Fansubbers, behold! A new challenger has appeared…
21 03 2008…and it’s no other than Gonzo themselves.
Following this article, new Gonzo anime will be made available online by GDH, on the same day of their airing on TV in Japan.
The new titles, the Tower of DRUAGA -the Aegis of URUK- and BLASSREITER, will be available on YouTube, Crunchyroll and BOST TV, with English subtitles. I suppose this kind of Youtube service will remain free of charge, while the other two will provide higher quality videos for a small fee, depending on the situation.
This measure is said to counter the propagation of pirated anime files that have been circulating on the internet, known under the more common name of “fansubs”. It is to grant access exclusively for overseas viewers to legally view anime as soon as they are broadcasted in Japan.
Honestly speaking, I do not think this will be a very popular measure, albeit the legal aspect of the offer might seem attractive to some. Also, I highly doubt that Gonzo or GDH are going to put up with the trouble of translating all of their future animes in proper English. Furthermore, I cannot imagine such releases having a nice typesetting either, at least not at the same level we know from decent fansubbing groups.
The biggest problem with this, is that their solutions mainly provide anime over streaming platforms, and I guess that is the point where most leechers would resort to the traditional fansubs, to download and archive anime. I highly doubt sites other than Youtube will make those episodes available for download, because, who would eventually buy Gonzo’s DVDs then?
On the contrary, it might even help most fansubbers (especially the translators) to speeden up their work - since they already get a draft of the script by watching those subtitled versions, they might complete their work much much faster. So perhaps this marks the beginning of a new speedsub era?
I am pretty eager to know if this measure will be successful or not, and if there will be more anime producers who will follow soon too.
Round 1. Ding ding ding! I guess now there is no excuse like “but it’s not available in english quickly enough” anymore =/
Maybe it would be better if they used a service like vimeo or Hulu, actually it would be better. YouTube? IDK what they are thinking.
Speedsub era lol, I don’t know there either, but possibly. I think translators hold their work in decent regard, so they probably like doing it. Now that’s traditionally, there could be new groups to appear sporting these subs, and it probably wouldn’t be that bad compared to some of the less-appealing fansubs out there.
Cheers :)
As a translator myself, I would not do it because as you said, I do value my work, and I’d rather take some time doing it right than simply copy/adapt it off someone else’s script.
However, I can very well imagine speedsubbers (without (good) translators) would immediately take the opportunity to copy the tl, to release a fansubbed version much faster. ^^
Hmm. If Europeans are permitted to play, I’ll be giving this a try, as I’m interested in Blassreiter (because it has bikes and guns and stuff).
Chou-Chun Fan of BOST has officilaly announced at AoD forums that they will translate themselves and not use whatever YouTube is going to be using. He was unequivocal, so now rumors are flying that YouTube will show raws (because YouTube is not in the translation business).
I was satisfied with translations BOST did for Keitai Shoujo. Fonts were readable; not too bit not too small, perhaps a bit on smallish side when compared with what is typically seen on R1 DVDs. If they can do the same thing fast enough, I’ll watch.
Now, why won’t BOST share their translations back with GDH for English releases in R1 and Australia? That’s an intriguing thought, but I suspect it’s not how it’s done. I’ll have to ask someone.
they will offer anime for download via P2P as well from their site,
with far higher qulity (some up to 720P or even 1080P) with pay.
so its not just streaming.
Crunchyroll? Sorry, but that seems like a strange choice to stream their shows. The video quality isn’t that bad, but the sound quality is like the videos are being heard through a metal pipe…
I’d pay for the P2P download on their site, though. Damn, smart marketing. Be cheap and get cheap quality! I don’t think the fansubbers have anything to compare their script with, since they’ll probably have no more excuses to continue fansubbing, since this is very legal and doing so sort of contradicts their holy oath of dropping an anime when its licensed (even though this technically isn’t… is it?). Actually, one excuse is that the “official” subtitles will probably suck.
(P.S. The title reminds me of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, I swear.)