Archive for the 'Anime' Category

Price Per Episode — The Great Devaluing of Anime

Posted on June 24, 2010 by Jamie Spong in the field of Anime.

I am angry again.

The second series of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is being released in the United States. This is a good thing. The licensees, Bandai Entertainment USA, are giving it the same care and attention that the first series received, including a proper, full-cast English translation. This is a great thing.

And the whole 14-episode series can be had for under £40.1

This is a brilliant thing.

There are some people, however, who have chosen to throw a wobbly over this last point.

If you’ve seen the series, you’ll be familiar with the Endless Eight storyline. The characters are trapped in a time loop for eight episodes. Instead of running the same episode eight times, the producers handed the same source material to eight different teams, who each produced a similar yet slightly different episode. These were broadcast over a period of two months. Viewers complained that it was a waste of schedule. Now, people are complaining that it’s a waste of money.

I used to measure the value of anime videos in terms of “price-per-episode”: the price of the video divided by the number of standard 25-minute episodes included. Overall, this isn’t a fair measurement system — it doesn’t take into account bonus features, quality of translation or distribution medium — but for the purpose of this blog post, it’s as good an indicator as any.

So. £40 for 14 episodes. That’s about £2.85 per episode. “But Endless Eight was just the same episode over and over again,” you cry. No it wasn’t, I reply, but let’s go with it anyway. The Endless Eight are now one. £40 divided by seven episodes. £5.70 an episode. That’s not too bad, I reckon.

But it is here that we discover the problem. Apparently, £5.70 per episode is too bad.

All of a sudden, anime is just too expensive. People are up in arms about the recommended retail price of Haruhi series 2 — how DARE they charge this amount of money for this amount of content! — despite the price of anime in the UK and the USA now being cheaper than ever. It was just a few years ago, in fact, that I bought my first four-episode volume of My-HiME for £20. If people are complaining about spending more than a quid or two on a single episode, English-speaking anime fandom has surely lost its way; for years, £5 per episode was considered a fair asking price for a professionally-produced anime translation. (I’m sure that older fans will tell me how it was “even worse” in their day.)

But even that’s not enough.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I bought copies of the Magipoka boxsets. As it doesn’t have a proper English release, I had to import them from Japan.

4 episodes to a set, plus one DVD-exclusive bonus short episode each.

All together, I got about 13-or-14 episodes’ worth of content. All together, it cost me £242.70.

£242.70. That’s £18 per episode.

Let’s look at a more contemporary example. The first volume of the popular new anime series Angel Beats! just went on sale in Japan. It’s done incredibly well; even in its first day on sale, over fifteen thousand copies were sold.

The first volume contains 2 episodes and costs ¥5250. Assuming that you don’t want to splash out on limited-edition bundles or Blu-ray discs, you’re looking at £20 per episode. No translations. No bonus features beyond an equally untranslated commentary track. No frills.

Angel Beats! isn’t even that expensive. K-ON! is dearer. Haruhi Series 2 is dearer still. Don’t believe me? See for yourself.

You see, in Japan, when you buy an anime DVD for the domestic market, you’re not just paying for the right to watch a couple of episodes on your television. You’re funding the series. Next to sponsorship deals, domestic DVD sales are the main source of income for anime producers.

Some English anime consumers complain that the prices of anime DVDs should be brought in line with the average costs of locally-produced television series sets before they’d consider buying them. This point of view doesn’t take into account the fact that British and American television shows tend to be commissioned by a broadcasting corporation or suchlike, while anime producers have to pay the Japanese TV stations to get their shows on the air. It’s only through merchandise and DVD sales that the average anime series can break even, let alone make a profit.

Needless to say, with English-language anime DVD prices as cheap as they are, the anime producers themselves don’t see overseas earnings as being particularly significant. Don’t get me wrong — every officially-licenced English-langage DVD purchase results in royalties going back to the original producers — but your purchase also subsidises license costs, translation costs, marketing costs and so forth on the English-speaking side. Imagine how the revenue shares for each purchase are split. Imagine how little each party must receive.

