Getfresh chats with ANN on fansubs.
 

So, ANN just posted a conference with 2 of it's members, an independent film maker and AS very own, Getfresh. The conversation was mainly discussing, that with the advent and ubiquity of legal online streams(I.e Hulu, Joost, YouTube and now CR)... are fansubs obsolete? Getfresh, including the other two ladies, all agreed that they weren't, as of now. However, Bamboo Dong(host) did think so. They basically chopped it up a little while longer in this 2 part session. heres part one.http://animenewsnetwork.com/chicks-on-anime/02-03-09

Part 2 is up.http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/chic...ime/2009-02-10

gf told me about this a while ago, was waiting on it.

Decent read.

Honestly, the whole thing irritated me to no end. Getfresh's arguments were all over the place, as always. I mean, you can't talk about the mainstream if you don't know how to define it. You can't talk about fansubber's goals if you don't know what that actually is. He wanted to rationalize what he's doing so badly, but couldn't find the right words. What's wrong with saying that you're catering to an existing fanbase that probably cares more for anime than your typical Adultswim watcher? And most of all, Naruto fansubs aren't fansubs at all, they're stream rips, and guess what, debatable but, there's a place for them as well!

True. I was saying the exact same thing. His argument would have been more solid and he would have just sounded better, if he had jus told the flat out truth. The whole mainstream thing was kinda hard to purchase.

Having done one of these interviews before, please let me ask people to lay off the "armchair quarterbacking". Yeah, he coulda worded it like this, he coulda said that, he coulda articulated X better...

He was answering off the top of his head without any preparation (they don't give you any questions in advance and such) and he did a fine job. ^^

-Tofu

I bet a lot of people would love to step onto the podium and voice their opinions on the issue. We know the world isn't fair, so we can't all get to do that, but the armchair quarterback flaks are uncalled for if you consider this, more often than not.

'Grats if you gave Zac all those answers without any preparation time though.

It was gmail chat. Real time. And there were quite a few omitted comments that were were making on the said that chained into the convo and sort of directed it in a sense at times. Also considering I was trying my hardest to not start a fight with my opinion from our side of the table, I think I did a decent job.

And when it comes to this topic, indeed you did. <_>

getfresh is one of the few people I think are knowledgeable and reasonable enough to be involved in this sort of a discussion.

What annoyed me a lot is how they talk about "blah blah online streams fansubbing is obsolete" while completely forgetting "the big thing holding it all back", in other words regional content locking. I can't view over half of the content available on the listed sites (in fact I can't access Hulu or ANN streams at all for example) due to regional locking, not even if I wanted to pay for it. I just can't. Yet they somehow completely forgot the whole thing and went on to talk about how "free streaming services make fansubbing obsolete" and so on.

I'm glad LOGH got mentioned in the interview.

You did a great job Getfresh. I could see how you had to try and maintain your temper.

Fansubs will never be gone, when you can't freaking WATCH the free anime streams. I'm from Romania. You think I can watch 75% of anime of CrunchyRoll for example? F*** no. Can't even watch the anime on ANN, promoted on the front page, as to taunt those who can not watch it. So until USA "realizes" that there are anime fans outside of USA, I'll gladly stick with fansubs.

You mean, until Japan realizes?

You realize Japan sets the region restrictions, right?

-Tofu

maybe they thought you were easy pickins' :heh:


(what a clusterf**k its ANN comment thread became)

Google trends for "anime" and "naruto" http://www.google.com/trends?q=narut...ate=all&sort=0

While searches for "anime" decline over the period, searches for "naruto" increase. Which is a better indicator of the trend in anime's appeal? (These figures are worldwide. Searches conducted in the US for Naruto plateau after 2007.)

Figures for some franchises like Macross and Evangelion show a secular decline, while other shows like Ikkitousen generate more search traffic today than they did 3-4 years ago. Some shows like Moyashimon follow a "surge-and-decline" pattern with traffic peaking after the iniital release and decaying to near zero after the show ends.

I enjoyed reading this discussion even if it was a bit disjointed at times. I think bamboo way overestimates the availability of anime programming in the US. There are lots of shows that will never make it to Crunchy, never mind to [adult swim] or R1 licensing. Without fansubs, how would I ever have been able to watch Monster?

As for the Funimation channel, Funi rotates about two-dozen chestnuts over and over again on that channel. I love School Rumble, but enough already. I haven't seen ADV's AnimeNetwork in some time now. It once showed many of ADV's top series (NGE, Chobits, etc.) complete and uncut. Then it started showing just the first few episodes of new releases in an effort to stimulate DVD sales. Access to free, complete anime series on AnimeNetwork and via fansubs made me a fan. Without free access at the start, I doubt I would have pursued anime as an interest. In the long run the industry gained a paying customer because I had free access to quality programs at the outset.

Speaking of Funimation channel, I am still hopeful they will someday show subtitled anime, either in their own time slots, or via a secondary audio track and closed captions. Come on Funimation, I'm sure somewhere in your 24/7 dub programming you could find room to add subtitled anime. :heh:

Fair enough, you're right. Japan is the one who sets the region locks, my bad. Still, as long as those locks don't go away, fansubs will never be obsolete. Also, I won't give a crap about Funi's C&D's on series it didn't even license. Well...even if it did license them, I woudn't.

It's pretty obvious how terrible a problem the anime industry has when "Actually pays money to the anime industry thus helping to create more anime" was neglected to be added to the CR list lol

-Tofu

I thought it was actually a pretty good thread for the most part (especially considering the length), compared to how these topics usually tend do devolve. (That assessment most emphatically excludes the "contribution" of that fool and/or troll(/shill?) Unit something-or-other.) There were bad patches, no doubt, but at some points some people even seemed to at least try to come to a mutual understanding rather than just shout at each other.

Oh, and Tofusensei, if I may:

Thanks, yononaka. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who sees it.