent viable for them when it will be up to 2 years late, probably bad quality, and no physical property.

Re:Perhaps the wrong distribution model

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

the fansubs that precede the release dates by months and can often have far higher quality/authentic translation.

HAH.

Don't make me laugh. Ever watch an Artic Animation fansub? Or a Hecto/Shinsengumi Sub?

Ever watch a sub where they leave stuff like -chan, -kun or -sama on? Or just not bother to translate simple words like Tomodachi, onii/aniki, or the like? The quality of fansubs is SHIT. Pure SHIT. It's like playing Russian Roulette.

Does this mean that all R1 subs are perfect? No, but it does mean that the translator probably wasn't some guy who knew some Japanese, and some other guy who know a little bit more Japanese.

Re:Perhaps the wrong distribution model

[Greggen]

Isn't that why it's precisely the correct model?

Those who want the DVD will still buy the DVD. Meanwhile, those fans who wish to download the anime and respect licencing laws can now do so.

I don't think providing a bittorrent will cost them much extra. Plenty of people seem to be able to do this for free.

It's win-win.

Re:Perhaps the wrong distribution model

[Breakfast Pants]

"I don't want to put together a bunch of .RAR files. (Note: Yeah, yeah, I know, bittorrent downloads don't typically use that."

Instead you want to have to have a login/pass at every single US Distributor's website so you can pay to download their content? Each distributor is going to have a limited selection and in fact to get anything you want it will likely be more difficult than doing it illegally. What the industry needs is a consolidated place to get it, like iTunes is for music.

Re:Perhaps the wrong distribution model

[Venti]

"Ever watch a sub where they leave stuff like -chan, -kun or -sama on? Or just not bother to translate simple words like Tomodachi, onii/aniki, or the like? The quality of fansubs is SHIT. Pure SHIT. It's like playing Russian Roulette."

Some people like those kinds of things left as they are. Having watched a few thousand episodes I allready manage to undestand most of what they are saying without the subs, not enough to completely manage without subbing but I tend to prefer the bare minium being translated. Afterall, the more you translate and try to change the idioms to fit a particular culture the more information is lost in the progress.

Also keep in mind that these people are not in the business of selling anime, they do it for the community, for people with similar tastes to theirs. If some socker mom from the US who has never watched anime goes "OMFM we don't use stuff like -sama and -san in America, they should translate it the way _I_ like it or not at all" and doesn't watch their fansubs, it's not the end of the world, it's her loss afterall.

Re:Perhaps the wrong distribution model

[Silverlancer]

In my experience the subtitles on fansubs are much better translated than the "official" subs on DVDs. Often DVD subbers are extremely lazy and miss a lot of the detail in what the characters are saying. Also, many fansubs nowadays are basically DVD quality.

Re:Perhaps the wrong distribution model

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Some people like those kinds of things left as they are.

Yes, but that's also a thoroughly unprofessional way to translate, plus there's no need, I can HEAR those bits.

Re:Perhaps the wrong distribution model

[Venti]

Sometimes it's better to think for your self about what works and not just blindly follow the way the "professionals" do it. Maybe it doesn't work, maybe it's better... There are lots of poor quality translations I bet, they get sweeped under the rug and replaced, the group disappears or they gradually get better. Anyhow, if the series is even moderately popular there are several groups subbing it, some priorize on speed, some on quality, some do a great job, some don't. How could that ever be a bad thing?

What the grand parent stated "fansubs that precede the release dates by months and can often have far higher quality/authentic translation" is true, they can get the episode almost immediately after it has aired in Japan and start subbing it, and release it after it's done. If any bad errors were missed they can release a new version (200MB aint that much nowadays). How about the licensers? First the series airs for months in Japan, they license it and start subbing (and dubbing, what a waste of time, I know it's important for the marketing value but a seasoned anime fan probably doesn't care about that), the subbing is done under a budget and a schedule, by people who either might or might not do a good job, just like the fansub community. If they did a good job, great. If they didn't, what then? They have exclusive rights, they can rape and pillage the series all they want, sensor it to oblivion to fit the 'professional' taste, nobody else can have a go an do it properly... except the fansub community, wich is gradually getting the notion USA !== World and series like Naruto and Gundam Seed Destiny are still subbed after getting licensed in USA.

Re:Perhaps the wrong distribution model

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

If they didn't do a good job, the fault also lies on the studio that produced the series in the first place, since they do have final say as far as what's released in the states.

except the fansub community, wich is gradually getting the notion USA !== World and series like Naruto and Gundam Seed Destiny are still subbed after getting licensed in USA.

Nice to see that American fans hate thier own fandom.

Re:Perhaps the wrong distribution model

[d34thm0nk3y]

Most fansub groups try and remove their torrents when the legal version becomes available.

I'm Not Sure Why

[Osmosis_Garett]

But Capitalizing Every Word In That Headline Really Seemed To Stand Out More Than Usual.

Re:I'm Not Sure Why

[FleaPlus]

But Capitalizing Every Word In That Headline Really Seemed To Stand Out More Than Usual.

I'm not sure why they do that, but capitalizing almost all the words in the title is more of a slashdot editor thing than a submitter thing. I guess I can sort of understand why they'd want to capitalize titles like that, but it seems like overkill on a page like slashdot. In the past I've tried submitting stories without the overcapitalization, only to find the capitalization altered by the editors when the story is actually posted.

Re:I'm Not Sure Why

[Anonymous Coward]

That's how headlines (are supposed to) work. Have you picked up a newspaper or magazine in the last...well...ever? Many web news outlets have gone down the sloppy journalism road, but Google News is showing plenty that still get it right.

Which of these things does not belong...

[icefaerie]

...what. ADV + torrent? Sorry, you just broke my brain.

Re:Which of these things does not belong...

[greenguy]

It could be worse. I originally read the headline as "American Airlines Company Tries Torrents."

If you have to take me apart to get me there, then I don't want to go.

Corrected link to Madlax

[tzuriel]

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime .php?id=3714
not id=1429

American Anime Company Advertises on Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they paid for this placement. I would respect the editors far more if they were greedy than stupid.

Lucas Films already did it...

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

The Truth We All Must Face

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is mostly dead, and being kept alive by bot accounts. At first this idea seems completely unreasonable, the story comments very poor signal to noise ratio is just because of trolls and idiots. Think again--dupes are a major part of this. At first this truth may seem sickening, your mind might fight it very hard, and call this a crafty troll. Sadly it is true, ever wonder why so many comments just don't fit the story and SO few are worth reading. Slashdot's decline is very real, and eventually the entire comment system will collapse. Taco, tim and the rest will be of whatever jobs they even complete now.

