The hypocrisy of the otakus must end.

[Yamaneko]

The only TV show I have on DVD is all the good seasons of The Simpsons. Everything else is not worth it.

[Rhinoa]

I've never downloaded anime, i'd rather buy it and actualy have it. although i watched the first episodes of 2 animes if have on the internet that people have uploaded, and if they didn't i wouldn't of known about them ^____^

[I Am Stoner]

Dude, people can do what they want. Anime shows, game companys and so on make so much smurfing money as it is. Thier not exactly going to die of starvation if people download anime and games instead of buying them, are they?

[Moon Rabbits]

I watch Sailor Moon for free~

[Azure Chrysanthemum]

Point 1) Anime fans claim they support anime, but in reality 99% of them steal it by downloading it.
Very few people actually buy it legally. The same goes for video games and computer games.
Anime fans are not supporting anime at all, they take advantage of fansubs that float around the net and use them
as a substitute and convince themselves they are actually legal.
Every anime fan in my community I know that has an interest in anime doesn't buy it... they bootleg it.
I buy everything legally: movies, games, anime, music, you name it, but it seems most people, especially otakus, simply
take advantage of America and Japan's dying economy.
At most anime and games should be backed up if you own the TRUE, REAL, ORIGINAL cartridge, DVD, or VHS tape.

I love generalizations, don't you?

Case in point, don't use the term "most" until you've met a large number of anime fans, which you obviously have not. 99%? Hardly. That's a gross overexaggeration. Some people do bootleg, yes. That doesn't mean everybody does. I, for example, happen to have several friends who, like myself, will download fansubs and buy the series when it comes out on DVD in America. We have large collections of anime, and they are ever-increasing whenever we have the spare change to get some. Don't make assumptions that you can't fully support.

Point 2) Fansubs DO NOT PROMOTE ANIME, they simply provide people with a means to steal it and keep it freely. Fansubs
are ILLEGAL, even more illegal than having a bootleg of a non-fantranslated version. Why is this one might ask? Well,
you can't translate without a license now can you?

There's probably a reason that fansubs aren't completely shut down in Japan. Fansubbing might be somewhat dubious, but in actuality it works quite well and has been a part of the Japanese anime culture for quite some time.

This is how it works. Fansub groups will take the show as it airs on regular television, subtitle it, and release it in America (this used to be done via the distribution of free video tapes, and has now moved to torrents online).

Americans will watch the shows, nowadays within a few days of the particular episode's airing on Japanese television. If they like what they see, they start putting pressure on American anime licensing groups to bring it over. The anime is brought over, subtitled and dubbed professionally, and released either to DVD or Television (see: Full Metal Alchemist, Naruto, Pokemon, etc.).

Not every anime fan, as I said, downloads fansubs. Actually, I'd be willing to wager that the percentage of fans that do so is comparatively small to the percentage of fans that do not. The more hardcore fans will probably download anime, but really, hardcore fans are usually something of a rarity as opposed to the more casual fans who will buy a game or DVD every now and again and enjoy what the anime has to offer.

Point 3) Otakus need to stop their complaining about OFFICIAL DUBS and OFFICIAL TRANSLATIONS by the Commercial Companies.
Seriously folks, what is so great about Japan? Almost all of their ideas stem from Western Cultures. The newer the anime or manga,
the less original it is. Anime no more than a Cartoon made in Japan; that's all. It isn't "sacred" or "blessed".

Excuse me? Have you HEARD some of the dubs or seen some of the subs? Even today, anime is not highly regarded in the States. Although several television networks are learning to cash in to the growing anime craze, for the most part the industry is still passed off as the pastime of a few secluded geeks in their respective basements. As such, a good number of anime receives less-than-stellar dubbing and subtitling jobs. For example, in the official DVD release of Full Metal Alchemist, I saw several grammatical errors on the first episode. There were none in the fansub version. "Official" doesn't necessarily mean they did a good job.

Point 4) All I hear from otakus in my community is that "America sux, they don't respect other cultures." Well EXCUSE ME,
um take a look at almost every otaku in America. What are you? YOU'RE AMERICANS! You should be proud of being Americans and stop
taking advantage of life and respect life more.

Sounds to me like you run around with the annoyingly "hardcore otaku"-types. There are those everywhere. Don't judge the community as a whole based on the views of a few extremists. And believe me, those are extremists.

