The one good thing about taking some time off is ALL THE NEW SUBS YAY. o/

[beckerbell]

Just a quick-ish Arashi post today as the start of catching up. Spoilers for anything listed under the cut:
→ VS ARASHI #32 [2008.11.22] subbed
→ VS ARASHI #34 [2008.12.06] subbed
→ Arashi no Shukudai-kun #111 [2008.11.24] subbed
→ auBOX Jun version subbed

Comments

[beckerbell]

Oh, man, yes. I really want some of the older Waza-ari episodes to get more attention, too, because they have some serious gold in them, but I also understand why they fly under the radar. There's a lot more demand in fandom for their current shows and because there are three of them, along with all their tv appearances and all the interviews they do, there's really not a lull in the canon that would let most translators have the free time to get bored and go back to do some of the older shows. Hell, not even Shukudai-kun is all the way subbed and I would totally go for more recent Shukudai-kun eps being subbed than I would for the older shows, as much as I love them.

(Part of me does hope that maybe Taijiproject will take on other older shows once G no Arashi is finished. Also partly because I don't want her to ever, ever stop. XDDD)

I-- I have SO MANY IDEAS for projects with this fandom, far too many to actually do, but it's really fun to daydream about some of them sometimes. Where it gets dangerous is that each one doesn't really seem that hard when you think about it--you just start doing one VSA episode a day and then you only have to do one episode a week or two episodes every other week or whatever other schedule you feel like to catch up! It'd be easy! And it'd be so interesting! ....I'm not sure if I'm trying to talk you or me into it at this point. .__.

(I'd love a list of subs, but I doubt you could get away with it in fandom because so many posts are locked or because it would make it too easy for people to grab them and shove them up on streaming sites and I-- I guess I can't blame fandom for that. ~_~)

[beckerbell]

I'm with you on this. It's really difficult for me to want subs for older shows when Shukudai still isn't finished. It's kind of mind-boggling to think about something like the NEWS fandom, where the only things that need to be subbed are TV appearances and concert DVDs. Also, I feel like most of the time, I don't really need subs. It's just occasionally where there's a single line or a conversation that I'm absolutely dying to understand. It's weird how, after picking up so much Japanese, one of the biggest draws of subs for me now is the idea that more people in fandom are going to be exposed to some amazing things that every Arashi fan ought to see. (I can feel the rec posts forming in my head already... D:) What's really great about going through these older episodes too is seeing guests who are going to show up later in their careers. By which I mean OH MY GOD, ARASHI'S FIRST TIME MEETING SHIBATA RIE. (Which was not as epic as it could have been, but was still interesting just because, come on, SHIBATA RIE.)

(I have been really excited to see what's going to happen when Taijiproject finishes G no Arashi. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if she'd like a bit more free time than she's got now, but still, it would be amazing if all those hours she puts into her weekly subbing schedule were then put to use on other shows. She is just... AMAZING, GOD. *_*)

DO IT. DO IT, DO IT! :D :D :D .... :D :D :D :D :D

[beckerbell]

I can feel the rec posts forming in my head already...

I WANT TO DO THIS SO BAD. I mean, I'm already sort of doing it with the posts I make all the time, but they're spoilery for the funny stuff that happens in the episodes, so I don't think they could really serve as recs posts, so much as reaction posts. I really, really want to put together a better recs list of stuff to watch or a list of episodes for new fans to start out, but that's so hard, because some of the best stuff you want to save until you know them better. Like, I wouldn't want someone to start off with the boating saga from MMA, because it's not really the normal tone for the group and you wouldn't really appreciate all the insights with it, you know?

I'm not in the other fandoms nearly as deeply, so I don't know how much we get subs compared to what other fandoms get subs, but it does seem like we must at least be up there in terms of fandom production? I swear we're getting busier and busier, too. There was so much promotional stuff subbed for Hanadan Final and Maou and Ryuusei, stuff that never used to get subbed, which is amazing to see. *curious* Have you found that a lot of fans aren't watching the raw episodes, only just waiting for the subs?

(If she does take time off, she completely deserves it, she subbed so much material and in such a crazily short period of time, jeez. But, at the same time, I NEVER WANT TO LOSE HER, EVER.)

................. *hates*

[beckerbell]

I KNOOOOW. It's hard to decide whether you'd want to do it for new fans or old fans or simply yourself, or to divide it up, or what. And, yeah, I keep thinking about how the first videos you see of a person can really shape the way you look at them, and even if that image changes after a few weeks or even months, it's still going to have an impact. And the last thing you want to do is direct new fans in weird directions, haha.

I think the NEWS fandom and KAT-TUN fandom especially seem to have more subbed material in terms of percentages, because KAT-TUN just has one regular TV show and NEWS doesn't have one at all, so things always get subbed quickly for them. Not to mention their English-speaking fanbases seem larger than the ones for other groups. (I can't be sure of any of this, though, haha.) Whereas with Arashi, we've got to have way more in terms of sheer volume - we have so many amazing subbers, and lately especially, I feel like there's a new release every day, but even so, it barely scratches the surface of what's out there. Catching up seems like an impossible task. Seeing the promotional stuff get attention is really fun. I know there are a few dedicated Ohno fans out there who I trust to jump right on top of anything he does, and then there's that team who formed for Ryuusei, which was fantastic. *loves on everybody* In general, I think part of it is that people aren't likely to watch older shows that are unsubbed, and part of it is that, when they do watch unsubbed episodes, they miss out on some amazing things in the dialogue (not to sound snotty or anything, because I know I miss things all the time too, but I remember what it's like to understand about two words in an entire episode and how much that can cripple your enjoyment of it.)

(ASLKDJSALK I KNOW.)

♥ :D ♥

[beckerbell]

It's natural to want to start with focus on your own favorite band member or interaction between your own favorite pairing, plus it's so hard to remember what was a really good starting place when you're dealing with, like, a thousand episodes of various shows, and that's not even counting dramas. (Which I tend to think are a great place for people to start, there's a reason why a good chunk of fans are Junbaited into Arashi. XD) I'd love to see someone do a post where people could chime in with a short list of their favorite recommendations to start with, it'd be great for new fans, I think.

Since I'm not that heavily involved with other fandoms, I don't know who gets as many shows as Arashi does--doesn't TOKIO have a whole crapload of shows when you take into account their individual members' other shows? (Like Aiba with TSD.) And I'm not sure how many SMAP has or how often they get subbed. Or how many shows K8 has. But when I look at the group comms for posting subs, when I checked in on other groups, it didn't seem like they were putting out as much as Arashi was putting out.

Which, I suspect, is half of why there's so much more fic for K8 and NEWS and KAT-TUN, because they're not busy scrambling to keep up with canon. But the other half is that they're more established fandoms and I think more people got into them for the fic, rather than the way a lot of Arashi fans seem to have come in--which was for the canon. (I could be WAY OFF BASE, I'm only in the one fandom, so I don't actually know anything about the others!) Except for maybe Nobuta, that seemed to really spark off a lot of the NEWS/KAT-TUN fans. XD