^Agreed
I myself have watched tons of streaming fansubbed anime. I don't really care if this is considered as piracy or not, but in this case it is necessarily something negative.
Like Erebea said thanks to fansubs, most Anime titles would not have been so populair in the West. The anime distributors and sponsors should be pleased with the free promotion that fansubbers do. They should be gratefull instead IMO.
Exactly; I'd like to further what Erebea and Onilink have been saying here. I would say that contrary to the impression that people on the outside looking in may get, Fansubs in reality do a lot in the way of boosting the success of anime series when licensed and marketed for release, through facilitating their popularity overseas. Onilink provided a very direct example of this concerning
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, but my own example comes personally. Let me tell you this: reading a summary or getting a recommendation about an anime series is not enough to make me go out and buy it, regardless of whether I find it potentially interesting, because I do not know whether it will be worth my money, and am not willing to gamble on it. In other words,
no sales are lost here because there is absolutely no chance of me buying it in the first place. However, an interesting summary
may incline me to tentatively (and noncommittally) try out watching it via fansubs to
find out whether it interests me. This will result in either one of two instances occurring: one, I will find out it's not worth my money to buy (no sales are lost here because I would not have bought it anyway had I not watched the fansubs), or two, I will become attached to the series and become sold on buying it to own, knowing that it's a must-have for me. In fact, I probably wouldn't have bought
any of the series that currently make up my anime collection, had it not been for the fansubs I'd seen that made me like them enough to want to buy them, and that's probably a couple of thousand dollars that official licensed anime distributors have made off me via the work of fansubs just right there. Now, multiply that across the multitudes in fanbases that have developed a devotion to their favorite anime series through internet streaming....and yes, as Onilink already said, they really should be grateful to the unpaid labor that Fansub groups have done for them. Consider this: when an anime series that has been rolling around the internet for a time gets licensed, who do you think is most interested to go out of their way to buy it--strangers who've never heard of the series before, or the devoted fan-following that actually cares, and only exists thanks to the Fansubs that have made the rounds?
If I may ask, why do you not support fansubs? The amount of work these groups do, for no kind of reward I might add, is very respectable. They are also more than half of the reason why anime is so popular in the West these days. Why do you not support them? Because they aren't official?
I always buy the official DVDs for series I like, but I'd like to also further this point. I've long noticed with a certain amount of disdain that the subbing in official DVDs for the series I buy is inferior in quality to the subbing that fangroups do. Perhaps it's because as fans, they legitimately care more about the series they are working on to invest the effort for greater quality in their releases (work "by fans, for fans") but the official DVDs really only bother to do the bare minimum "pass" requirement with regards to the subtitling they do. You really need only
watch a single anime opening that a dedicated fansub group has done to understand; notice how they actually take the time to include the lyrics in three layers: the original japanese, the romaji, and the english translation. Further than that, watch how they took the time to visually show the pronunciation of every character in sync with the person singing. In the official DVD releases, generally what licensors do is an english translation and a romaji translation, but they only show one or the other in the opening of a given episode rather than ever showing them both at the same time; they will alternate back and forth between one of the two for every episode throughout the series, and they certainly don't take care to try anything fancy other than the flat generic yellow font they always go for. Furthermore, when looking at the subtitles in official DVDs, they give off the impression to me of being roughly thrown in without a second glance. Aside from the eye-sore yellow font that is at times hard to read and displeases my eye to look at, I have been disheartened before to catch sight of spelling errors and missed words here and there, that leave me incredulously doubting whether they even bothered to check them over at all in the first place. Generally, not only do fansub groups take a lot of care to prevent those kinds of mistakes in their subtitles, they actually go extra miles beyond that by including very specific
translation notes to further elaborate on certain parts of an episode that may be difficult to understand due to cultural or linguistic differences. They also take the time to translate japanese writing featured in episodes beyond what is spoken, something that I really appreciate since the lack of it has concerned me before; to this day, there's a scene in a specific episode of
Full Metal Panic! Fumoffu that I still can't understand because on the official DVDs, they never bothered to translate a sign that the main character was holding up central to understanding that specific scene. That's really not a good thing for any respectable translation to be doing...and remember now that while these
official translations are done by people raking in cash, fansubbers take time away from their lives to do their own--time and labor they do not get anything for other than the heartfelt gratitude of other fans, which is really their sole motivation and earnest reward. It sort of follows in the same spirit as how dedicated
Legend of Zelda fans do a better job compiling Zelda information in
Zelda Encyclopedias such as
Zelda Wiki than "official" Zelda sites do in theirs, such as
zelda.com, if that makes it any clearer. Still despite this, I am dedicated to buying all the official DVDs for the anime series I like, but I must say that I would certainly appreciate a little more attention and care given to the subtitled translations I am spending my money on in return.
With regards to Gurrenn Lagann and such: I'm sure another distributor will pick it up, as well as many other manga/anime series. If memory serves, such a process often takes time, though - several months if you're lucky. However, an anime/manga series' popularity might often affect this, you know...
While I am also sad to see Bandai go, as Wolf mentioned, I doubt
Gurren Lagann in and of itself is in very much trouble at all, as it has the popularity behind it to ensure that someone else will be picking it up. Compared to your singular worry with that, I remember how my heart sank when
ADV Films and
Geneon went under, so many great series I wouldn't be able to pick up anymore that didn't have the same amount of mainstream popularity behind them. I remember that while rushing to buy
Shakugan no Shana and
Chobits before they were gone ended up as something not worth worrying about since they got picked up again, rushing to buy Geneon's
Cardcaptor Sakura boxsets before they finished their last stock was very,
very necessary and I'm so glad I did....do you have any idea how much those sell for
now on Amazon?
The first half sells for around $350, and
the second half sells for around $600! Now also throw in the cost of the series' two movies if you're someone who wishes to own the whole collection, and you'll realize that owning the entire series now will actually cost you around an entire whopping
$1000. And just beside that is my anguish for not having been able to collect Geneon's
Sailor Moon full series boxsets before they went out, because every season of it sells now for just around the same high stakes that in total go way out of my price range. Honestly compared to these cases, you've got a good deal with Gurren Lagann because it certainly won't assume the same fate.
Bandai, I will miss you though; I did like your
Anime Legends DVD sets for how very well priced they were. Farewell then, as I tip my hat to you.
