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

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?

Corrected link to Madlax

[tzuriel]

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

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...

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: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