Point 5) Not so long ago I came across a band of Asian-American otakus who were making fun of Jewish people. This was completely
absurd. Otakus claim they respect other cultures? In your wildest dreams. If otakus are so respectable of other cultures,
then why do I hear them being prejudice about African-Americans, Jewish-Americans, etc. etc. etc. etc.
The hypocrisy of the otakus must end.

See above response. Not to mention that many Asian cultures were highly Xenophobic, and racism is hardly dead in this country. You can be racist no matter what you like, and you can also be a hypocrite no matter what you like. The actions of a few hardly encompass the actions of an entire group as a whole.

[Tasura]

Lynx and Void get a <3 and whoever the topic starter is gets a so what if I downlaod anime? Most of the anime I download you cant buy here, when it comes out here, there is a high chance that I will buy it, and if ti doesnt come out here, then I keep downloading it.

[starseeker]

I download anime since I live in the UK (where Adult Swim doesn't have the anime), and I have pretty basic cable so I have no choice if I want to watch it. But I do also buy anime when I can afford it.

[black orb]

America and Japan's dying economy.

>>> Lol x 100000...

[Rengori]

America and Japan's dying economy.

>>> Lol x 100000...

That part made me laugh too.

[Mr. Graves]

Point 1) Anime fans claim they support anime, but in reality 99% of them steal it by downloading it.
Very few people actually buy it legally. The same goes for video games and computer games.
Anime fans are not supporting anime at all, they take advantage of fansubs that float around the net and use them
as a substitute and convince themselves they are actually legal.
Every anime fan in my community I know that has an interest in anime doesn't buy it... they bootleg it.
I buy everything legally: movies, games, anime, music, you name it, but it seems most people, especially otakus, simply
take advantage of America and Japan's dying economy.
At most anime and games should be backed up if you own the TRUE, REAL, ORIGINAL cartridge, DVD, or VHS tape.
Point 2) Fansubs DO NOT PROMOTE ANIME, they simply provide people with a means to steal it and keep it freely. Fansubs
are ILLEGAL, even more illegal than having a bootleg of a non-fantranslated version. Why is this one might ask? Well,
you can't translate without a license now can you?
Point 3) Otakus need to stop their complaining about OFFICIAL DUBS and OFFICIAL TRANSLATIONS by the Commercial Companies.
Seriously folks, what is so great about Japan? Almost all of their ideas stem from Western Cultures. The newer the anime or manga,
the less original it is. Anime no more than a Cartoon made in Japan; that's all. It isn't "sacred" or "blessed".
Point 4) All I hear from otakus in my community is that "America sux, they don't respect other cultures." Well EXCUSE ME,
um take a look at almost every otaku in America. What are you? YOU'RE AMERICANS! You should be proud of being Americans and stop
taking advantage of life and respect life more.
Point 5) Not so long ago I came across a band of Asian-American otakus who were making fun of Jewish people. This was completely
absurd. Otakus claim they respect other cultures? In your wildest dreams. If otakus are so respectable of other cultures,
then why do I hear them being prejudice about African-Americans, Jewish-Americans, etc. etc. etc. etc.
The hypocrisy of the otakus must end.

To the points:

#1: I actually support "illegal" downloads on principle, but I have no real comment here. I do that for Japanese stuff, I believe it is legal to download foreign music, although I'm not 100% sure on that. I'm not an expert on international copyright laws by any means.

#2: I don't know about translating illegally. I translate English sentences/phrases into Japanese all the time since I currently trying to learn the language.

#3: Nothing to say here. I've always bought offically released anime from stores (which isn't a lot by any means. Anime DVDs are quite costly. Perhaps that's a big reason so many people "illegally" download it?), although I am thinking of getting some Record of Lodoss War episodes from the 'Net.

#4: Japan has no law prohibiting racist practices against westerners. It seems like America is a bit more respectful in that regard.

#5: People can be morons.

I thought this thread was going to be all about slamming the freaky anime fans who do cosplay and think injecting Japanese words into English sentences is a sign of being hip. This thread might have been a lot more fun that-a-way.

[Germ Hamee]

There is nothing wrong with fansubs. It's great to be able to sample a show before investing a lot of time or money into it, and it's great to be able to keep up with what's going on in Japan. I also don't see anything wrong with downloading a show that's already aired on Cartoon Network, which is a large chunk of what most "otaku" watch. It's already available for free, why not have it on demand?