This is NOT flamebait!

[GET THE FACTS!]

Score:1, Flamebait

His comment is NOT flamebait! He's merely correcting a mistake made by the Slashdot editors.

He should be modded +5, Insightful instead. As far as I can tell, he's not a troll either.

This is NOT flamebait!

Re:This is NOT flamebait!

[Anonymous Coward]

HOW DARE YOU!!!

How dare you question the AUTORITAY of THE MODS!
They spend endless hours online getting stretchmarks on their asses and ingesting pizza just to keep these message boards clean of insightful posts.

SHAME ON U !!!!!!!!111111111111111oneoneone

Re:This is NOT flamebait!

[OurCompliments]

It appears it is no longer flamebait. Now it's moderated as troll.

however

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:however

[Anonymous Coward]

>> first episode of Madlax.

my mistake... promo, even. Which makes it even less special than it already was! In fact isn't it easier just to download an .avi rather than get it through bittorrent?

Do not trust ADV

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Do not trust ADV

[Anonymous Coward]

They're using the official BitTorrent tracker (version 4.0.2), which to my knowledge doesn't even log information like that.

And besides, if they were actually targetting people who download fansubs, they wouldn't be linking to a promo from a website frequented by people who regularly purchase anime on DVD. It would make far more sense to put out a "fansub" of their own and not reveal that they were the ones that were behind it - but legalities wouldn't allow any company to do such a thing.

Really, some logical thinking was in order before you wrote this.

Re:Do not trust ADV

[Anonymous Coward]

Logical thinking, eh?

Let's see... if they wanted to record IP addresses, it wouldn't matter what BitTorrent tracker they're using if they have it running on a server behind a firewall that itself logs all access. I'm sorry, I thought computer-capable people posted on /.

As to why they might want to collect such info in the first place, if they can demonstrate to a court that such-and-such IP address was used to download the promo from them, AND was used to download numerous fansubs as well, it would sharply bolster their copyright violation lawsuit against the downloaders of the fansubs.

Your analysis of the previous poster's point was far too narrow and naive. None of us knows if ADV is doing this type of thing or not, but the point is that given ADV's past behavior, trusting them is foolish.

Magnet URI

[pyrrhonist]

Here's the Magnet URI for BT clients that support it:

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.

Whoopity doo...

[InsideTheAsylum]

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.

Re:Whoopity doo...

[Microlith]

Well yeah, since they can actually provide some sort of value beyond a base translation and dub on DVD (like nice packaging that makes it something you like owning...)

And yeah they C&D sites that provide their content via BT. The sites providing it, don't legally have the right!

Re:Whoopity doo...

[BewireNomali]

I think you bring up an interesting point? How do youy distribute via BT and generate revenue if you're the license holder?

Do you lock the torrent file and make it available only after payment is rendered? Mask and/or lock torrent files so we don't know who the seed(s) is/are? Subscription service with regular interval torrents released into the wild?

How would a content provider distribute over BT for revenue? Anybody?

Re:Whoopity doo...

[DeadMilkman]

By bastardizing it... There is no other way... The entirety of the process has been designed to prevent any way of blocking access. You no longer need: The tracker, dedicated server access. Hell they are trying to remove the need for the seed! (see recent search engines)

Re:Whoopity doo...

[Nogami_Saeko]

WMV Encoded files that you need to briefly connect to their authorization server to play?

Here's how I'd do it:

Encode the WMV files so that after you've purchased them online, your player gets a key allowing playback on your machine(s) (say, up to 3 simultaneous machines?) for the period of 2 years.

After 2 years, the server re-issues a permanent, unlimited key (or allows re-download of an unencrypted ver of the series), so you own the content and can do any futher playback you want (or presumably share it with lusers who have waited 2 years just to copy it for free). That sort of policy would ease my fears about DRM abuse.

I dunno, but I think they're getting closer to "being on the right track", and when they get it right, the floodgates will open (both in terms of content, and revenue).

For example, I'd pay $2.50 per-episode to get an entire series delivered to me over a few weeks/months (weekly downloads?). Over the course of a full 24-episode series, that would be $60 in revenue, which I'd think is appropriate considering there would be absolutely no manufacturing or distribution costs for them. $5 per episode would not be approprite IMHO.

N.

Re:Whoopity doo...

[Anonymous Coward]

Encrypted .rar/.zip/.whatever file.

You buy the key, you unlock the archive, you're good to go.

Sure, people could distribute the key, but considering how much software out there that uses this protection method, it's good enough for most uses. It keeps the honest people honest without hassling them too much, and those that couldn't care less rip it off as usual. It's not like the pirates aren't going to pirate it anyways...

Translation notes

[Magus2501]

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.

Re:Translation notes

[Microlith]

Often I've noticed fansub groups go overboard, not translating common things instead providing "cultural notes" to explain them. Except that it's often the same thing over and over again (tell me again what "gochisou-sama" means please!)

Often they're so commonplace they'd be just as well off translating it. If it's not translatable, even US companies will go to some effort to include an explanation (such as the extensive translation guides included on the Rurouni Kenshin TV and Karekano DVDs.)

Re:Translation notes

[hackwrench]

gochisou means "feast", and sama is a suffix signifying reverence, and the combination is said after meals. There are free programs out there that can give you the answers...JWPce comes to mind, Jquicktrans too, but Jquicktrans wants you to pay for it. Do a search for EDICT

Re:Translation notes

[Anonymous Coward]

Good reading comprehension.

The GP wasn't asking what gochisousama means. He was using it as an example of something everyone and their cat knows but that fansub groups persist in explaining episode after episode.

My Two Cents Worth

[Nova Express]

While I've only seen a small fraction of what they've done, I think their work on RahXephon and Voices of a Distant Star ranged from very good to excellent.

Cut Anime?

[DigitallyMike]

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.

Re:Cut Anime?

[Microlith]

Nelvana at least allowed Geneon to release the show sub-only and uncut. They've got two boxed sets of the entire show coming in a few months.

IIRC, they also allowed ADV to release Saint Seiya uncut with an accurate dub to boot.

4Kids, however, has left a trail of mangled debris in their wake, and no series they've cursed has had an uncut release save a few (2 or 3) uncut volumes of Shaman King, which they may stop allowing.

