Lucky Star…LICENSED

If you haven’t already heard (from some of the more “reliable” visual culture news sources) then I think all you Lucky Star fans out there will be pleasantly surprised to hear that Kadokawa USA licensed L*S not to long ago. (they had a video clip in the R1 of TMHS vol. 4 of episode 16 in English).

 Some people are horrorified by this announcement, some are in glee. Me? I’m just kinda in the middle. If they do the title good then I’m fine with it, if they don’t…then thats another story (I’ll go on strike or something).

((by the way sorry I haven’t been talking in awhile. Internet kinda helps in gathering news and information and publishing to the ‘net (((just a little))). Just so you know I didn’t die.)

The few, The proud, The fansubbers

I’m posting today to discuss what has come apparent to me from stumbling upon small articles and from what friends have said on “fansubbing” or fan subtitling.

 Even though most fansubbing groups don’t make a profit from subbing , very commonly, anime titles and usually stop fansubbing a title after it’s been licensed in the US. Although, some groups continue fansubbing and thats where the tranquil friendship between fansubbers and “suits” is cut off. To an extent. It’s been a debate since the start of fansubbing on whether it is truly a dirty and illegal act to continue the operation or if it is helping the anime industry in the US.

The licensed side of the story…

This side of the debate believe that , like said before, fansubbing is completely fine until it crosses marks with a licensed title. So in simple terms,  If it’s licensed the fansubbers need to keep their dirty hands off it.

The Fansubbers side of the story…

With fansubbers it’s quite different. They see that if a title is licensed it’s okay to “help” the industry by giving the internet viewers a sample of what it’s like so they can go by their opinion on whether it’s good or not. (Rather than the, usually, unbiased thoughts of reviewers).

  I , myself, being a proud supporter of fansubbers do think on their side of the debate although I do understand, in some terms, the thoughts of the other side. They need profits, it’s how a business works, if they don’t get profits they’ll close and go bankrupt. Even though the fansubbers are trying to , really, help the industry they can’t know what everyones intentions are going to be after getting their hands on the episodes. So , for example, someone could honestly be downloading and episode or two to see if they’ll like the anime but other people will by all means download them and , in some way, get them onto CD’s. Although that side isn’t all bad, some people may just want to archive while others, unfortunately, would probably try making a profit off of it through “pirated anime merchandise”.

Pirated anime merchandise is usually when either A. small companies or B. people who want to make a profit on eBay create or download anime title goods that aren’t the real thing or , in the case of downloading, isn’t legally selling off DVD’s that won’t have all the features of the real deal , usually, for the same price as the real thing. I won’t get to much into detail on that. (Thats why we have google..or one reason atleast.)

All in all fansubbing can go either way in someones eyes but I wrote this to try and give fansubbers some justice in their cause to subtitle anime for us, the otaku community. And also to try and shift your view on it from bad to good or to neutral.

Until next time

-Kiba Inu (Lifeslilreviewer)

Anime Reviews coming soon to a theater near you!

Hey people I’m sure your thinking, “Where the heck did all your reviews go?!”, well I have been thinking the same thing. My answer to that is that I don’t have anything really to review. Now I could do a preview for you if you wanted for the animes that I am currently working with.

   The reason is that I have been skipping around alot deciding what animes I really want to watch. Since it takes atleast 1 to 2 hours to download two episodes it has tooken me awhile to figure out which animes to stick with and finish. Warning you now though the animes will be unlicensed so don’t freak out if you haven’t heard of them. Just do a wiki search or something. I should probably figure out how to put up a section on the sidebar with a “What I’m watching” effect to it of which I need to ask certain people for help on that.

   I also put this up because I felt like writing something and this was the only topic I could sum up that made any sense to anyone who doesn’t know my day to day life. Also so that if I did put up a topic from my real life problems such as a rant I’d get to re-name this “Blog for my daily rants” so that the rest of the public would know my change in plans for this place. Oh yeah for anyone who doesn’t know the routine of Megatokyo comics and such the newest strip is out for the Omake and another one will be out on Friday.

((NOTE: Directed for New Megatokyo people. Sometimes the strips are sometimes put out to the public really early in the morning or late late at night. So caution! >.<))