Sunday June 28, 2009
Xpressway

Few options for local otaku

LAST week, Cedric of Kuala Lumpur wrote in his letter to OtakuZone that we should buy original anime and shun the act of downloading fansubs. I just wish to say that buying the “originals” available in Malaysia is no less “illegal” than downloading fan-subtitled anime.

Quality of subtitles aside, there is great suspicion as to whether the distributors in Malaysia actually managed to acquire licences from the studios in Japan to subtitle and distribute anime titles here. Any otaku worth their salt would know that US distributors pay big money – usually hundreds of thousands of dollars – to distribute just one anime.

Yet my Trigun with excellent subs and English audio cost me a mere RM39.90. Suspicious!

So I beg the question: how is buying unlicensed bootlegs any more legal than downloading fansubs? But if we can’t download, or buy bootlegs, it seems that the only legal means of obtaining licensed anime would be to pay hefty sums for titles licensed and distributed in Singapore. Or perhaps watch titles on online streaming sites like Crunchyroll, or in the worst-case scenario, the dubbed anime on our local TV.

The best option so far would be to catch them on Animax (Astro Channel 715) which has done pretty well by bringing us anime that are being aired the same time in Japan.

And there you have the predicament of anime fans in Malaysia. Want quality subs? Go for illegal fansubs. Want “legal” subs? Go for “original” fakes. Want best of both worlds? Sorry, correct me if I’m wrong, but it doesn’t exist here.

Of course, if anyone out there has evidence to disprove what I’ve said, please present it and I shall stand corrected.

Jon Lai, Kuala Lumpur

Language barrier

CEDRIC suggested that to really know what anime characters are saying, we should learn Japanese instead of complaining. Yes, that is an option.

However, language books and courses are extremely expensive. Besides, it takes months and years to get to that level of understanding in Japanese.

Furthermore, the Japanese used in anime is mostly informal. I’ve attended Japanese classes and I can tell you that we are taught polite Japanese and beginners will be confused by the informal words in anime. A particular Japanese verb has many forms that all carry different meanings.

When I first I attended my Japanese class there were 10 students. Most wanted to learn the language to better understand anime and Japanese dramas. Slowly, they dropped out.

By the end of the course, there were only three of us left. When you learn a language, you have to learn the basics of the language and grammar, but this may bore some people.

As for complaining, isn’t it a consumer’s right to complain when a product is not worth the money they paid for? Besides, how then are the anime translators going to know that their subtitles are terrible?

As for reading Chinese subtitles instead because they are similar to Japanese, what about people who do not understand Chinese? Do they have to spend hundreds or thousands of ringgit to learn Chinese now? True, English and Bahasa Malaysia will not capture the meaning perfectly. There are elements that remain lost in translation, of course, but fan-subbers somehow manage to do a much, much better job at subbing the anime.

I believe that most fans will agree with me when I say that we wouldn’t mind paying for original anime if they are high in quality and are subtitled properly.

Most fans resort to downloading because they are not getting what they paid for. Also, Eric (“Buy or Download?”, OtakuZone, June 14) was right. The anime DVDs in local stores are rather questionable.

Jules, Kuala Lumpur

All this discussion of "fansub or buy" does worry me. It might attract the attention of a certain monopolizing company in Malaysia that might force ISPs to monitor their subscribers and give out personal information of the subscriber's monthly usage. Just imagine if "buy" is our only choice as downloading fansub is outlawed. We'll have to live with shitty subs, poor quality video, and maybe even cuts and censorship.

It's always a good move to let grey area shit like this remain in the basement. Someone is bound to rob us of our freedom out there.

i don't like sub. cos sub destroy the joy of having a good anime. imagine if takumi changed to touhai, what will happen to the rest??

That is dub.

In sub, they retain the name of the character.

You mean you like to watch anime raw??

Ever think of a Malaysian made Anime channel? 24/7/365 whole days filled with anime. Is IT POSSIBLE? well next 10 years i mean.