Bleh, I felt like ranting
I am so tired right now, my eyes are barely open...I have a written midterm tomorrow, and I can't remember when my in-class writing thing is due...
My dog Dobbie had a seizure and threw up today. It was scary...we took him to the vet, but by then he was pretty much acting normal. Well, for him anyway.
I was thinking about fansubbs...technically, they're illegal. It's a form of piracy. So why are companies allowing it to go on? I realized something today...I don't think I would be nearly as much into some of these series if I hadn't seen the fansubbs first. Generally, fansubs are truer to the original story. Their translations are closer because they try their hardest to get the closest meaning. I mean, to my understanding at least, these things are being translated by people who are taking japanese more or less for fun...unlike mainstream companies, they aren't hired help. Heck, they're not even paid to do their job, but they do it better than many people who are paid to do the subtitles. Not only that, but there are more people/jobs involved in fansubbing...someone has to get a (good) copy of a TV-aired show and put it on their computer and then have the raw file available for the fansubbers. Then, someone has to translate it (often without the help of an original Japanese script). After that, someone has to time the subtitles so that they match what people say, going so far as to time it so that half a sentence appears at a time so as not to spoil anything. A lot of work goes into fansubbing, work that isn't paid for.
My biggest theory behind the reason most Japanese companies haven't stopped fansubbers (in fact, in 2002 (or around then), at AX, the makers of .hack//SIGN encouraged people to "Watch it any way you can") is because of merchandising. DVDs in Japan are expensive when compared to the prices of those in the U.S. Companies make a lot of money by licencing their series here, making thousands (if not hundereds of thousands) of dollars per episode. You would think that fansubbing would get in the way, since people who had already seen the series are less likely to buy the DVDs. This, however, is not that big of a problem.
Take .hack//SIGN for example. Every DVD came out with a special item. There was an option to get the 1st DVD with a gift box that came with all SORTS of rare goodies, including a T-shirt, a mini grunty doll, stickers, post cards, a soundtrack, and so on, all available ONLY through the gift box offer. Each DVD after that had a limited edition version that came with something special, be it soundtrack or otherwise. Then, after the series was completed, they offered a box set which came with 3 (limited edition) pins.
The point I was trying to make with that was the power of Japanese merchandising. Despite the high price of the DVDs in Japan, many usually offer some sort of limited-edition specail item as an extra incentive. After all, the shows had already been shown on TV. It is these extra incentives that convinced me to re-buy the entire .hack//SIGN series, despite the fact that I had already watched the whole thing before. (I am still tormented by the .hack//SIGN boxed set with the pins...I don't want to buy the DVDs again).
By no means is this a new idea. It simply has become one of the main driving forces behind current DVD sales among otaku, or rather, American otaku. Heck, I bought the Gad Guard vol 1 DVD with box just to get Hajiki's hat (which looks cute on me btw). I ordered Azumanga Daioh vol 1 DVD with box to get the pins. These were both recent purchases, however...since the whole series of both of these had long since been released, the 1st DVDs with box couldn't exactly be found at your local Best Buy.
So anyway, what I'm getting at is, the reason most Japanese companies don't put a stop to fansubbing is that they realize that there is just to big of a commercial value in it. At conventions, Bleach stuff gets sold out quickly since there is a huge fanbase already here in the U.S.
A fanbase can be a double-edged sword, however...I can only immagine the hate mail Viz must be getting right now because of the bad Naruto dub. Having a fanbase puts pressure on the American companies to get it right. They can't rush the release of an anime series after it gets licenced, but at the same time they are pressured from all sides to release it. Funimation, thus, had a daunting task when they licenced Fullmetal Alchemist. When their licensing agreement was announced, there was a vast uproar in the FMA fan community. Funimation had a bad history of editing and practically destroying the anime they licenced. But to everyone's surprise, they stayed true to the original story, and has currently one of the best dubs out there. This just goes to show that the task of licencing an anime and translating it well is not an impossible task...it's just that more American companies need to realize that this is what the fans want.
Side notes:
Once a series gets licenced, you can no longer find it on the more mainstream fansub directories, since the directories respect American copyright laws (which are much stronger than Japanese copyright laws).
In fact, companies like Funimation keep track of the popularity of anime through Bittorrent statistics, which show how many people are downloading an episode at one time. So the fansubbs actually help them decide which series are popular and will be potentially successful in the U.S.
So fansubbing, though technically piracy, can be a great help to Japanese companies to market their series overseas even before it can get licensed, and even imporve a series' chances of getting licensed. By creating the right incentives, they can make fans who have already seen the show buy the DVDs.
Well, that's it for now. I got a test tomorrow and I need to sleep.