Sadly, this undervaluing of anime is happening among the licensees themselves. Companies like FUNimation release slim boxsets for peanuts and dump anime series on their website for viewing at no charge to the consumer. While you may think that a copy of Kanon for £13.03 (54p per episode!) is a good thing, consumer demand for cheap-as-free anime will soon cause the major companies to stop making profits, declare bankruptcy and cause the Great Cheap Anime Bubble to implode spectacularly. That’s my theory, anyway.

Let’s step back and take this all into account. A 14-episode series can set you back up to £300 if you live in Japan. In North America, however, you get the same content for only £40; maybe even less. Even in the glory days of £5 an episode, you were paying 25% of the original asking price. Now the English price-per-episode is less than 15% — or, in the case of the 54p-per-episode Kanon, less than 4%2 — of what a Japanese fan would pay. And that’s not even taking into account all of the lovely extra features, like, for example, a full English translation, that you don’t get in the Japanese release.

So, Haruhi fans, what’s it going to be? £320 for the regular edition of series two? £382 for the limited edition of series two? Or £40 for a special, English-language 14-episode collection with bonus features, lovingly put together by people who love the series just as much as you do?

If you’re still not convinced, I can’t force you. If you don’t think that it’s worth the asking price, don’t watch it. If you’ve got better things to spend your money on, spend your money on them instead. You don’t have to watch anime, you know. ㋼

Prices for Japanese DVDs were taken from CDJapan. XE and Wolfram|Alpha were used for currency conversion and calculation.

  1. At time of writing, the complete series set can be pre-ordered from RightStuf for $58.74 (postage inclusive), which comes to about £39.24. [↩]
  2. Eight Japanese DVD volumes at ¥6300 each ≈ £375. Incidentally, the Blu-ray disc edition is ¥62580, or £466.83. [↩]
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Venish

Posted on April 12, 2010 by Jamie Spong in the field of Anime and Slice of Life.

“It wasn’t as wet as I was anticipating.”

This time a few days ago, I was in Venice. (The one in Italy.)

I was told about a month earlier that I’d be taking an Easter holiday in Venice. Unlike previous Easter holidays, this excited me. Last year’s trip to Pisa was well-received, but a severely late flight on the way back was an experience that I would not want to repeat. The holiday a year prior to that took place in Amsterdam. It’s probably a lovely place if the weather’s not torrentially snowy. And if you’re a pothead.

So when I heard that we would be visiting Venice, I thought that this time we’d got it right. I only knew Pisa for its leaning tower and Amsterdam because it was a lyric in that song about a little mouse with clogs on. Venice, on the other hand, is a place that I had been made all too aware of through my exposure to anime.

I was warned before I went that it would be packed with tourists, possibly Japanese. It’s possible that Japan has some fascination with the city, but it’s likely that it’s a worldwide thing. Whether or not the Japanese in particular have a fascination with the Venetian city of Venice (it could well be universal – Brother told me that authors who have been to Venice generally write about Venice), there are several notable Japanese things with Venice in them. And while I could dedicate a blog post to the heart-wrenching, life-changing experience that is Pokémon Heroes (set in the sunny city of “Altomare” – like Venice but with Pokémon and CGI excessives), I will instead focus on Aria.

It goes like this: In a post-apocalyptic world, mankind is forced to abandon mother Earth and colonise new planets through the magic science of terraforming. One such planet to’ve undergone this operation is Mars (probably because it was the closest one that they could find), now renamed Aqua (presumably because it’s got water on it now). It’s important to note that this backstory is only alluded to in the show itself; Aria is actually a slice-of-life story about a group of young, modestly-attractive female gondolier operators living in the city of New Venice1, Aqua. They live their lives. They wander the city. Sometimes they discover things. Everyone’s happy all of the time.

It’s very relaxing.

