Fansubs and what the R1 industry needs to do

This has been a pretty hot topic amongst the English speaking anime world lately, especially with the collapse of Geneon and with ADV barely holding on. Now I don’t know much about business, licensing, finance, etc., nor about the inner workings of US anime companies. However, from what I’ve seen being an American anime fan for almost ten years, I definitely know that there are some things that need to be done in order to help the R1 anime industry recover, outdo fansubs, and to also please the majority of fans…

Just to note, I understand that there have recently been a number of articles and essays discussing this topic (I think there was a very well received one on ANN some time ago). So I apologize in advance if any of my opinions in this post are restating what’s already been said.

First of all, I’ve already written a past post addressing my view of fansubs so I’m not going to go into too much depth about them here. However, just to summarize my opinion, although I myself would never have become the knowledgeable and dedicated anime fan that I am today were it not for fansubs, I can definitely understand that they do hurt the anime industry. Obviously there are a number of people who, if they can watch anime for free online, would see no reason to spend money on the DVDs. But in my case, and I’m sure in the case of many other fans, I would love to have a massive collection of anime DVDs, but I simply cannot afford to spend $100 or so per series. One DVD for $25 may seem cheap, especially when compared to Japanese prices, but who’s satisfied with just 3 or 4 episodes of a 26+ episode series and not the whole thing? So for me at least, it’s either $100+ for the whole series or none at all, and I just can’t afford to do that for every series I like. Fansubs allow many fans like me to watch the variety of anime that we yearn for without financial burden; some people simply cannot reach a point in their life where they’ll make enough money to afford luxuries like anime DVD collections, so even if fansubs were taken away, that wouldn’t put money in people’s pockets to buy the DVDs. If fansubs didn’t exist, perhaps the anime industry would make more profit (though I don’t think there’d be a major positive difference), but for the many anime fans who can’t help being poor, no fansubs would mean a lot of misery for them.

So now that I’ve pointed out the main reason why I’m supportive of fansubs, I’ll now point out another reason that will lead further into the topic of what needs to be done with the R1 industry. Without fansubs, the R1 industry would not know which shows are currently popular among anime fans, and thus would not know which ones would make the best profit for licensing. Obviously, this is another major and positive purpose that fansubs serve. Which leads to something important that non-Japanese anime fans get from fansubs that they would otherwise never get: preview of anime before they decide to buy it. In Japan, almost all anime on DVD has aired on TV or in movie theaters at one time. So Japanese fans have ample and legit opportunities to preview entire anime series before they decide to spend their money on it. However in the US and other non-Japanese countries, the amount of anime that airs on TV or in movie theaters is only a fraction of what’s released directly to DVD. Most anime fans are not going to spend money on a series they’ve never seen before and are not sure they’ll like or not. So most likely their only easy previewing method is to turn to illegal online uploads of the series. Which brings me to the first thing I think the R1 anime industry needs to do: provide free, quick, and easy ways for fans to preview episodes of a new series on DVD. Luckily, a lot of anime companies have started doing this by allowing fans to preview the first episode or so of a new series when the first DVD is released.

However, although this is definitely a great step forward, unfortunately I don’t think one or even a few preview episodes is going to be enough in most cases. While the Japanese get to watch an entire anime series for free on TV before they decide whether they want to buy the DVDs, fans in other countries usually cannot. Previews of the first episode will definitely help, but since most anime is not episodic (unlike the many episodic American TV shows), even if they like the first episode or two in a 26 episode series, fans still may be wary about shelling out money for the first DVD when they’re not sure the rest of the series will be good. If it’s possible, I think it would help if R1 industries figured out some way for fans to preview entire series weekly just like the Japanese fans (perhaps for a small charge if need be) even before all the DVDs are released. Ad sponsoring online would be the first method, and if not that then maybe they can make deals with cable companies and allow fans to purchase, for a reasonable fee if needed, all the episodes of a newly released series. If the entire series isn’t an option, then in addition to as many preview episodes as possible, perhaps they can at least show parts of later episodes (even raw, non-subtitled clips from later episodes would prove effective) just so fans can legally know where the series is headed past that first DVD. They should also definitely provide information about how many episodes a series has right when the first DVD is released, and also if there’s any additional seasons or movies so fans know exactly what they’re getting themselves into when they decide to invest in a series, perhaps putting something like “contains episodes 1 through 4 out of 26” on each DVD.