4Kids is worse than ANY other company out there.

Re:Cut Anime?

[Justin205]

4Kids actually has begun to release Yu-Gi-Oh uncut as well, after much complaints from the fans who hate how much of the story was butchered. Unfortunately, these are incredibly hard to find...

Making one seriously doubt whether it's worth to complain over butchered series when you can't get the uncuts even if they're available.

Am I alone?

[airjrdn]

Am I the only person left on the planet that can't stand Anime?

Re:Am I alone?

[Microlith]

No, but those of us who do like it don't really give a damn :)

You can hide these topics, you know.

Re:Am I alone?

[vga_init]

Well, depends on what you like in a medium. Anime can take on MANY, MANY different forms. Maybe you've been exposed to bad, low quality anime, or maybe the subject matter wasn't up your alley. I think a good chance stands that the things you dislike about it are not representative of the whole medium.

You know, it's kind of like saying "I hate books." Well, which sort of book do you hate? It's so general.

Re:Am I alone?

[blueZhift]

Am I the only person left on the planet that can't stand Anime

Could be, but don't believe the hype. I love anime and Japanese Pop culture, but I don't believe for a minute that it has truly become mainstream in the U.S. as media stories might lead one to believe. I think it has become a very profitable niche, but a niche nonetheless. So don't worry, it's okay to hate anime!

Re:Am I alone?

[Mr2001]

You can hide these topics, you know.

No, you can't.

These are the only sections I can disable in my Homepage preferences tab: Apache, Apple, Ask Slashdot, Book Reviews, BSD, Developers, Features, Games, Hardware, Interviews, IT, Linux, Politics, Science, Your Rights Online. I can also hide stories by author, but I don't think that'd help.

Re:Am I alone?

[KillShill]

no.

most of the japanese cartoons are pretty much crap and here's the kicker: IMO.

most of them i find stupid/ridiculous on some level or another. a few i can tolerate long enough to get through it. there are way too many that are sickeningly cute and i don't just mean the actual drawings.

and they're cartoons

get over it. :)

Re:Am I alone?

[Microlith]

Fascinating.

I think slashdot has run up against its own obsolescence!

Re:Am I alone?

[pyrrhonist]

there are way too many that are sickeningly cute

Yeah, I just hated how sickeningly cute Grave of the Fireflies was. What a disappointment!

</SARCASM>

Re:Am I alone?

[KillShill]

"way too many"

in the logic class you took, it apparently means 100%.

and cite a few more "exceptions". i can always use the list to find the better picks out there.

Re:Am I alone?

[MasamuneXGP]

Off the top of my head, without even thinking:
Ghost in the Shell, Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion, Hellsing, Wolf's Rain, Crest of the Stars, Serial Experiments Lain

GitS has various exploding body parts. Bebop has drugs taken through eyeballs. Eva has blood and guts flying everywhere. Wolf has massive animal cruelty. CotS has people getting sucked into space. Lain has multiple suicides. All of the above are classics with cuteness levels that never even approach "crazy"

In fact, I'd be willing to say that there are more serious animes than "crazy cutesy" ones. Of course, that would depend on what one considers to be too much cute.

Re:Am I alone?

[Anonymous Coward]

So of the media that you passively watch, what do you prefer? Sounds more like you are just attacking something over-hyped because it makes you feel relevant.

See, it's easy to attack an entire general classification of media. But when you fail to give specific examples, counter-examples (of a general classification) that you do like, or a set of criteria of how you decide what you do like, it's makes you look rather silly and frustrated. There is nothing wrong with being opinionated, but when you come off as whimsicial or capricious....

Compared to other general classifications except maybe scifi, anime has better storylines, involved characters, novel visual techniques, etc., anime has a higher success rate to the overall number of series that are pumped out. Now, I'd rather read a good book, but I prefer anime over standard faire US television and movies hands down, and gaming. Anime gives me a higher percentage of finding some series I like than any other visually passive medium. I consider myself an anime fan, but I probably would say I'm at about 1 in 10 in finding a series I do like. The good thing is that a lot of weeding out is done by what they can license and import and futher by what Adult Swim/Cartoon Network manages to show.

And no, they aren't cartoons, at least in the sense of the slight you are trying to pass off. You aren't using the word to just describe any hand-drawn/illustratred motion picture/moving pictures. You're also taking a cheap shot at the intended age group.

To clarify, cartoons, in the sense you are using it, are of occidental animation, generally (nowadays) meant for kids. Anime is of oriental origin (Japanese technically), involving a range of age groups dependent upon the series. Calling anime cartoons is like calling an adult romance novel a kids book, just because there are some shared characteristics. One doesn't meet the criteria of the other, and vice versa.

Then again, some people just feel better stereotyping whatever they can.

Re:Am I alone?

[Ichigo Kurosaki]

Am I the only person left on the planet that can't stand Anime?

Yes, yes you are.

Re:Am I alone?

[KillShill]

actually you make some good points.

but really, cartoons or any form of animation was very much also an adult thing. during the early parts of the last century, many cartoons had themes not very relevant to children. also during ww2, many of the cartoon characters we are familiar with, were aimed at propogandizing the adult public. looking back at the flintstones for example, there are many intracacies that are only valuable to an adult audience. also take the simpsons/futurama/family guy/etc... clearly they go way over the head of children.

when people say cartoons are for kids, they must be very fixated on the saturday morning cartoon era.

clearly, any person can watch any type of moving display and that the only limiter, if you will is the content.

but it goes both ways... when you say anime isn't a cartoon i'd have to disagree. cartoon to me means any type of non-live animation. so when you say anime isn't a cartoon, you're saying it's something special or different. in effect, the content doesn't differentiate it sufficiently for me to give it a new designation.

as for your example above... romance novel and kids book... by my way of thinking, it doesn't matter what words are written on the pages... they are both books. perhaps it matters to you, but both are books in my mind. further categorization can occur but that's beyond the scope of my argument.

so when you hear my say CARTOON, i want people to understand, that ultimately, anime isn't special enough because of its content to warrant having a name change.

a cartoon by any other name...

Re:Am I alone?

[pyrrhonist]

in the logic class you took, it apparently means 100%.

Ah, so you're no stranger to sarcasm.

and cite a few more "exceptions". i can always use the list to find the better picks out there.

Perfect Blue is simply an adorable anime. Look at her! Isn't she just so cute with blood splattered all over her?