Aria has the odd distinction of being both underexposed and overrated, but it’s by no means a bad show. Providing, of course, that you are not driven insane from the constant annoyances of the repetitive, repetitive, repetitive catchphrases (“No sappy lines allowed!” “Ehh?” “My, my! Ehehe!” AT LEAST TWICE PER EPISODE) and the awkward antics of series mascot ‘President Aria’, a disturbingly personic cat-thing that looks more like a dog-thing who spends most of his time being as “cute” as possible. It’s a jolly good thing that the rest of the show makes up for these potential blood-pressure-raising shortcomings with its gentle pacing, charming soundtrack and general lack of plot. If nothing else, Aria proves that filler is not always a bad thing.

But there is a problem. Aria is set in New Venice. Not Regular Venice. Neither is Pokémon Heroes. In fact, very few of these Venice-based fictions are actually set in Venice itself. They’re always some idyllic utopian place based on Venice, liberties taken as the story requires. In short, these stories take place in what Venice should be like.

And even though I knew all of this, I had set my expectations unreasonably high. I had managed to convince myself that Venice was a place where miracles actually happen. A soul-cleansing place of purity, untainted by the progress of humanity.

This, as you must be aware, was not the case. Rather than an escape from reality, Venice was just another facet of it. I didn’t mind so much about the thousands of tourists piled into the scaffolding-enrobed St. Mark’s Square everyday, but even the quieter residential areas recommended by the guidebook had people there. Brother said that he doesn’t like being away from humanity for too long; I’m the opposite. I suppose that complaining about the level of tourism during the first major holiday of the year is just being picky.

As it turns out, Aria is more a depiction of what Japanese life, rather than Venezian life, embodies. New Venice celebrates the same holidays as the Japanese; they have the same customs, the same expressions, the same language (although the latter’s justifiable). In the second series, they dedicated a whole episode to New Venice’s postal service (far more efficient than Italy’s postal service) that appeared to be based directly on the Japanese post office, even down to the logo. Must be great if you’re Japanese. Familiarity with Aria does not equal familiarity with Venice.

Aria aside, Venice wasn’t as wet as I was anticipating. The weather forecast predicted a wide range of rains throughout the holiday, but this didn’t happen, making the weather, at least, correlate with the more idyllic depictions of the city (if dangerously high sun levels are your idea of idyllic weather). But I pictured Venice as being almost entirely laced with canals. I imagined paths at sea level. I imagined the impossibility of getting around on foot. I imagined not being able to find a large patch of land without a significant body of water a couple of metres away. Once again, I had set my expectations too high. I found Venice to be a highly walkable city, clocking up over 30,000 steps on one day. (Step counts brought to you by the Pokéwalker device. I’m not a Pokémon fan, by the way.) After a poor night’s sleep upon arrival, I strove to thoroughly tire myself out during the day to ensure peaceful sleep on subsequent nights. I set myself the goal of walking to each “corner” of Venice, but my enthusiasm was significantly diminished after a distressing discovery in the north-west corner of the island: an industrial district complete with train station, sky shuttle and car park. Cars on Venice‽ This is madness!

I won’t say that I was disappointed. Like I said, I knew what to expect. It wasn’t the first time that I’d been to Italy. Even so, it wasn’t the same. One thing that impressed me in Pisa was the ubiquity of anime and comics. One channel (we had satellite television in the hotel) was showing GTO at 11 in the morning. If I was familiar with GTO, I’m sure that I’d've been impressed. In Venice, however, we only had analogue. (We didn’t watch much TV.) At the airport newsagents last year, I was impressed to see a wide variety of graphic novels on sale alongside the newspapers; at Venice Marco Polo’s newsagency, I was disappointed to see a much smaller selection hidden away in a corner. Okay, so maybe I was a little disappointed this year.

But I don’t regret going. Venice isn’t a magical place in either the literal or the figurative sense, but if you’ve the money (like all good tourist traps, prices are significantly higher in Venice than in Tesco) I’m not going to ruin your fun.

Just don’t expect a miracle.

