I think most people can easily remember the first fansub they ever downloaded. Whether you were introduced to the medium by a friend, or became intrigued about a particular title after reading about it on a message board or saw an AMV, we all have our stories. Now here we are, months, years, and for some, decades later, discussing the current state of anime as well as its possible future; issues that recently seem to have been intertwined with fansubs and their impact on the industry.

The debate over the legitimacy and morality of fansubs is nothing new, but it was only recently that it became so heated, as prior to Geneon's demise, the general state of the industry wasn't clearly known by regular fans. During the past few months, the opposition's voice became much louder, demanding the dismantlement of the fansub community in order to increase the industry's revenue stream. In response, the defenders of fansubs have hunkered down behind their unmoving wall of rationale, demands and even suggestions. I'm sure almost everyone that has the interest to read this particular piece already knows most of the logic ammunition being employed by both sides. In fact, one need only to take a few minutes to skim over one of the countless threads or blogs on the subject to get a decent grasp of the situation.

Fansub haters, defenders of freedom and justice?

Fansub supporters, digital era Robin hoods?

All that being said, are all the reasons brought forward by the fansub supporters legitimate? Do all the industry's counter arguments hold water? As any objective observer would tell you, neither side in any dispute fully holds the higher ground. It is my sincere belief that by identifying the genuinely justifiable requests from both sides we will be one step closer to finding a solution that will offer the fans choices, allowing them to enjoy the genre while keeping the anime industry in the green.

For the first order of business, I'm going to tackle the age old question of "Why people say they prefer fansubs?", to that end, I'm going to look at the faulty logic and reasoning first. Given the nature of Anime Source's audience, I'm expecting this section of the article to be the most difficult to digest for most, but taking into account the fact that most people I've seen and talked to on this website seem very open minded and logical, I think that with a bit of thought they will find more logic in what I'm about to say than they might realize at first glace.

Why people prefer fansubs: The List of Faulty Logic

I believe it is common knowledge among fansub supporters that the translation quality of industry DVDs is inferior to those provided to us by the different fansub groups. I hate to say it, but there is as much truth to that as believing the modern myth that humans only use 10% of their brains. Don't get me wrong, there are certainly groups out there such as Shinsen or Eclipse, whose work easily rival (and even surpass) those of professional translators. Unfortunately the average fansub's work often contains grammatical errors, misspellings, and even incorrect translation. This is however, not unexpected; most groups often try as hard as possible to get their file ready and out there before others, thus gaining as much audience as possible. When you consider that translation is only one part of the process that leads to the creation of a subbed anime episode, one realizes that mistakes are simply unavoidable.

Not all fansub groups approach their projects with professionalism

One must also keep in mind that company translators always work with the original creators of a show and get approval from them for their translation prior to release. In fact I believe that companies such as ADV or Funimation are legally forbidden from releasing a product without getting the seal of approval on all aspects of their work, especially the translation, from the creators of the anime. Therefore, saying fansubs are more true to the original work is rather insulting, as it means fansubbers know more about the show than the person who actually made it. Besides, if one can speak Japanese so well that they'll be able to catch translation mistakes, they'll most likely be watching raws anyway. Finally, one has to realize that the Japanese language is vague and therefore has multiple "correct" translations. Just because the 2nd version (DVD) is different from the first (fansub), that doesn't mean that the 2nd version is incorrect.

I often hear from the supporters of fansubs that they prefer the unofficial works because of the footnotes most groups provide regarding cultural references or Japanese terminology. Now, I don't know about other anime fans, but there's only so many times I need to be told what "itadakimasu" means. Putting that aside, the fact remains that ADV has been incorporating pop-ups into many of their titles for years (two examples being Excel Saga and Pani Poni Dash!), and according to Bandai Entertainment, their release of Lucky Star will contain a thorough explaination of the show's many references and in-jokes. Keep in mind that even if we ignore those facts, most people view anime as an entertainment product. There is, of course, nothing wrong with trying to learn new things while one is entertained, but as anyone who has ever traveled to Japan would tell you, trying to learn about the Japanese culture from anime is the equivalent of trying to learn about the American justice system from Boston Legal, or the fashion industry from Ugly Betty.

Anime

Reality

The next issue that I will be tackling are dubs (and brace yourself, if you don't like dubs, you won't like what I'm about to say). First of all, if a show's dub is not to someone's liking, they can always simply listen to the Japanese track with subtitles. Putting that aside, one has to realize that complaints against dubs were originally quite legitimate, since at the time anime wasn't seen as anything more than a cartoon and very little effort used to go into the process of dubbing shows. I still like to listen to my Elfen Lied dub and imagine a couple of guys sitting in their basement recording it on a hand-held voice recorder. But times have changed and so has the quality of today's dubs; today we can listen to the English track for a lot of shows and be drawn into their world and story. When discussing the quality of a dub, one mostly considers questions such as "Is the actor's voice representative of the character?" or "Is the actor able to portray the character's emotions well enough?". But the difficulties of producing a dub start even before the actors begin their work in the sound booths. I can imagine that simply translating a line in a manner that conveys the true meaning of the conversation, while also matching the character's lip movement and length of the dialogue is a rather difficult and time consuming endeavor. This is usually the main reason that dubs veer off-course even from a DVD's own subtitles.

But even with these difficulties, examples of good dubs are plentiful; from masterpieces surpassing the original, like Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell and Black Lagoon, to other well produced dubs such as Fullmetal Alchemist, Hellsing Ultimate, Ergo Proxy, and even (brace yourself) Naruto. There, I said it. Naruto's dub is actually rather decent. Now I'm going to give you a few seconds to catch your breath. Ok, now that you've recovered from the shock, I have to ask you to put down that knife and flame thrower (you don't know where I live anyway) and listen. Setting Naruto's suicide-inducing annoying voice and horrible catchphrase aside (especially when you consider the fact that Naruto is very annoying when you listen to him in Japanese as well), the voice talents behind characters like Gaara, Kakashi and Shikamaru do even a better job at portraying their characters than their Japanese counterparts. A few minor characters aside, the rest of the cast is also adequately chosen for the parts they play. Yes, I know, I also cringed when I heard Rock Lee's drunken fist "translated" into loopy fist; but then again, it's on Cartoon Network. I doubt the reason for this change was because Viz's translators made a mistake. Besides, I've been told that the DVDs contain none of the censorings of the TV broadcast.

Maryke Hendrikse's portrayal of Revy is even better than the original

Believe it!

Finally I'm going to address one of the least defendable reasons provided for preferring fansubs: because the viewer is in high school/college/etc and can't afford it. Now I will talk about anime pricing in more detail later as a very legitimate concern, but saying that because one can't afford something, they should have the right to get it for free is rather mind-blowing. I can't afford a Porsche at the moment; it doesn't mean I should be able to just grab one at no charge. I also don't think iPhones are worth their current price, again it doesn't mean I can just sneak into a store and steal one. I find it intriguing that the only products where this logic seems to work for are those that you can get without being caught. Think about that for a few minutes. Whenever someone uses this line of reasoning, in my mind it is immediately translated to "I like fansubs because they're free, and not because I'm so poor I'm barely able to afford food and shelter".

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