hey come one in the same
Oh key down the tobago subs Naru toe
episode 134 think about how you
personally got into anime first got
fully immersed and involved in the
community and I'm guessing if you got
into anime before the 2010 a large
portion of you would have fansubs to
thank for that
right [ __ ] you're going to jail whether
we like to admit it or not fansubs have
played a massive part in the
International anime community especially
when it comes to the exposure and spread
of the medium a lot of us wouldn't be
here today if not for fansubs my very
first experience for them was the very
first time I bought anime so I bought
off eBay what I thought was a very cheap
boxset of Naruto and what arrived wasn't
even one of these cheap Chinese knockoff
box sets which this is a story in and of
itself but what came was just a CD case
full of blank DVDs where someone had
just written the episode numbers on and
what I didn't realize was that I had
just paid someone to burn some fansubs
on to some blank DVDs and that's how I
got into anime the early days of fansubs
in anime seems like this on the ground
trade deal you could have 8th generation
VHS tapes being circled around anime
clubs and conventions by what I imagined
to be like some kind of black market
anime dealership where you approached
this shady guy in a trench coat and you
asked for a gram of coke along with
episode 4 it's a yatsuha anime in
general was a lot harder to get hold of
you needed the physical copy of the
anime which back then was rare enough as
it is a bunch of VHS recorders tons of
wire and this new fancy schmancy thing
called a computer all just so you can
fansub a single episode of anime this is
before my time so I can't even imagine
how expensive and clunky such a setup
would be back then for those of you
living in the sleek optimized smartphone
era of Technology you needed to apply
much more
force logic to the technology back there
for example if your game suddenly
crashed back then there was no day one
patch you needed to apply your own fix
and it went something like this I will
now show you the sound of my childhood
it was very limited in what you can do
when how you could distribute it
there wasn't much variation in how subs
looked at how they were formatted in
fact there was only one sub format that
mattered and that was watching subs with
old crusty ass outlines in a color I can
only describe as urine yellow and the
hold of the generation of subs the
crustier the outline a pattern that
would remain with modern fansubs however
is that translation quality could vary
greatly depending on who was doing it so
you could find some fansubs that let's
say had a little less finesse in their
translations now my Japanese isn't the
greatest but I don't know but Jeter from
Dragon Ball Z and action show aimed at
children really said that it wouldn't be
until the digital age that fansubs and
well distribute economy in general got a
lot easier thanks to the rise of p2p
file-sharing sites and you may be
thinking oh which one did you use first
for anime Hyuk BitTorrent or maybe it
was hanging out in IRC chats well it was
actually climb way so small tangent
about hi first accidentally discovered
my first downloaded anime through
LimeWire even before Naruto because one
time when I definitely wasn't
downloading what I thought was Papa
Roach underscore last underscore resort
or mp3 and for once didn't get 2 billion
viruses or Bill Clinton talking about
his sexual relations but instead I got a
certain scene from a certain OVA which
um let's just say it had this sound
effect in it
[Music]
oh [ __ ] me is it possible to get
nostalgic over porn that's right
basically my twelve year old self made a
discovery that would stick with me till
today that I like my coffee the same way
I like my Bibles plan so yeah I
accidentally discovered hentai before he
discovered anime this is theater video
hopeful and subs right distribution
wasn't the only thing that got easier
though as software large pretty much
anyone with a working computer to
subtitle any episode of any show
resulting in an explosion of groups who
could work to translate and sob more
anime than anyone ever had before
welcome to the age of digits mid-2000
anime fan stops was essentially
subtitles going through insecure high
school phase where I cared a little bit
too much about its image what
professional subtitling standards was
about leaving a smaller footprint as
possible as to not distract from the
thing is translating subs didn't quite
do that in fact what defines mid-2000
anime fansubs was the complete lack of
any uniform standards cuz [ __ ]
everything went one of the biggest
trends was that fanservice would just
arbitrarily choose to leave some
Japanese words untranslated with no
pattern whatsoever in what words had the
honor of being untranslated and left in
Japanese and you know what I get it
there are times when a word is hard to
translate and requires further
explanation there are times when attack
names just sound cooler in Japanese and
then there are times when you are just
writing zetsubou which literally means
to spare and you explain that it
literally means despair and you are
still writing zetsubou what this is how
you end up getting the famous just
according to keikaku meme translator
note k-cup means bland because to
facilitate all these untranslated words
you would have translator notes which
were like little footnotes that would
give you little bits of extra
information to help add context to
whatever
being translated on screen seems simple
right well they weren't explaining
translations explaining jokes explaining
completely useless piece of information
the viewer didn't need to know sometimes
I was such an absurd amount of
information on screen that unless you
had a [ __ ] Sharingan you aren't
actually following that [ __ ]
I think fansubs really contributed to
this weave culture that made anime this
really inclusive fandom you didn't get
unless you are properly in it like I
remember people legitimately refuse to
watch anything but fansubs because it
kept into honorifics like sam and kern
and how dare they translate or nee-chan
into Big Brother which sounds really
dumb when I say it out loud but we all
ended up learning a lot of useless
Japanese because of it like okay be
honest how many of you would have never
heard of the word Nakamura if he didn't
watch one piece but he was being fair
self so if you're an anime fan back then
you could form these ridiculous sentence
no normal person would be able to
understand like oh yeah I saw a
Shinigami with Annie Channing's Empire a
used car Givenchy no Jitsu before
becoming mine Akuma and congratulations
if you just understood that sentence
perfectly you two had fallen into deep
another staple of fansubs back then were
of course subtitle effects if you've
ever searched up an opening on YouTube