If these companies were that concerned about people buying shows on DVD, they might want to consider making it a little more affordable. Most anime are released with as little as four, sometimes three episodes a disc, all selling for close to thirty dollars. Collecting entire series can be unreasonable, especially with long running shows such as Naruto, Inu Yasha, or Full Metal Alchemist. I wish more series would be released as Funimation did with Fruit's Basket, a mere four disc set.

Granted, the industry may have changed since my hayday, but I doubt it's much better. Not everyone has Cartoon Network, and not everyone has excess money to blow on overpriced DVDs.

What do you care, anyway? It's clearly not stunting the growth of the culture, and I doubt you work in the business.

And by the way, I own well over two thousand dollars worth of authentic anime DVDs.

[Shoeberto]

If these companies were that concerned about people buying shows on DVD, they might want to consider making it a little more affordable.

When entire seasons of US animation of similar style can be available for less than the price of half a season of anime, yeah, there's something wrong.

[Zeromus_X]

Everything that needed to be said was said by Void, Graves, and HMAU.

I download anime every now and then, but I'm hardly an 'otaku'. I don't even watch too many anime unless they interest me (there are horrible as well as great anime, mind you), so I don't really get that. Whatever. I'll buy DVDS, as well. (Some English voice casts are actually very talented, FMA=<3)

If these companies were that concerned about people buying shows on DVD, they might want to consider making it a little more affordable.

[Captain Maxx Power]

Point 1) Anime fans claim they support anime, but in reality 99% of them steal it by downloading it.

Can't argue with that one. Then again, about 92% of people don't actually live in Japan, where Anime is most prevelant/easiest to get hold of/cheapest.

Point 2) Fansubs DO NOT PROMOTE ANIME, they simply provide people with a means to steal it and keep it freely. Fansubs
are ILLEGAL, even more illegal than having a bootleg of a non-fantranslated version. Why is this one might ask? Well,
you can't translate without a license now can you?

Well, actually you can. Translating/Trascribing a script isn't illegal at all, and neither is making it public domain. I could quite happily type out by hand the entirety of the dialogue for Thunderball and pass it around as I saw fit. What is illegal is the use of said scripts for commerical gain, be it selling to others or attempting to pass off a script as your own (plagerisation).

Point 3) Otakus need to stop their complaining about OFFICIAL DUBS and OFFICIAL TRANSLATIONS by the Commercial Companies.
Seriously folks, what is so great about Japan? Almost all of their ideas stem from Western Cultures. The newer the anime or manga,
the less original it is. Anime no more than a Cartoon made in Japan; that's all. It isn't "sacred" or "blessed".

True enough, but then again we've stolen back in equal term from the japanese. It's a two-way symbiosis that discourages creativity, but at least keeps things in flux...to a point. Plus yes, they're all cartoons, but then again Star Wars is only a film, and look how sacred that's become.

Point 4) All I hear from otakus in my community is that "America sux, hey don't respect other cultures." Well EXCUSE ME,
um take a look at almost every otaku in America. What are you? YOU'RE AMERICANS! You should be proud of being Americans and stop
taking advantage of life and respect life more.

Mindless fanboy based anti-semitism isn't the greatest threat humanity has ever faced. Don't worry they'll either grow out of it or move to Japan. Either way everyone's happy.

Point 5) Not so long ago I came across a band of Asian-American otakus who were making fun of Jewish people. This was completely
absurd. Otakus claim they respect other cultures? In your wildest dreams. If otakus are so respectable of other cultures,
then why do I hear them being prejudice about African-Americans, Jewish-Americans, etc. etc. etc. etc.
The hypocrisy of the otakus must end.

See, there's this thing about humanity. It's kind of true no matter where you go in the world. People generally like to be in groups. Anyone outside of their own group is considered wrong and thusly is ripe for parody/ridicule. This would be an example of it. I guess you could get all these "otakusi" and drop them head first into a pit of molten lava with lava Tiger/Sharks until they promise to be tolerant of all other cultures besides their own. Apart from that it's more a case of put up and shut up.

[Vyk]

Such ignorance. Hopefully one day you'll open your eyes. And then maybe type in complete and comprehensible sentences x_x; I haven't downloaded anime in a while. But the last ton or so I downloaded wasn't released in America