It's also so wonderfully lighthearted how in Akira the main character's girlfriend first gets beat up by a bunch of thugs and then later gets crushed to death by the main character.

Oh, yeah, and Ninja Scroll was sooooooooooo cute - especially the tentacle rape scene!

Finally, there's Barefoot Gen in which the most darling thing happens to Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

For other really cute and fuzzy anime, try Blue Gender, The Wings of Honneamise, Iria, Appleseed, Witch Hunter Robin, Patlabor, Macross Plus, MD Geist, Ghost in the Shell, and Lain.

Sheesh, even Star Blazers showed people getting shot in the back, multiple suicides, and main characters dying.

Seriously, though, one thing that could help you pick something more to your liking would be the reviews at Anime on DVD.

Re:Am I alone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lain has multiple suicides.

And bear pajamas. Don't forget the sickeningly cute bear pajamas.

Re:Am I alone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats because you're hetrosexual.

Re:Am I alone?

[Anonymous Coward]

No you aren't. I associate it with child porn myself. I also hate Star Trek too.

Re:Am I alone?

[Hannah E. Davis]

I don't think it's the content that makes anime "different" from other cartoons, I think it's mainly the style... and given that I can identify almost any cartoon as anime or not anime based on a single glance at the art, I think that said style qualifies as a distinguishing characteristic. This doesn't mean that anime is -separate- from cartoons, just that it is a special type of cartoon that is easily recognizable as its own little subset.

I try not to use the word cartoon when talking about anime simply for the sake of clarity. I don't want people to think I'm talking about a Western animated series when I'm actually talking about a Japanese one.

Now, on the topic of the article... I like the idea of using bittorrent this way, but I agree with others that it might not end up being all that profitable for ADV. I kind of wish they'd picked a better series to offer a promo of, though... I saw the first episode or two of Madlax a while back, and I wasn't really impressed. Ah well, maybe if this works they'll get hold of more of the various really good series that're still only available in fansub form.

Re:Am I alone?

[Politburo]

No, you're just one of the many who feels the need to hate something that others enjoy. For some people it's American Idol, for some it's sports.. for you it's anime.

Re:Am I alone?

[airjrdn]

Nah, I pretty much associate it with "teh n00b" type of net users.

Re:Am I alone?

[Politburo]

Rationalize it however you want. I really don't know why some people have this overriding need to express their displeasure of activities that others enjoy. No one says you have to like it, but if you don't, then don't browse to anime articles. It's that simple. You don't need to come here and say stupid shit like "Am I the only one who can't stand anime?" IHBT. HAND.

Re:Am I alone?

[KD5YPT]

Another distinction I find between anime and cartoon is that anime, overall, have more of a storyline compare to cartoon (of course, that seems to be changing).

Re:Am I alone?

[KD5YPT]

Well, just as there're people who hates all book. There'll be people who hates all anime.

But they're a very small minority. Pathetically small in fact.

Re:Am I alone?

[robyannetta]

Am I the only person left on the planet that can't stand Anime?

Obviously, you've never seen Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend.

Re:Am I alone?

[Anonymous Coward]

most of the japanese cartoons are pretty much crap and here's the kicker: IMO.

That's not your opinion . . . it's a fact

Re:Am I alone?

[mink]

How do you clasify the first season of Batman:TAS from the 90's?

Re:Am I alone?

[Gerro]

THE REASON Those who favor anime use bit torrent because: 1- their translations suck when in english 2- its much faster than waiting a year later to get 3- they edit out scenes or censor parts 4-their voice actors sound like they're high on crack 5- I'm not geting jibbed out of cash for speaking english. Screw their inflated prices! 6- if they aren't aiming to make profit with me then I shall do as I please with their shows. -Copyright was meant to protect those who aim to make profit. Not jerks that won't sell me stuff!- ps- I like the subtitle translations tips about japanese, very very helpful.

Vote with your Net connection

[GraZZ]

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.

Re:Vote with your Net connection

[tzuriel]

I admire your attitude. I agree that we need to show our support for companies that embrace the new technology.

ADVFilms is almost bankrupt.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:ADVFilms is almost bankrupt.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not surprised. One can only buy so much of it before you run out of space and money, and the US TV series cost a fraction of the anime series (so you feel cheated).

Re:ADVFilms is almost bankrupt.

[MsGeek]

OK, so I guess that means that about wraps it up for the live-action Neon Genesis Evangelion they announced with such fanfare a couple of years ago. That is, unless WETA Workshop and Gainax can get funding elsewhere. (Wry chuckle as I was quite skeptical of ADV's ability to bankroll such a project...)

An inadvertant plus: maybe the English-language rights for the Nuku Nuku series will be back up for grabs with the demise of ADV. And Excel Saga too. And Neon Genesis Evangelion. Nuku Nuku in particular needs to get a polishing-up.

Re:ADVFilms is almost bankrupt.

[Bones3D_mac]

I'm not sure why this would really surprise anyone. ADV had a brief lucky streak where the niche market they serve suddenly became a booming industry fad here in the U.S. As a result, they grew way too fast for their primary market to sustain them. Now with the industry receding back toward being a niche market again, they're struggling to stay afloat.

Aside from that, ADV's production quality has been getting progressively worse over the last couple years. Translations are much further off from what they were in ADVs earlier years and the quality of their dubbed materials are now almost unbearable.

I'm sure the other companies like CPM and Viz are also feeling the effects of the market shift, but unlike ADV, they didn't go nuts on spending to increase their brand recognition.

If anything about this is surprising, it's that a giant like ADV didn't realize how short lived a fad can be.

Re:ADVFilms is almost bankrupt.

[Nogami_Saeko]

I was actually pleasantly surprised when ADV released the City Hunter series on DVD (although I can't find it on their site anywhere at the moment). It's one of my favorite series of all-time, and the opportunity to get the entire show (~120 episodes) at a fairly reasonable price was great.

I was more than a little surprised when I noticed how good the translations were, as well as what I consider to be an excellent subbing job - good quality with minimal "over-production" (seeing as I how I fansubbed many of the episodes myself over a decade ago, the ADV version was more or less 'how I woulda done it' if I had the time :).

In other words: I want NO extras, NO english dialogue, NO fancy menus. Just good translations, clean video and clear "soft" subtitles (and preferably clean opening/closes).

N.

Re:ADVFilms is almost bankrupt.

[Bones3D_mac]

Considering I own this set, I'd have to agree with your sentiments. Sadly, it's one of the last decent releases by ADV before things changed for the worst.

