Fansubs are here in stay

Anime has always entranced some people into fandom, and from the beginning, fans have hungered for more and more anime. Since there has always been more anime released in Japan than the American companies can bring over, fans have tried to get access to the newest anime. Of course, if you get your anime straight from Japan, it can be slightly hard to understand unless you know Japanese. Some generous fans started translating anime and releasing scripts online for the benefit of other people. Then, some generous fans with some great equipment came up with the idea to subtitle the anime themselves and distribute it at cost. Thus came about the now-popular "fansubbing".

Early fans had to find and sometimes even write their own subtitling software, and come up with funds for genlock cards and the always-expensive raw anime from Japan. Anime laserdiscs, the old favorite of fansubbers, often cost upwards of $50 for 4 or even less episodes, due to the different pricing structure and market in Japan, plus the cost of shipping overseas. Since then, fansubbing has taken many strides, from online script archives, to more efficient distribution methods, to recently, all-digital fansubbing using encoded episodes in MPEG-4 format and equivalents and new software. Now fansubs can be distributed online for free, eliminating any worries about fansubbers trying to make profits from their efforts (otherwise known as piracy).

Since fansubs started, debates have risen up as to the legality and morality of fansubbing and whether the anime industry benefits from fansubbing or not. On one hand, there will always be people out there who will order or download fansubs, and never buy any anime from US companies because they already have it. These people are usually referred to in the anime community as "scum" or "idiots". However, arguments can be made that these people are just like casual fans in Japan, who watch anime on TV but don't actually buy DVDs or anime merchandise.

In addition, there are many people who watch fansubs to see which series they really like, and buy DVDs of those series. I myself have seen fansubs of series I didn't think I would like particularly, and then go out and buy the DVD when it was picked up by an American company because it was much better than I expected. Also, some people suggest that anime companies can really gauge the popularity of a series from seeing how popular the fansubs are among the fansub-watching fans.

Lastly, a good series that has fansubs released can really generate a lot of positive hype about the series among those who haven't seen the fansubs, from hearing reviews, and from friends who have the series. Most companies tolerate fansubs as long as they are not of currently-licensed (or more importantly, currently-released) series. Whatever one's view on the argument is, fansubs aren't going anywhere anytime soon, seeing their huge popularity. Anime can really draw you in fast, and once you're a fan, you always will want to see the newest and best anime out there, and sometimes the only way to see them is fansubs.