and I had these fancy effects that
ironically made it harder for you to
keep up with the karaoke than if it just
have plain subtitles congratulations you
found some fansubs openings this wasn't
just limited to karaoke effects however
because anyone who watched one piece
back in the fansub days would know that
the true one-piece experience is
watching luffy shouts gamma-gamma no
with bat green animated subtitles and no
attack would actually be complete unless
it had a corresponding color and font
that was time to the attack doesn't have
its own special animated forms is there
even an attack was it attention-grabbing
it completely against professional
standards yes do I still find it awesome
to this day
[Music]
yes I think the whole art of subtitle
effects peaked with this group called
commie Serbs
who basically perfected the art of ship
hosting while still technically
subtitling the work as they ask the
question can subtitles go too far have
we not gone far enough then there would
be times when they just straight-up
stopped giving a [ __ ]
[Music]
and then there is their magnum opus
which is when they served Sao to's Opie
I don't know how [ __ ] my sense of humor
is that I [ __ ] lose it when I just
these subtitles that go so far
they're not even legible translations
anymore
because what do you think you can't get
more ridiculous it's just like
[Applause]
[Music]
I really shouldn't find this as funny as
I do it's just it's just artistic cancer
okay you can't find this gem on YouTube
anymore but Google is your friend and
see that's what I miss about fansubs
they had personality even though yeah
they really shouldn't nowadays subtitles
are far more for lack of a better word
claim as they completely should be the
reason fansubs were like this was
because fan subgroups wanted to carve
out a distinguishable identity and some
of them actually succeeded hi I'm John I
am one of the co-founders and on the
staff of dr. vo fansubs thank you
what [ __ ] gang wars between various
fan subgroups about who had the best
quality translations who are the Fancy's
effects you can get translations out the
quickest because if you stood out more
people will download your subs and if
more people downloaded your subs you'd
get this thing called internet attention
which as we all know is is completely
outdated idea because no one on the
internets does anything stupid just for
attention anymore nowadays simulcast is
pretty much cured mainstream fansubbing
most of the fansubs now you find I just
ripped straight from legal translations
and the only time you do really see
fansubs anymore is when a movie comes
out on blu-ray or a show is stuck in
Netflix jail or for some reason the
streaming company accidentally realizes
that they've just license the hentai but
that will never happen and that's
because beyond all the fancy effects or
translation notes or even pristine
translation quality the thing people
most care about is speed and now in the
era of instant streaming where pirates
lights and literally just rip off
official translations fansubs don't
really have a place anymore and I know
what some of you may be thinking Giga
aren't you a hypocrite for talking about
watching anime illegally when you've
worked with a lot of these bigger legal
anime companies or no and I'll tell you
I because this video is actually
sponsored by book walk now I'm just
kidding
I'm kidding or am i yeah yeah I'm
I am kidding also congratulations if you
also recognize that soundbite here's
your senior discount guard while I do
promotes many legal ways you can get
your anime or manga now I think you
would be blissfully ignorant to ignore
how big an impact fansubs have had on
our fandom and culture I probably
wouldn't be an anime fan if not for fan
subs or at least nowhere near as big as
I am now and I don't think anime would
be as widespread internationally as it
is now if not for it either
Alice Concepcion fansubs was about
allowing other people to experience this
great show or medium that they would
have no access to otherwise and looking
at the landscape today it's definitely
achieved that there was a point where
without fansubs we wouldn't have gotten
an opportunity to discover some of our
favorite shows but the landscape is very
different today now
accessibility is no longer an issue at
all while anime is far easier to access
than it ever has been before there are
still plenty of people who are
region-locked our services or can't
afford them or unhappy with them or just
want free [ __ ] piracy is something that
is never going to disappear but it has
been proven that if there is a product
or service people want sold in a way
that maintains integrity people are
willing to pay for it look I didn't want
this video to be a discussion about
piracy I just wanted to tell people
about that time I downloaded Bible
black/off LimeWire as a teenager
whatever your stance fansubs is
something that has played a massive part
in my fandom and I just wanted to take
some time to look back at an era gone by
basically what I'm saying is if you
watch Naruto at 53 1/3 in subs on
YouTube then you're not a bad person but
what I am saying is if you still watch
anime on YouTube and it looks like this
what the [ __ ] is wrong with you how is
it that you're determined enough to
watch anime for free on YouTube but
you're not determines enough to use a
[ __ ] Google search you know what [ __ ]
this [ __ ] I'm gonna steal the car
[Music]
hey guys hope you enjoyed that video as
you can tell I recorded that when I was
briefly back in England a while ago
don't worry I haven't been travelling
between countries anytime recently not
that that's possible even if I wanted to
right now firstly I wants to give a
quick shout out to crossing void
disclaimer this video isn't sponsored
they were just kind enough to sponsor my
interspecies reviewers video a while
back which got [ __ ] in views thanks to
it being a districted within the first
few hours so I set out give them a free
shoutout if you didn't know crossing
void is a turn-based mobile RPG with a
lots of big anime franchises including
sao devil is a part-timer toradora index
and many more as they are all together
in this big crossover game where you can
use other iconic moves and even special
collapse skills so if that sounds
interesting to you I'll leave a link in
the description where you can try it out
and you can get any STI character for
absolutely free I also wanted to give a
shout out to Ella for an oder king's
anime fan sub documentary video series
here on YouTube the reason I had to show
my lovely face ball a lot of this video
is because it's really really hard to
find source footage of OG fansubs
nowadays so most of the footage came
from them anyway though that's it for me
hope quarantine has been treating you
well I've been gigging and I'll see you
all next time