If you check out the City Hunter movies that came out later on, you'll notice just how much ADV has changed in the last couple years.

For example, they now change characters' names to more english-friendly substitutes. Ryo's name is dumbed down to simply "Joe", as are many other characters' names.

There just isn't any good excuse for such blatant stupidity like this.

Re:ADVFilms is almost bankrupt.

[Microlith]

I'm suprised you're taking the word of an AC, spouted seemingly at random and with little to no proof, as fact.

Re:ADVFilms is almost bankrupt.

[Shadow99_1]

Now I find this a strange statement... Probably because I'm staff for an Anime Convention. Year over year Anime conventions have kept growing in attendance. Heck some of the most popular have had to set caps on attendance or they couldn't fit them all in a reasonable way... That would seem counter to any kind of 'recession back to a niche market'. At the same time Anime Conventions are sprouting up everywhere, five years ago I'd have had to drive 500 miles to visit a convention, now I have 3 within 100 miles...

I should also mention companies like Viz found effective solutions to limited growth like doing away with the middleman by merger. But even so some of the biggest US distributors these days are Bandai and Geneon... Both of which are US branches of Japanese companies involved in the production of Anime in the first place...

Re:ADVFilms is almost bankrupt.

[Anonymous Coward]

The size of the market has nothing to do with the financial situation of a single company in that market.

ADVFilms has troubles, they lose money on every NewType printed in the US, they went way over budget with that EVA Movie fiasco, they ended up defaulted on a lot of Licenses with the Japanese companies, laid off half their staff, etc.

This is all old news tho...

Re:ADVFilms is almost bankrupt.

[Shadow99_1]

Um I was replying to his statement where he says "ADV had a brief lucky streak where the niche market they serve suddenly became a booming industry fad here in the U.S. As a result, they grew way too fast for their primary market to sustain them. Now with the industry receding back toward being a niche market again, they're struggling to stay afloat."

I argued back that the signs seem to indicate that the market isn't shrinking and if anything is still growing (just maybe not as fast as it did a couple years ago). He also argued over and over that anime was a 'fad', if so it's gotta be the longest 'fad' in history since this is the 3rd decade for growth of it...

I didn't say anything about ADV at all. ADV has been stupid for almost a decade now with progressively worse work in their market. With alternatives that are much better it's no suprise at all they aren't doing well... But again that wasn't the point of my comment...

Re:ADVFilms is almost bankrupt.

[Anonymous Coward]

ADV did NOT lay off 75% of their staff last year. They did lay off some people but not anywhere near that many. Besides, many of those laid off have been rehired. That given with the fact they are still the top company in sales each week according to videoscan, doesn't sound like a company in trouble. If they are then the other anime companies must be in even more trouble.

Re:ADVFilms is almost bankrupt.

[Anonymous Coward]

OLD NEWS is right. It's been floating around the internet for as long as ADV has been in business which is now something like 13 years that they were going out of buiness. They seem to be doing pretty well for a company that is always losing money. Newtype is in the black I heard and they didn't default on any licenses that I've seen nor did they ever lay off half their staff. You really shouldn't spread urban legends.

Re:ADVFilms is almost bankrupt.

[Bones3D_mac]

Look, I've been collecting anime since way before it gained any major acceptance by broadcasters here in the U.S. I have a pretty good idea what I'm talking about on this. The fad has peaked with the general population here and is starting to recede back to being a niche market again.

In terms of market, I'm refering to adult viewers with money to spend on this stuff, not kiddie shows like Pokemon, YuGiOh, One Piece, etc which are an entirely separate market in and of themselves.

Check out the ratings in the last couple months for Adult Swim's anime line-up. They are seriously taking a plunge compared to previous months. I'm sure the same holds true for any of G4's recent offerings as well. People are bored with it and are now looking elsewhere for their entertainment.

Anyway, my point in this, is that there is a huge difference between those of us who collect and buy anime, and those who are simply casual viewers. The casual viewers had a moment to latch onto something we like and we saw it become a big industry for a brief moment of time. That time is now on it's way out. Our numbers may have grown as an effect of this brief fad, but not by enough to break out of being a niche market.

Re:ADVFilms is almost bankrupt.

[Anonymous Coward]

The City Hunter movies came out well before the TV series. So it's a sign of improvement, not the other way as you suggest.

Re:ADVFilms is almost bankrupt.

[Shadow99_1]

Um besides the offensive nature of that comment (you have no idea after all how long I've been collecting anime after all, but you make it sound as if I can't possiblly have collected it as long as you), That's based on one piece of information...

From my POV (that of being the video director of a anime convention) crowds only seem to get bigger and this is the case across the board. Though 2 things have most likely significantly effected growth on TV (especially with the adult crowd)... The first is the horrible job done on alot of dubs of late (I know from our work fansubs are gaining popularity among atendees and it forces us to air fansubbed anime to keep their interest in our video rooms). The second is a lack of good anime being bought for airing even on adult swim. Time block also has a big effect on why I don't watch adult swim, I've never bothered with a Tivo style device and midnight showings of things I might want to watch haven't suited my viewing (or sleeping) habits for several years now...

TV in general has never fared well with anime (except in the kids category where it continues to dominate a sizable chunk of TV viewing) here in the US. ADV's attempts at creating a pure anime cable TV channel should highlight this. The quality and volume of anime it would take to sustain a pure anime channel is larger than the distribution here in the US is outside of fansubs...

Torrent FTW

[springMute]

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.

Re:Torrent FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

The overpopularization of Naruto is not necessarily a good thing. Rumor has it that the mass number of leechers is doing nothing but raising the cost for potential licensors, which may be the very reason why we haven't seen it on television outside Japan.

Re:Torrent FTW

[Microlith]

The only reason we haven't seen it is because Shogakukan was waiting until the time was right.

And now that it is, namely Dragonball is ending, they've handed Naruto to their subsidary VIZ for localization and TV airing.

It will be on CN very soon, in the US and likely other countries.

And yes, we will get uncut/sub releases. See animeondvd.com for information on the Naruto DVD release format.

Re:Torrent FTW

[bombshelter13]

But don't you see? They ~are~ already profitting from it.

According to you sales of Naruto headbands and other Naruto merchandise in Brazil is doing quite well, which is surprising considering the show doesn't even air in Brazil.

The company might not be making money selling their products (television shows) to Brazilian customers (TV stations), but thanks to BitTorrent they're making money selling their products (merchandise) to Brazillian customers (Brazilian anime 'pirates').