Incidentally, I found out that Aria is Italian for Air. I walked past a sign that said “Air conditioning” in both languages. ㋼

  1. The subtitles use the transliteration Neo-Venezia. The “Neo-” prefix appears to be the Japanese equivalent of the English “New” suffix, and Venezia means Venice, so New Venice is the way that it should be written. Probably. Ignore me. [↩]
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Brevity One

Posted on March 6, 2010 by Jamie Spong in the field of Anime and Random Thoughts.

Discuss. ㋼

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Kiddy Girl-and [Kiddy Grade 2] — How We Became Friends

Posted on February 14, 2010 by Jamie Spong in the field of Anime.

Recently, some copypasta sauce spread over an Internet or two proposed that there are two types of anime fans. The first type enjoys story, substance and animation quality et cetera, and the other kind enjoys lighter, character-driven series and doesn’t care so much about where the story is headed.

Like most generalizations, this is complete rubbish.1 Different people like or dislike different things for different reasons. There are several qualities that may make a series seem good or bad, each entirely subjective. At least, that’s an idea. By my reckoning, likes and dislikes (in my case, at least) occur more-or-less at random. But I digress.

About a year ago, the sequel to Kiddy Grade, which had previously existed only as a pilot episode and some sketches, was greenlit for a full-fledged series. Now, I believe that Uta∽Kata is the best non-Giant Robo anime ever made, so although I wasn’t the biggest fan of the original Kiddy Grade I was really looking forward to this new series from gímik, the production triforce behind all aforementioned (non-Giant Robo) titles. I even made a blog post anticipating it!

It didn’t live up to my hype. Of course it didn’t. Things tend to not. But I continued watching. I sat through episodes filled with in-jokes and references that remain impenetrable to anyone who doesn’t spend most of their life on Nico Nico Douga. Sure, there was plot, centimetring away under the everyday antics of the maids-who-are-actually-secret-agents, but it lacked the interconnectedness of Kiddy Grade, the subtle foreshadowing of Uta∽Kata.

One (half-)episode was nothing but a string of Lucky☆Star-esque voice actor-related gags. I’ve said that the presence of Norio Wakamoto is never a bad thing, and, well, it wasn’t. But I maintain that it was a thoroughly pointless episode; it introduced no new running characters, had no effect on the overall storyline and was never mentioned again.

But I persisted.

I’d watched the original Kiddy Grade. I’d watched Uta∽Kata. I knew that we were being lulled into a false sense of security, building to a massive plot turnabout.

And then it happened. Two major characters died, leaving our heroines without idols/mentors. Sad. Moving.

Meh, I thought.

It seemed that after eight or so episodes of nothing really happening, attempts to shake up the formula didn’t faze me. Maybe I thought that it should’ve been this way from the start. Maybe I was just in a bad mood that day. Either way, the series did become generally less painful to watch after this point, even though the overlying plot still didn’t make much of an effort. You could say that I had the mindset of a “Type A” anime fan at this point.

After an episode of mourning, episode 11 gave us a look into the lifestyles of the antagonists. (There are a bunch of characters in this show.) I thought it was a great episode; it may’ve been low on plot, but it was low on unfunny gags, too. Plus, we got to know the bad guys a lot better. They have feelings and stuff! Who’d've thought it?

Episode 12 added some much needed plot, featuring some well-appreciated continuity in the form of acknowledging the original series, revealing what happened to the principal members of the original cast and definitively linking both storylines. This is it, I thought. The halfway point in the series where everything changes. From now on, everything’ll be deadly serious.

The next episode was a beach episode.2

As beach episodes go, it was okay. It turns out that some computer broke down which trapped them there and they had to fix it or blow it up or something in order to save everybody. But the story isn’t why I find it notable. (No, neither was the mandatory dress code.)

As this episode played out, I found myself emotionally connecting with the main characters. I smiled along with them, cheered them on; they looked so cool in the denouement when they defeated the whatever-it-was terrorising the other characters that they were keeping their ES-Member-status a secret from until now.

