Discussion Forums > Anime Discussions
Supporting the Anime Industry
Zalis116:
--- Quote from: Ozzaharwood ---Without fansubs, most of us wouldn't be watching anime anyway, because we wouldn't understand it unless we understood Japanese. We'd only be able to watch officially translated subbed or dubbed stuff. And the majority of anime series are not subbed/dubbed officially.
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Can you name any anime season since 2009 where a majority of the series were not officially streamed at CR/NicoNico/Viz/Hulu/Funimation/ANN/TAN while they were airing? Sure, if you reach back into history and include the many 70s/80s/90s anime that never got official English releases, I suppose your statement is true. But for recent stuff that people are likely to care about, the amount that's officially available is at least approaching majority.
All I'll add to what others have said is that buying something is better than buying nothing, whether that something is a Japanese release or an overseas one. Buying overseas releases does inject money into the global anime industry, which foreign licensees use to pay royalties and acquire new licenses. Watching official streams, whether through subscriptions or ad-supported, is still participating in the system rather than simply taking from it.
--- Quote from: Tiffanys ---Not to mention that "Westernization" a lot of times is crap, and censoring is ridiculous... especially when it gets to the point that it doesn't even match up with what was originally going on.
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What paid streaming sites have censorship that goes beyond the same censorship that appears on Japanese TV and fansubbed rips thereof? Of course they're not going to have the premium satellite broadcast or DVD/BD versions most of the time, since the TV/streamed versions are supposed to be an enticement to buy the uncensored releases. And while I've got my complaints about official stream subs, I've never seen the sort of 1990s-esque content censorship that you're implying exists in the translations. Sure, some of them are localized, but not any worse than what you'd see from fansubbers like gg and Commie. (Less trolling, too.)
Mcgreag:
You don't have to buy DVD/BDs to support the industry, another way is to buy merchandise of various types. Many anime (think gundam and similar) are mainly created to sell merchandise. Just make sure it's official licensed stuff and not copies if supporting the industry is important to you.
Sakubo:
--- Quote from: Tiffanys on May 18, 2013, 06:59:45 AM ---The biggest problem with paid streaming sites is that they don't have everything and the sub quality isn't as good as fansubbers. Not to mention that "Westernization" a lot of times is crap, and censoring is ridiculous... especially when it gets to the point that it doesn't even match up with what was originally going on.
If it were just dubs then maybe it would be fine, though there aren't many dubs so it wouldn't warrant a subscription on its own. Though, I don't really like streaming in general. Either the quality isn't very good or you have to wait for buffering. I like the consistency and not having the requirement of being online and not having to worry about buffering or internet speed or anything else.
With that said, supporting streaming sites supports the streaming sites more than the anime industry and even buying the physical media supports the physical distributors more than the industry itself as well. I don't really know of any good way of supporting the anime makers directly while cutting out the middlemen that eat most of the profits.
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I'm curious have you actually watched a site like crunchy roll recently? The subs for most crunchy roll shows are just as good as fansubbers now. In fact half the fan subbers use crunchy roll subs and just make some minor changes. Also unless you have a slow internet connection you shouldn't have buffering issues. I don't want to spend money on a lot of different sites that handle streaming but I don't mind spending money on one site that has a lot. I have a subscription with crunchy roll that I have had for several years now. Its like 69.95 a year for full anime and drama membership so I figure its not a bad deal I mean its not much more than a ps3 game and I buy those every month.
As far as supporting the industry goes I live in the US and I try and buy anime series I like. I do tend to buy a lot of manga mostly because scans for manga are often slow or bad quality and sometimes its easier to just buy the books. I don't see any reason to import series from japan unless you can actually understand Japanese. I mean sure it would be nice to have in your collection but what's the point of buying something you will never use? I mean you aren't going to watch the unsubbed show and you wouldn't be able to loan them out to anyone if you ever wanted to introduce a series to a friend or whatever. Now I can understand not buying a lot of series if you don't have much money. But people should at least try to get some stuff that they really enjoy. I mean anime is already much cheaper in the US than it is in Japan so there really is no excuse to never buying anything other than your just cheap.
Tatsujin:
I purchase BDs, figures (mostly FIGMA) and other rare goods - all from Japan. I only purchase manga and light novels (so far, only Spice and Wolf is worth my money). I do not purchase anything from local merchants or licensors within or outside the country.
Bob2004:
I would subscribe to CR, since the majority of airing anime are streamed at roughly the same time nowadays anyway, and the translation quality is usually pretty decent (a lot of their staff are ex-fansubbers, after all). But the video is terrible (seriously, one look at their 1080p preview put me off immediately), and I much prefer having actual files saved to my computer which I can watch any time I want, without having to worry about having an internet connection, and which I can copy to my phone to watch while travelling, or do whatever I want with.
If CR could achieve equivalent quality to fansubbers in all aspects, and were able to provide offline downloads (never gonna happen - which also means good quality won't happen, since fansub quality is too high bitrate to easily stream for most people), then I'd subscribe in an instant. But they don't, so I won't.
Also, I may be misremembering this, but didn't CR start of as a fansub group as well? Except, unlike other groups, they had the bright idea of charging people money for their releases (obviously, none of that went to the original creators). Then they made so much money that way that they were able to form a company and go legal. I'm not 100% sure if that's true or not (it was before my time), but if so, then I'd be very dubious about paying them any money. I don't want to support people who would do that kind of thing.
--- Quote from: Xycolian2332 on May 17, 2013, 10:13:09 PM ---There's going to be a better way to support the anime industry through streaming soon:
www.animenewsnetwor k.com/news/2013-02-26/nikkei/adk-toei-aniplex-sunrise-tms-nas-dentsu-to-stream-anime-overseas
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That's been out for a while now, actually: https://www.daisuki.net/ It doesn't have many titles yet, but it could grow to be a good alternative to CR in time, with luck.
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