Re:Torrent FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

uh - you do realize cosplay is a sexual fetish in Japanese - or is that what animefriends is all about ?

Re:Torrent FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

It *can* be, but it's not a fetish on its own. The amount of costume play that's sexualized is a much smaller percentage.

Re:Torrent FTW

[prof_tc]

I find that with most of the people I know who get the fansub anime on torrents, they'll buy the DVD's.... when they're finally available. I have, my friends have. It's just that it can be years before anyone sees the new anime's come to the US, and probably even longer for other countries. It's kinda like releasing DVDs of something that was on TV, like CSI. People buy it because they like it.

Re:Torrent FTW

[KD5YPT]

Unfortunately for commercial torrent, they will HAVE to expect leechers. The general feeling is that you paid for it, and yet you distribute for them without having any sort of reward, of course few would stay on and help distribute. Free fansubs have a lot of people help with seeding is the mindset that since we're getting this for free, we're somewhat obligated to help out with our bandwidth.

Re:Torrent FTW

[baka_vic]

The company might not be making money selling their products (television shows) to Brazilian customers (TV stations), but thanks to BitTorrent they're making money selling their products (merchandise) to Brazillian customers (Brazilian anime 'pirates').

Not quite. I believe a lot of the merchandise sold are not originals, but imitations. So the anime studios aren't making a cent from these. The quality of these imitations are about 80% of the quality of an original piece. For example, a imitation figurine would, at first glance, look pretty good, but on closer examination, be missing markings, have badly painted areas, etc. The originals have stellar quality; with shadows, minute markings, etc. Even the details on the soles!

On the other hand, the originals can be ridiculously expensive, as compared to these "copies", often with a price difference no less than 3:1 - I wonder how much they make per piece...

Re:Torrent FTW

[springMute]

Cosplay is a generic term. You can find cosplay porn and you can find people doing cosplay with no sexual conotation at all. Saying cospla y is a sexual fetish in japanese is like saying "asian" is a sexual fetish in english.

Re:Torrent FTW

[springMute]

Sorry that this wasn't clear, but no, they're not buying their naruto headbands or their sharingan contact lenses from the company that makes naruto. It's all homebred, local, fan-made, pirate stuff. Quality stuff, sometimes, but still with no profit to the "Naruto" trademark owners.

The "buy two naruto headbands and get one chobits ear free" kind of store. I can't link them here because I lost the URL, sorry.

Open up your eyes...!

[Anonymous Coward]

Video capture + cheap storage + modest processor + P2P software + internet connection = the end of broadcast, cable and sat TV.

I'd pay to download

[batkiwi]

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...

Re:I'd pay to download

[Silkejr]

"Maybe even allow you to earn credit by seeding a ton, to encourage the BT usage..." Now that would be very interesting.

Re:I'd pay to download

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to steal your thunder but that's the first thing that i thought about, earning credits by seeding.
Maybe a good idea could go like this:
. anime is produced and aired in japan
. licensors jump in early so you can have near broadcast time ready to download subbed episodes.
. possibly hire fansubbers to add speed to the process
. pay per download, credit for seeding, you want fansubs? there you have it, credit goes at no cost for the company,after all you are working for them using your bandwith for distro purposes. credit can have a cap to ensure margin.
. if a show is popular or appeals to a bigger audience dub it, and release on media later on, probably financed by downloading. after all there is always a lot of people that can't live without the foil print dvd box
. profit more on merchandising.

one thing this business people don't seem to understand well is that piracy is innevitable, but if you offer a product that is convenient, people won't see the need to go elsewhere. piracy will always make a dent, they need to factor in that as a given loss and capitalize on the huge marketing + distribution vehicle they could get with something like that.

hope they mod the parent up

-manny

Re:I'd pay to download

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not do video encoding, but this is what my eyes can see without going to frame by frame. I do hope they would have someone with a bit more experience in encoding.

So far I have spotted encoding artifacts, artifacts caused by not using proper deinterlace settings.

The video encoding bit rate is high enough to not have blocking in low contrast scenes which is good.

I hope this get fixed up before they are looking into online content distribution. As far as promo is concerned, it is okay quality.

As to BW usage... My old ISP charges around $1.5 per GB worth of packets transfered and still make a profit.

Re:I'd pay to download

[KD5YPT]

Sounds like a good idea. Although said credit need to be scaled for the fact that you're just a redistributor.

Something like a credit ratio of 4:1 or 2:1 (equivalent of buy 4 or buy 2 get 1 free). Scaled according to filesize.

I'd pay for it.

[mcc]

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.

Sucks

[PenGun]

I'll leave the seeder up for a while but really I guess I've been spoiled by Adult Swim.

PenGun
Do What Now ??? ... Standards and Practices !

Problem: Europe and Japan are both region 2

[tepples]

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.

Whose gonna care?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Whose gonna care?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called an example. If you want another one how about "Groove Adventure RAVE" becoming 'Rave Master". "Konjiki no Gash Bell" becoming "Zatch Bell". Or shall I go more detailed? As in how Viz tore out all the Inuyasha Zubon Omakes, the commercial transitions, and resused the same ending video for all of the 2nd season endings when each was different? I can recall a list a mile long.

Also, where exactly did I claim fansubs were more accurate? You're just inferring that I'm some "ignorant" fanboy. Fansubs range in translation quality just like licensed material. The difference is the fansubbers actually understand the community and their wants. Fansubbers don't tear out every last drop of Japanese culture in order to make it more "American Friendly". They accept it and THAT is what makes their translations preferred. Fans want to watch Naruto and see the actual Jutsu names along with translational notes not some stupid sounding English translation, accuracy alone is NOT enough, STYLE COUNTS!

As to Kenshin... you realize the fansubs were done in the VHS era right? There really wasn't a community back then nor was it taken as seriously. It's akin to the fansubbing stone-age. Additionally, the reason fans ribbed Media Blaster is because they ripped out the Japanese culture and used akward phrases like "manslayer". As a fan, it's Hitokiri Battousai or bust. Licensing companies don't understand what the fans want out of a translation and that's the problem and why I said they're piss poor.

Also, to the creators doing the most damage? Shall we go through exactly Nevala, 4kids, DiC, Funimation, Viz, and pretty much everyone else has done? Should I repeat the above examples?

Now just for Pioneer DVD...

[Midnight Thunder]

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.