And it was then that I realised that, for perhaps the first time ever, I wasn’t watching a show for the story. Sure, I enjoyed the plot and I continue to look forward to seeing where it goes, but that’s not why I care.

Over twelve hit-and-miss episodes, I had shared the adventures of these two girls. Together, we dealt with the strange situations that we were placed in, and, with time, it almost felt like we had become friends. It didn’t matter that they just happened to be a pair of young, good looking female-types; it was their personalities, not their bodies, that won me over. Going back over the older episodes looking for screenshots for this post, I found myself appreciating the show a lot more now that I knew.

I cared for these characters more than I cared for the series that brought us together.

And I still managed to write this whole post without mentioning their names. ㋼

  1. “Every generalization is false, including this one.” – Mark Twain [↩]
  2. Technically a holiday resort episode. [↩]
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Kanon Turns 10: Sad Girls, Fan Translations and Boot Camps

Posted on October 10, 2009 by Jamie Spong in the field of Anime, Stuff I've Bought and Visual Novels.

Kanon Group Shot

That title up there should probably say “Kanon Turned 10”. I started writing this post in May.

But it’s still 2009, and this year marks the 10th anniversary of the release of one of Japan’s most beloved visual novels.

Kanon takes place in Winter. There is a main character and some other characters as well. Some of the other characters are more important story-wise than others, and the main character has to talk to them for the story to happen. (That’s what one does in a visual novel, after all.) Hopefully, I’ve managed to describe it to you without spoiling anything. Please don’t stop reading here.

Kanon is notable for being the first work produced by Key, who would later go on do create Air and Clannad (which you may have heard of), as well as Tomoyo After, Planetarian and Little Busters!.1 (Which you may not’ve heard of. Don’t read too far into any of those Wikipedia articles if you don’t like spoilers.)

Nayuki is my favourite character. This is a picture of her.

Nayuki is my favourite character. This is a picture of her.

Evidently, some people (i.e. Toei Animation) thought that Kanon was worth adapting into an animated series. So they did. It wasn’t very good.2 A few years later, after the exceedingly poorly paced Air TV series somehow became liked by folk, anime megahouse Kyoto Animation made another one. And it was good. So good that they eventually brought it over to North America, translated it into English American3 and released it on DVD, which, due to issues, quickly went out of print. Until it was re-released in a horrible boxset that tries to cram the whole series on four discs and typesets the subtitles in a highly annoying font.

At the time, one could've expected to pay this much for one of these. That's four episodes, y'hear? Well, I suppose that it's better to get 24 episodes for £30 than 4 of those episodes for £200. Even if the subtitles are harder to read.

At the time, one could've expected to pay this much for one of these. That's four episodes, y'hear? Well, I suppose that it's better to get 24 episodes for £30 than 4 of those episodes for £200. Even if the subtitles are harder to read.

To further appease the English-speaking fans, an unofficial fan translation of the original visual novel had been in the works for many years; before the story was animated, in fact. After much work by many hands, it was finally released earlier this year for anyone who owns a copy of Kanon Standard Edition, the slightly enhanced re-release.

Haeleth (who I believe started the project) mentioned on his website that HimeyaShop was a good place to get visual novels and the like. So I did. What I didn’t know is that since Haeleth’s now out-of-date page on Kanon was posted, all of the 18+ rated visual novels that they sell have been moved to a separate website, so I ended up with the “all ages” version.4

Now, Japanese programmers do things slightly differently to the way us Englishmen are used to. I’m no hacker (heck, I barely know any HTML), but one can tell from looking at the way that the game installs itself that the Japanese are used to a much different computing experience than us. (Do they not have the Program Files folder in Japan?) Perhaps the biggest cultural difference is that Mac users are generally left in the cold when it comes to visual novels, with most pretty much all of the major releases being Windows-only. This is a problem for me, as I have been a Mac user for nearly three years now.5 With barely any hard drive space remaining on the ol’ MacBook and Brother choosing to use his computer most of the time, there was only one way I’d be able to play Kanon.

I bought a MacBook Pro.

