The arrogance of fansubbers: Why I’m late to the Gurren Lagann party

November 10th, 2007 | Categories: Anime, Omake | Tags: Commentary, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

This post is obviously meant to be inflammatory from the title! I mean, there could be no other reason for using “arrogance”, could there? This post also obviously refers to every fansubber out there and not a select few who are concerned. Please keep that in mind as you read this post, and before you proceed to comment. Take every word I say out of context. It’s not like I tend to be sarcastic on the internet or anything, nope.

I may not agree with what you say, but I�ll defend to the death my right to drill it

With that’s out of the way, here’s my explanation for the title. I’ve only really been able to watch Gurren Lagann as of late, due to Black-Order finally bridging the Xvid-less gap with BSS-Anon’s encodes. “Arrogance” here would refer to how a minority of fansubbing groups don’t, for the most part, care about Xvid or non-HD encodes anymore, producing subs that are exclusively HD and/or x264.

Why am I getting riled over this? I have every right to, surely — after all, they’re the ones who control the means of production, i.e. the bourgeoisie, and there are more PCs in the world that can’t watch x264 and/or HD than those that can. This is a fact. Unfortunately this is also where the Marxism analogy ends because relating fansubbing to the rest of it is ridiculous, as much as I’d like to see every anime fan rise above the oppressive shackles of fansubs and get their JLPT 3/2/1. But I digress.

For those of you who weren’t paying attention, before Order began subbing GL, there were no Xvid subs in 704×400 resolution. Correct me if I’m wrong, but even BSS-Anon, when picking up the series after it was licensed, only began churning out Xvid 704x400s around episode 17 or so. Order hadn’t caught up then, so this meant that any hope of watching it altogether had to be put aside until Order caught up and bridged that bit of no man’s land.

This is certainly a worrying trend that I’ve noticed as of late, and it’s like the proverbial itch in a place you can’t scratch (or could, give or take a dislocated limb). As much as I’d love to go all out and embrace every bit of anime that I can lay my hands on, I’m unable to for purely technical reasons. My PC’s pretty old, and while I might be getting a new one in the future assuming I can scrape together enough money to do so, it’s just not feasible right now.

What this means is that I haven’t watched a bit of Baccano at all. No long-nose Kaiji. Before Oikose came along and decided to sub Minami-ke in a viewable format, Ayako’s Xvid-but-in-HD subs were nothing short of infuriating. There’s a general understanding that any every self-respecting fansub group produces two versions of an episode: the HQ, x264 version that may or may not be in HD resolution, and a LQ, Xvid version that’s more often than not resized to a manageable resolution, around the 600-700 range depending on the raw.

My question is this — why should fansubbers dictate what the fans watch? Common sense would indicate that there are more PCs out there in the world that can’t handle x264 codecs as opposed to those who can, those old PCs are used to watch anime, and if you’re not fansubbing for the e-fame or e-penis, that begs the question of why aren’t you encoding in an accessible codec? It’s perplexing, because I was pretty sure that all fansub groups have this shared creed of wanting to reach as many fans as possible. I’m not discounting the idea that there just might be people deluded enough to think that PCs automatically upgrade themselves or that everyone can afford them, but you get the idea.

the hype/critical acclaim’s been so much I basically understand the joke behind pictures like these, even if I haven’t seen the damn thing yet from a lack of Xvid

As a pre-emptive to any arguments that might be used later, I’ve noticed from the Gundam 00-Nyoron fiasco that the comments opposing what he said had this in common; the argument that fansubs are a free resource, that people do them on their own time and effort and should be able to sub whatever damn well pleases them, even if it means turning the episode into a Graham x Setsuna yaoi slash fic while radically redefining the Gundam architecture.

I’m going to do the obvious and call this line of reasoning fundamentally flawed, or, to not mince words, unforgivably imbecilic. It’s shoddy logic that confuses the basic freedom of expression with the fact that fansubs define the understanding of an anime in the English fandom, and that altering that understanding means you’re not watching Gundam 00 anymore, but Gundam 00 According To Nyoron.

Exclusively encoding anime in x264 or HD has the same effect. While otaku everywhere in Japan can just turn on their TV/cable/satellite and watch an anime without getting a new TV of some sort, what we have here is a minority of fansubbers making this process difficult, insisting that we get a better PC (even if it’s not financially feasible to do so; note the callous insensitivity, ignorance, and baseless assumption that PCs cost the same the world over, here) to watch them.

It’s at least reassuring to know that this only happens with shows that are relatively obscure, without a great following, or not as mainstream. While exclusive x264-encoded fansubs of an anime remain far and few in-between, it’s still bad enough that I miss out on at least one show every season due to this pompous train of thought. With Spring it was GL, Summer — Baccano, Autumn — Kaiji. I’ve missed out, or am missing out on awesome shows because a group people on the internet think that they’re too good for low-quality encodes.

To sum things up, if you’re a member of the decision-making process of one of those fansub groups that encode your releases exclusively in HD/x264 because you think it’s gangsta/can’t be arsed to do an Xvid/don’t care, all this when you’re the only option for the show, please realise that you’ve just finished reading what was basically the eloquent equivalent of my spitting on your internet existence and beating it to a pulp before kicking it in the balls with steel-tipped boots.

On the other hand, if you’re one of those opinionated ignoramuses that don’t read posts before commenting on them (there’s a high chance that you also did the same in DarkMirage’s post!), I suggest you re-read my post at this point. Very slowly, sans that seething internet rage things like you have when you come across an opinion contrary to what you hold. Start from the paragraph that says “As a pre-emptive to any arguments”, and repeat if necessary.

I originally meant for this post to be 50% vitriolic rant and 50% thoughts on GL pre-watching. As that idea’s all but gone now, here’s 10% of my 2 cents instead. GL has been looming over my head ever since I couldn’t watch it and it’s remained there — Gainax, after all, held my attention with shows like KareKano (which I never finished, but the manga works just as well), FLCL (which, on retrospective, was a bit too much for my teenage self to appreciate), and Evangelion (ditto) just when I was getting into anime.

GL could easily be Gainax’s magnum opus, like Code Geass is Sunrise’s, or Haruhi KyoAni’s. Don’t call me out on the last one, because I’m going to wield the This Is My Blog, And My Opinion Is Always Right� card here; Haruhi was awesome if you didn’t let the hype, fanboys, or Philistines get to you, so shut it. Where was I? Oh, yes. If reports of GL are anything to go by, I’m suppose to have come (as in “I came”), shat bricks, and shed manly tears all at once, preferably at every other episode. It isn’t so much disappointment at hype that I’m afraid of here as it is the disparity with what my fellow bloggers have told me (sometimes yelled, unanimously) and my subsequent evaluation of it later.

I’ve never been as afraid to watch an anime as I have GL, and I hope I never have to again. I’m definitely duty-bound to write about it, and it’s this terrifying mixture of trepidation, apprehension, and expectation with which I venture into the unknown. Too bad being a tabula rasa at this point is impossible given what I know, but I’m not complaining about that. Hey, I’m grateful I even get to watch the bloody thing!