Re:Now just for Pioneer DVD...

[Apreche]

Nope, sorry. The reason for that price is because when Last Exile was released Geneon(Pioneer) had not yet changed its prices to be in line with new exchange rates due to the weaker dollar. They have since corrected that, but they were the last of the North American anime distributors to do so. So I guess you can say they are out of touch, but only with economics.

Re:Now just for Pioneer DVD...

[Tiroth]

Pioneer always seems to be pricey. I think one of the problems is that DVDs are more expensive in Japan, and Japanese companies can't stomach pricing their releases to the North American market.

For example, Amazon.co.jp lists Last Exile at 6090Y, or $66CAD. Pioneer thinks they are already giving you a deal at $45.

Re:Now just for Pioneer DVD...

[Jucius Maximus]

Pioneer (now known as Geneon) has recently fixed this problem. Check out any release or preorder with a street date of June 2005 or later. For titles with MSRPs of US$29.95 and US$24.95, the Canadian MSRPs are now CDN$36.95 and CDN$29.95 respectively. Check out this thread for more information.

Though at this point there is still no hope for all those older titles with the stupidly high price points.

I don't understand,

[krelian]

Torrents are already used massively to distribute anime.

Otaco?

[MsGeek]

Do you mean Commander Otaco? Or his Irish counterpart, Commander O'Taco? Or the honorable octopus O-Tako? I'm confused here...

Re:Otaco?

[mink]

You leave Tako out of this!

Re:Otaco?

[Kyusaku Natsume]

Well, not to nitpick, but I believe that CMDR Taco -something that Rob Malda read in a sign comes from CoMaDRe Taco. Taco is the mexican food, comadre is the name given to the godmothers by the parents; for godfather is compadre.

Remember that episode of Star Trek: TNG...

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Re:Remember that episode of Star Trek: TNG...

[Anonymous Coward]

You've seen the pictures of her without makeup, right?

Re:Remember that episode of Star Trek: TNG...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I said, "used to think..."

Re:Remember that episode of Star Trek: TNG...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or Commander Data:

Ensign Douchebag, I seem to have somehow materialized within the wall of your latrine. Would you please notify Commander Ryker that I MMMPHHH GLBLLL..."

Left on the forums, eh?

[GreyDuck]

He is looking for feedback regarding this and can be left on the AnimeOnDVD Forums.

Man, I wouldn't want to be left on the AnimeOnDVD Forums... oh wait, you meant that the feedback can... er, nevermind. *cough, cough*

Mmm...

[ZakuSage]

Gotta love bittorrent. The only thing we can't slashdot!

Perhaps Not

[EXTomar]

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.

You are not alone!

[Anonymous Coward]

The movie theater where I work had an anime Saturday about three months ago. Three paying customers showed-up despite the fact we spent about $2k promoting it. To compare, we had near 100 people show-up the last time we showed Rocky Horror, and we spent $0 promoting that one. The only promotion we had for Rocky Horror was a blurb in the paper the day before and a local radio station mentioned it a couple of times.

Given those numbers, I'd say anime is nearly universally hated or at the very least not liked.

PS: What is the deal with the moderators nailing anyone that isn't a fan of animated pornography. Not everyone is into pornography, and an even smaller # are into animated porno. Why mark his post as flamebait?

depends

[Phil Urich]

You're probably right, but I have noticed audible differences in some shows (Cowboy Bebop for the most popular of them).

Actually Fansubs are now VERY illegal

[DeadMilkman]

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 -_-

I love it when fans don't know shit...

[DeadMilkman]

#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)

Re:I love it when fans don't know shit...

[KD5YPT]

Hm... didn't know that.

You should be modded up for your daringness to go against the tide (meant as a compliment, don't take this in other way).

The only real beef I have with US releases are quite a lot of the dubbing (... sounds... freaky..., except for a few which are pretty good), and to some small extend the ugly subtitle (not in content, but in its presentation, big and green). That and those damn idiots that changes the show (who's the one that released Cardcaptors in US... I was like OMFG WHAT DID THEY DO?).

duhh....

[SuperBanana]

Madlax is actually pretty good; very Noir-ish

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.

Re:duhh....

[Golias]

After seeing disk 2 of Madlax, I think it's getting good enough that I'll give disk 3 a chance.

The music does suck, though. Hard to believe it came from the same folks as the kick-ass soundtrack to Noir.

That's okay, I can get my "cool music in a violent new anime series" fix from Gunslinger Girl and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

great ad

[Charles Jo]

1. Release anything on BitTorrent (or similar P2P network).
2. Get mentioned on /. (Get /.'d).
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).

Prices

[Kagami001]

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.

Re:Prices

[John Pfeiffer]

Well, I certainly agree that foreign fans aren't worthy of respect. :) But 'already voted with my wallet'? Hardly. I only buy R1s if I'm not crazy enough about the series to pay like $60 a DVD and have it shipped from Japan, or I want subtitles. (Or plan to watch it with someone who needs them) All my favorite shows are R2 DVDs.

Sometimes I'm just crazy-go-nuts about a series, and I do something insane like import the limited edition 5.1 boxset of Cowboy Bebop. (Because, why the hell not? I also have the movie in 1080i HDTV.) :)

My point isn't that I'm cheap and I expect Japanese DVD quality for US prices, it's that you can't GET Japanese DVDs without buying them FROM Japan. If American companies wanted to take the Japanese DVDs as-is and slap their crappy subs on it (Hell, I'll even let them add a dub), I'd gladly pay $40-60 each just so I don't have to sell organs for shipping that takes less than a month. (I have, on several occasions, worked out that it would actually be cheaper for me to live in Japan than live on the east coast of the US and import stuff.)

Why don't they do that? Price is no concern of mine in the face of quality and convenience... (However, quality alone versus both convenience and price loses alot of the time, I'm sorry to say.)

Re:Prices

[John Pfeiffer]

I would also like to point out to the mods that Kagami001 makes a perfectly valid point, and shouldn't really be modded down. Sorry about the double-post, but the moderation happened while I was writing my other reply.

If you cant beat them Join them :)

[SoloFlyer2]

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

Re:If you cant beat them Join them :)

[KD5YPT]

I remember those two mails, ROFL.

Anyway, I used your sig a while back. Gotta love Mythbusters. It was (and is) my favorite quote.

The other one was... forgot thte exact wording.

"This show is like 4 minutes of science and then 10 minutes of me hurting myself." - Adam Savage

No longer the only distributor...