I wanted to take a photo that showed off the anti-glare display because I couldn't find any photos of the anti-glare display when I looked for them when I was thinking of getting a MacBook Pro with an anti-glare display.

I wanted to take a photo that showed off the anti-glare display because I couldn't find any photos of the anti-glare display when I looked for them when I was thinking of getting a MacBook Pro with an anti-glare display.

I suppose that you could tell from my brief description up at the top that I haven’t yet finished Kanon in any of its forms. But just you wait. The moment Windows 7 is released (and my beautifully cheaper-than-half-price pre-order copy shows up), I’ll shove a Boot Camp installation onto that glorious solid-state drive and have Kanon running better than anyone could’ve imagined. (No, I did not write this post just to show off the new computer. I haven’t even turned it on yet.)

But soft. If you’re running Windows 2000 or XP or so (and have a working DVD drive), you too can experience the story of Kanon — regardless of your knowledge of Japanese.6 As mentioned before, Kanon Standard Edition For All Ages (to give it its full title) can be purchased at HimeyaShop.com. They post internationally! (But they don’t bother to fill out the Customs declaration, so be prepared for extra charges once it reaches your nation’s borders.) If you want the full version with the added nature sequences (which you might as well get, seeing as it’s the same price and the fan translation allows one to disable the sex sections if one wishes), you’ll have to go through ErogeShop.com (direct link provided so that you don’t have to look at the more trashy selections). The English update can be found up here (the link is buried at the end of the second sentence from the top of their section on Kanon). Use 7-Zip or something to extract everything in the “Patch files” folder to wherever you installed Kanon, and that should be it.

Finally, I will mention that at the time of starting this post, there was an ongoing online thing called the Key 10th Anniversary Letter Project, which attempted to collect fan submissions of thanks and congratulations to Key on reaching their decennial year. That date has now been and gone, and I’m not sure what the status of the project is, but it looks like they need help more than ever. If you can lend a hand with managing the project (or want to contribute a letter of your own), please give them a moment of your time. Who knows where it’ll end up?

When I first experienced Planetarian, I was moved to the point of giving a care — not something that comes easily for me. When I finished the Clannad anime series, I felt a similar way. Let’s hope that Kanon does the same.

Additionally, Japanator tells me that today is Moé Day. So this post isn’t so irrelevant after all! Hooray! ㋼

  1. No relation. [↩]
  2. Or so I have heard. [↩]
  3. Nayuki sounds like a man. Still, they got the drowsiness down; in the Japanese version, she just sounds like a duck. [↩]
  4. Many Japanese visual novels, particularly the kind where there’s one guy and more than one girl, contain sex scenes. (Hence the nickname “erotic game”, or “erogé”.) Having sex isn’t necessarily the goal of the story; these scenes range from being tightly integrated into the storyline to just thrown in there to tick the box. (“Game’s not selling well? Add the obligatory sex scene and watch the copies fly off the shelves!” --The Thought Process of the Common Erogé Producer) Kanon falls into the latter category, and versions with the naughty bits removed completely were released without any major changes to the storyline. Incidentally, neither of the animated adaptations feature such scenes. [↩]
  5. My excuse: They don’t make Logic for Windows anymore. [↩]
  6. Not that it’s a brilliant translation; the names are written backwards, with the first name last and vice-versa (for what I can only assume are unavoidable technical issues), honourifics are bizarrely ignored & transcribed without any explanation and certain words and phrases are left untranslated and highlighted in purple. If you click on them, it tells you what they mean and why they decided that it was a good idea to not translate them. They might’ve fixed all of this in the latest patch, though. [↩]
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K-onic Sans MS

Posted on May 14, 2009 by Jamie Spong in the field of New and Upcoming Anime.

“If music be the food of love, K-On.”

K-onic_Sans

Last Thursday’s film class involved watching some stock footage compilation called something like Poyahniskwazzi. It was depressingly boring. If this is pure cinema, I’d rather wallow in the mud of the latest Hollywood action flick.