Oh, before I go, this rant is copyright 2005 by Tanya Burr. So nobody steal it, okay?
My dog Dobbie had a seizure and threw up today. It was scary...we took him to the vet, but by then he was pretty much acting normal. Well, for him anyway.
I was thinking about fansubbs...technically, they're illegal. It's a form of piracy. So why are companies allowing it to go on? I realized something today...I don't think I would be nearly as much into some of these series if I hadn't seen the fansubbs first. Generally, fansubs are truer to the original story. Their translations are closer because they try their hardest to get the closest meaning. I mean, to my understanding at least, these things are being translated by people who are taking japanese more or less for fun...unlike mainstream companies, they aren't hired help. Heck, they're not even paid to do their job, but they do it better than many people who are paid to do the subtitles. Not only that, but there are more people/jobs involved in fansubbing...someone has to get a (good) copy of a TV-aired show and put it on their computer and then have the raw file available for the fansubbers. Then, someone has to translate it (often without the help of an original Japanese script). After that, someone has to time the subtitles so that they match what people say, going so far as to time it so that half a sentence appears at a time so as not to spoil anything. A lot of work goes into fansubbing, work that isn't paid for.
My biggest theory behind the reason most Japanese companies haven't stopped fansubbers (in fact, in 2002 (or around then), at AX, the makers of .hack//SIGN encouraged people to "Watch it any way you can") is because of merchandising. DVDs in Japan are expensive when compared to the prices of those in the U.S. Companies make a lot of money by licencing their series here, making thousands (if not hundereds of thousands) of dollars per episode. You would think that fansubbing would get in the way, since people who had already seen the series are less likely to buy the DVDs. This, however, is not that big of a problem.
Take .hack//SIGN for example. Every DVD came out with a special item. There was an option to get the 1st DVD with a gift box that came with all SORTS of rare goodies, including a T-shirt, a mini grunty doll, stickers, post cards, a soundtrack, and so on, all available ONLY through the gift box offer. Each DVD after that had a limited edition version that came with something special, be it soundtrack or otherwise. Then, after the series was completed, they offered a box set which came with 3 (limited edition) pins.
The point I was trying to make with that was the power of Japanese merchandising. Despite the high price of the DVDs in Japan, many usually offer some sort of limited-edition specail item as an extra incentive. After all, the shows had already been shown on TV. It is these extra incentives that convinced me to re-buy the entire .hack//SIGN series, despite the fact that I had already watched the whole thing before. (I am still tormented by the .hack//SIGN boxed set with the pins...I don't want to buy the DVDs again).
By no means is this a new idea. It simply has become one of the main driving forces behind current DVD sales among otaku, or rather, American otaku. Heck, I bought the Gad Guard vol 1 DVD with box just to get Hajiki's hat (which looks cute on me btw). I ordered Azumanga Daioh vol 1 DVD with box to get the pins. These were both recent purchases, however...since the whole series of both of these had long since been released, the 1st DVDs with box couldn't exactly be found at your local Best Buy.
So anyway, what I'm getting at is, the reason most Japanese companies don't put a stop to fansubbing is that they realize that there is just to big of a commercial value in it. At conventions, Bleach stuff gets sold out quickly since there is a huge fanbase already here in the U.S.
A fanbase can be a double-edged sword, however...I can only immagine the hate mail Viz must be getting right now because of the bad Naruto dub. Having a fanbase puts pressure on the American companies to get it right. They can't rush the release of an anime series after it gets licenced, but at the same time they are pressured from all sides to release it. Funimation, thus, had a daunting task when they licenced Fullmetal Alchemist. When their licensing agreement was announced, there was a vast uproar in the FMA fan community. Funimation had a bad history of editing and practically destroying the anime they licenced. But to everyone's surprise, they stayed true to the original story, and has currently one of the best dubs out there. This just goes to show that the task of licencing an anime and translating it well is not an impossible task...it's just that more American companies need to realize that this is what the fans want.
Side notes:
Once a series gets licenced, you can no longer find it on the more mainstream fansub directories, since the directories respect American copyright laws (which are much stronger than Japanese copyright laws).
In fact, companies like Funimation keep track of the popularity of anime through Bittorrent statistics, which show how many people are downloading an episode at one time. So the fansubbs actually help them decide which series are popular and will be potentially successful in the U.S.
So fansubbing, though technically piracy, can be a great help to Japanese companies to market their series overseas even before it can get licensed, and even imporve a series' chances of getting licensed. By creating the right incentives, they can make fans who have already seen the show buy the DVDs.
Well, that's it for now. I got a test tomorrow and I need to sleep.
Oh, before I go, this rant is copyright 2005 by Tanya Burr. So nobody steal it, okay?