This week, let’s take a look at the anime industry.
Just last year (2011), Tokyopop shut its doors. In 2009, ADV split off into various separate entities. Also in 2009, Central Park Media shut down. In 2007, Geneon shut down.
And now, to start off our year, we hear from Bandai Entertainment. And it’s not good news. Bandai is going to continue to distribute its currently licensed shows until those respective licenses expire. Ok, good news. But they’re not going to license anything else and they’re not going to release new sets (like the Anime Legends line) of any of the shows they currently own. Bad news. And more bad news, the licenses for Gosick and Nichijou (both could be potential cash cows for some other company) have reverted to their respective Japanese owners.
What is the cause of all these closures in the anime industry? Well, a lot of things could be argued. My personal argument is that, while anime fandom has grown, there’s not a big name show like Dragonball Z or Sailor Moon around anymore. They opened people up to anime back in the 90s. Now anime depends on word of mouth between high schoolers and college kids, like myself, to tell their friends.
What’s the cause that a lot of people talk about? Fansubbing. That’s what I’m going to try to focus on here (but everyone knows my focus goes everywhere).
First, I’m going to paraphrase what Greg or Chris Ayres (I don’t remember which) said earlier in the year, around the time that Bandai announced its eventual closure. They said that fansubbing is basically the only thing that we as fans can do to help the industry.
We can’t license the shows we want with the snap of our fingers. We can’t stop the net from distributing anime illegally. What we can do is stop downloading it ourselves.
I have (regrettably, in some ways) a subscription to Crunchyroll.
I’ll tell you why it’s regrettable: Crunchyroll started as a fansubbing group that SOLD anime to the people that wanted it. It wasn’t until 2009 that they turned legal and now Crunchyroll is the biggest streaming video service that brings anime straight to your home within hours of the Japanese air date. Why it’s regrettable is that they were selling illegal material to people who wanted high quality subs, then used that profit to turn themselves into a legitimate company.
But the point is that Crunchyroll has tons of streaming anime and I want it in “720p.” So I pay for a subscription for that service.
And what are fansubbers doing now? They’re subbing shows purely out of the want to release these shows illegally. They have their “reason,” but most of them are flimsy at best. One of the best is that they don’t like Crunchyroll’s subs are up to their standards. My response would be: Well who the hell made you the standard king? Crunchyroll’s subs get the job done, and it’s legal, and that’s really all you need to know.
I mean, between all the legal simulcast options, there are very few shows this anime season that aren’t being streamed by Crunchyroll, Funimation, or some other company. Crunchyroll holds the monopoly on simulcasts, Funico picks up the ones Funimation is interested in, and the rest go to whoever wants them. This season, the only show that falls under the latter category is Phi Brain.
So there really is no need to download fansubs unless you’re a videophile that will only watch it in true 720p. There are so many legal options, even if it means watching it in SD with commercials a week later. Boo freakin’ hoo. At least you can get anime. Ten years ago, even five years ago, we weren’t this lucky.
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