Thankfully, this bout of anti-tainment was followed by a visit to my local anime society, whose antics are usually enough to keep me amused for the rest of the week. Our weekly showings go something like this: Attendees are allowed to bring in anime episodes. The congregation then votes on what they would like to watch, and the four or five shows with the most votes get shown – barring any (annoyingly common) technical difficulties. Hardware aside, one particular flaw in this system was demonstrated to me during the most recent showing: There’s no quality control. People are free to bring any anime in any format, regardless of whether it’s a 5-year-old fansub1 or a poorly-mastered DVD Video (although DVDs are generally discouraged at the society due to the aforementioned technical issues). Last week, when the first episode of the frighteningly popular anime series K-ON! was voted in, us anime society denizens were treated to this:

"Just not to join any club will turn into a home dweller?"

That's "Just not to join any club will turn into a home dweller?" for those of you with images switched off.

Yep. Awkwardly phrased English, low video quality, annoying subtitle typesetting – they didn’t even include the title theme or ending credits!2

Comic Sans MS is the much-loathed font used in this fansub. Much media attention has surrounded the Ban Comic Sans movement in recent weeks; the abundance of the typeface and its usage in unsuitable situations are the points of contention that they seek to put a stop to. What would you think if you went to an up-class restaurant and discovered that the menu was written in the very same cartoon font used on banner ads and office circulars? Thought so.

Comic Sans may be a discredited font, but that’s not the worst of this particular fansub’s problems. See for yourself in these undoctored screencaps:

"Stop the nonsense!"

"Stop the nonsense!" "Once we've become professional, the ticket profit share will 3/7 split, OK?"

"We have to keep her stay by all means!"

"We have to keep her stay by all means!"

o(`ω'*)o

o(`ω'*)o

There will always be bad translations. And, if a series is popular enough and some other bright young translators make the effort, there’ll be good translations out there as well. It’s up to you, the consumer, now: DO THE RESEARCH. Don’t just grab the first file you see on Tokyo Toshokan. Download only from accredited fansub sites like AnimeSuki. Make use of fansub comparison websites. Download and compare several different versions yourself if you have to. Just, please, don’t subject us to any more of these failsubs. Yes, that’s right. I said failsubs. ㋼

  1. A fansub is a film or TV show subtitled into a different language by fans of the series. The quality tends to be a lot more hit-or-miss than professional translations, and there are different translation and presentation styles that can cause one series to be fansubbed by different parties. [↩]
  2. The opening theme (OP) and ending theme (ED) are more prominent in anime than their equivalents in foreign TV shows. They usually run for at least a minute and feature a catchy, mass-marketable song that may or may not be directly related to the show itself. In the case of K-ON!, the OP and ED music CD singles went straight to the top of the Japanese charts – quite a rarity for an animated TV series. [↩]
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English Haruhi Light Novel Uses a.f.k.’s Fan-Translation

Posted on March 30, 2009 by Jamie Spong in the field of Anime and Printed Matter.

The Melancholy of Haruhi SuzumiyaPrecisely three years after the animated adaptation first graced televisions and monitors the world over, the original The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya light novel1 is being released in English. But this isn’t the first time that English speakers have been able to read a copy in their native tongue.

As I’m sure many of you will know, the now-legendary animated adaptation of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya received a really rather spiffing English-language fan translation by a group known simply as “a.f.k.” way back when it was originally broadcast in Spring 2006. What many of you may not know is that the text of the first Haruhi book (and the first couple of chapters of the second one) was also given a full fan translation by the very same people.

At the end of the final fansubbed episode, the members of a.f.k. were credited. It seems that the mastermind behind this adaptation is a fellow who goes by the handle “Strato”, who we can assume was also responsible for the similar novel translation, which could be viewed on a website linked to in the credits. Ever since North American publishing house Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (a division of the Hachette Book Group) announced that they had the license to publish an English edition, the a.f.k. translation has been removed from the website and replaced with a message promoting the upcoming release. And this is all well and good: once an English-language license has been announced, the unofficial translation is often voluntarily removed from circulation.