Another possibility that I think would help even more is for R1 companies to release episodes of licensed series subtitled only online before they even bother with dubs and DVDs. As I’ve mentioned before, ad sponsoring methods would be their best bet so fans can get their anime legally for free just like with fansubs. I’m sure many fans will appreciate having free access to a more professional translation, and saving money on dubbing and DVD packaging should hopefully help keep this system going for the anime companies. Then, once the company can see what fans have to say about the series and how well its received, they can then decide if it would be profitable to spend the money on making a dub and/or DVD releases. If companies need to charge a small fee for their online anime database, in order to keep the fans from turning to the completely free fansubs, they should offer them something like a big discount on DVD releases, free gifts, or something like that if they sign up with them instead of fansubs. If anime companies do offer their anime online, another thing they should probably do is allow fans to actually download the episodes (through bittorrent, etc) just like fansubs rather than just stream the episodes. Another reason fans may turn to fansubs is because they can download the episodes onto their computer and watch them over and over without needing an Internet connection, and can burn them to DVD. So anime companies will need to supply this feature too in order to further compete with fansubs.

So we can see that in order to get fans to turn away from fansubs, R1 anime companies need to find some way to offer their legit online anime downloads for free as well, and if they do need to charge money, offer the fans compensation through free gifts or item discounts. Charging cheap prices like $0.99 or even $0.50 an episode is another possibility, but I’m sure many fans will still be enticed to go with free fansubs. If R1 companies can make ad sponsored databases that offer subtitled episodes of complete anime series for free, that would definitely be a major step to outdoing the fansubs. ANN has already started something like this with their anime trailer database so hopefully actual episodes aren’t too far away.

But even if anime companies are able to make large amounts of anime episodes available to fans for free online, there is still one major advantage that fansubs have: offering fans episodes of the latest shows airing in Japan almost immediately after they premier on Japanese TV. This will probably be the most difficult thing for anime companies to do, since licensing and translation agreement are such time consuming processes. But when they do get a series licensed, even if it’s after the series has started airing in Japan, if they find some way to catch up to the latest episode, and as I’ve mentioned before, give the fans access to a legit professional online weekly translation for free and cut out dubs and DVD releases to save time and money, then this should definitely sway more people away from fansubs. Anime fans, especially those of a particular series, will most likely not wait months and months for the official release of a new or continuing series when the show has already aired in Japan and is easily available through fansubs. Anime companies will have to find some way to release their free episodes at the same time (or roughly the same time) as the fansubbers. Perhaps making deals with the Japanese companies even before a series airs in Japan would help speed up the release process and give them official, reliable connections and translations to a series that fansubbers can’t offer.

Well, I think I’ve just about covered everything I can offer about how to help the R1 anime industry. To sum things up, in order to compete with illegal anime uploads, anime companies need to make their anime available online for free by ad sponsoring or similar methods, and if they do need to charge a fee, offer the fans compensation such as free gifts or discounts. The anime they offer also needs to be complete series and available almost immediately after the episode airs in Japan. In order to make this possible, not making dubs or DVD releases until a series has proven its worth should help. But this would put many voice actors out of work, however hopefully there will still be enough mainstream and other anime airing on TV for them to work on. Again, I don’t have much knowledge of how licensing and business in anime companies works so perhaps some of my ideas may be near impossible for anime companies to fulfill. But this is what a passionate non-Japanese anime fan like myself can offer to help the R1 anime industry get back on its feet and bring fans away from illegal uploads by satisfying them with official, professionally translated anime, and also by not putting too much of a strain on those fans with limited money.