[Robmonster]

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.

Re:No longer the only distributor...

[KD5YPT]

They're only distributin the promotional video. They don't really much care who's doing the distribution (and it saves them money too). Its kinda like video game companies distributing demos through bittorrent.

It's too bad that...

[lbbros]

...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?).

Re:It's too bad that...

[KD5YPT]

Ah... Bandai. The only source of US localized, legal anime that I actually like. I think there're a few others... not sure which thou.

Re:It's too bad that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Chapter selection does exist on a number of ADV DVDs, but more recently it is omitted because they found many people did not make use of it. I think supplying links to each separate episode on the main menu is sufficient. It's not like we're dealing with an unchaptered 90 minute movie, which they -would- provide a scene selection menu for.

As for content, ADV and Bandai both produce very excellent extras content on their own. Japanese extras are often a crapshoot, as even Japanese DVDs tend to contain nothing but the show itself; often, the extras you expect don't actually exist.

Re:It's too bad that...

[lbbros]

I beg to differ. ADV extras on "non mainstream" releases are bad to say the least. Not to mention errors in presentation (e.g. the name of a song spelled in three different ways! Do people inside the company talk to each other?), subtitles that overlap the credit lines, etc. This is of course without considering extremely bad dubs (I am for dubs.... all Italian anime is dubbed, but *much* better than the English counterparts), and adaptations that are pretty bad.

Re:It's too bad that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Chapter selection? You do know that Japanese DVDs don't include chapter selection either, don't you? To save space they generally have the opening and closing seperate from each episode since it's generally the same between the two, hence you can skip these . It doesn't make sense to have a chapter selection menu even if there are chapters if you are dealing with approximately 20 minute episodes, especially if the original release doesn't have them. It'd be worth it to skip to the commercial break point (most Japanese DVDs have this), but that doesn't warrant a selection menu does it?

Chapter selection isn't there because it's stupid for a 20 minute episode. Movies are another matter, but I haven't seen an anime movie without chapter selection.

sounds very materialistic

[Anonymous Coward]

i'd much rather save money on the packaging - the movie is what you are really after - buy an art book with the change ;)

Very fast download rate

[Anonymous Coward]

497KB/sec before the torrent finished

Let's not forget...

[kinglink]

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.

Re:Let's not forget...

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems people forget that ADV is a BUSINESS. Businesses MUST defend their intellectual property in most cases, lest the pirates think they can step all over them and ramp up their operations, eventually providing so many free or cheap alternatives to their legitimate product that they can't sell it at all, and go under from lack of income.

Businesses can't afford to be the nice guy every time. And it's not like ADV is the only one to go after pirates.

Re:Let's not forget...

[Microlith]

And everyone like you gets flustered when they tell people to stop distributing works they hold the rights to. The only people it's made "bad blood" with are likely the people who rarely (if ever) bought anything to begin with.

The simple fact is that the majority of these sites are run by webmasters who won't listen. Fuck, look at the pricks that run the pirate bay. They barrel on ignorant of everything, and are SHOCKED when they get a Cease and Desist. How dare they demand their rights be respected. But I guess you can't expect more than nothing from a crowd of people who feel entitled to the works of others for free.

At least Animesuki is proactive, and as a result has never once been pursued by a US company.

Re:Let's not forget...

[kinglink]

While it is true some webmasters don't listen, Some websites do listen.

As such the order should ALWAYS go in is direct contact, then to go to the ISP. A police officer doesn't shoot a unknown suspect with out identifying himself, why should they be allowed to resort to extreme tactics with out undergoing reasonable channels before hand.

Re:Let's not forget...

[Anonymous Coward]

In all the cases I know of, direct contact -is- attempted first. Most of the people who had to have their ISPs talked to didn't respond or threw back some insult or another.

Re:Let's not forget...

[kinglink]

I don't know about others, but from a couple places I heard about, ADV didn't contact them at all, first...

Almost everyone else dealing with pirates who just want them to stop start with a C&D...Most of the time that will show you how far you have to go, and costs you, what...37 cents now?

MADLAX vs. Noir

[fellini8.5]

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.

baka! [NT]

[Anonymous Coward]

baka!

Stupid Fandom Mistakes

[DeadMilkman]

#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.

Re:Stupid Fandom Mistakes

[John Pfeiffer]

#1 Won't dignify with a reply.

#2 When you have a 120" display, you can TELL the difference between good encoding and bad, regardless of bitrate. (Compression artifacts the size of my head = BAD.) But if you think bitrate doesn't affect image quality, you're an imbecile.

#3 Sorry, I meant to say 'no one that counts'.

#4 Oh please, do tell me where my blame should be pointed.

#5 I shouldn't be? They have a pretty long track record with regards to bad releases.

bah!

[Philodoxx]

This is heresy! Anime never gets distributed over BitTorrent!

Copyright Theft

[bayers]

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.

Finally embracing change, not throwing it out

[jacklebot]

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

Re:Finally embracing change, not throwing it out

[Microlith]

a) Chinese ripoffs from ebay or certain websites
b) Get fansubs(some legal others, not-so-much)
c) Spend 120+ dollars

So your choices are:

a) fuck the creators
b) fuck the creators
c) support the creators

Really, is the choice that hard when episodes cost $100k to $300k to make, and the Japanese producers are often dependent on licensing income to keep from losing money?

Ambivalent here

[suitepotato]

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..."

I forgot to add...

[lbbros]

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.

Bad news for ADV films...

[Spy der Mann]

Which Anime Fan (that lives to the title) would choose to download crappy dubs with scenes cut? ADV has earned its reputation, after all.

MOD PARENT UP!!!

[Spy der Mann]

Either Insightful or Informative. Obviously this guy knows what he's talking about.

Yeah, DVDs with only 2 eps on them

[cryptochrome]

They certainly never had a problem driving up costs for their viewers. Renting GANTZ is twice as expensive as most other series.

Spike is better in English

[Tungbo]

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.

Wrong

[lbbros]

I have a truckload of Region 2 Japanese DVDs, and while the extras suck, they DO have chapter selection.

If you have to blame someone, blame the industry

[vethia]

It appears to be that the people they generally get to do the English voice acting aren't too great.

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.

Re:If you have to blame someone, blame the industr

[Mornelithe]

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.

Re:If you have to blame someone, blame the industr

[vethia]

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.

Not the right lin

[vmalloc_]

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.

Baud rate

[Anonymous Coward]

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. :)