From the end of Haruhi Episode 14. Note the credits on the bottom-left and the URL on the bottom-right.

From the end of Haruhi Episode 14. Note the credits on the bottom-left and the URL on the bottom-right.

Now, with the finished product just hours away (at time of writing) from official release, some lucky folk have received their copies early. As I’m still waiting for mine to be posted, I have to make do with a free promotional excerpt being offered on the official website. Giving it a read, I notice that it’s quite similar to the a.f.k. version I read a while back. Very similar, in fact. Hey, I recognise that line! I think to myself. Those idioms, that writing style… They didn’t, did they?

They did. Barring some cosmetic changes and an amount of copy-editing, the official English-language release of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya uses a.f.k.’s fan-produced translation.

Here's the opening text from the sample on the Hachette Book Group website…

Here's the opening text from the sample on the Hachette Book Group website…

…and here's a.f.k.'s edition of the same. Bear in mind that this translation was released in June 2006, nearly three years before the English print version.

…and here's a.f.k.'s translation of the same. Bear in mind that this edition was released in June 2006, nearly three years before the English print version.

It’s not quite word-for-word, but the similarities are undeniable. Although translations of the same work, by their nature, are inevitably going to be similar, this one’s just too uncanny to be pure coincidence. They even use the same backronym for “SOS Brigade” that a.f.k. used (the “Save the World by Overloading it with Fun Haruhi Suzumiya’s Brigade”) as opposed to the (in my opinion, superior) translation from the anime adaptation’s English DVD release (the “Spreading Excitement All Over the World with Haruhi Suzumiya Brigade”). As I said, I don’t have the full, finished product to hand, but the people that I’ve discussed this with on Twitter who do have the novel agree that they’ve got to be the same translation.

So, does this mean that Hachette are making a dirty profit from the sweat of a fan’s brow? I don’t think so. In this day and age of Internet Vigilantism, a publisher would never try and pull something like this off; they’d be found out immediately. This very post is proof of that. No, it’s much more likely that Strato himself (or at least his translation) was brought into the project with his full consent, and was edited for accuracy and readability as such. This appears to be the current consensus, anyway. It’s all speculation at this point, but it makes sense: The link from the Haruhi episode mentioned earlier now leads to a short “press release” which notes that someone named Joe Monti (who may or may not be a member of a.f.k.) will be overseeing the program. I reckon that if the time was taken to credit that person on that particular website, then he ought to be involved with the group somehow. I’ll update if any new details come to light.

For the sake of comparison, the original a.f.k. novel translations can still be found on the Internet Archive (and the Hachette sample to compare it to can, at time of writing, be found in PDF form on their website). If you’re still not convinced, try comparing both editions to the (in my opinion, inferior) fan translation at Baka-Tsuki; by looking at this edition, you can see just how divergent different translations can be.

This being that sort of blog, however, I am obliged to stress that you really ought to go out and buy a copy of the book (or at least rent it, if your local library’s “hip” enough) if you want to read it. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is released on the 1st of April in the USA in both paperback and hardback editions. I expect that your local import comics retailer should have it in stock shortly; elsewise, try RightStuf (noting the US$10 international postage) or Amazon.

Many thanks to my Twitter followers—particularly @animealmanac and @animevice—for helping me with my research. I’d've liked to’ve included the original conversation here, but WordPress got confused with all of those <span>s I got from copying and pasting the individual tweets. There’s probably a better way. One day I’ll learn what it is and then update the post accordingly.

  1. Light novels are, in general, quick-and-easy reads aimed at the sort of person who does not read a lot of books but who is into anime, manga and the general fandom—not unlike myself, in fact. As such, these books are often (if not usually) based on—or adapted into—manga, video games and animated series. Although printed to a cheaper standard than mainstream books, light novels are not necessarily synonymous with Western pulp literature, but there is a great degree of similarity: Like pulp magazines, light novels are commonly serialised in periodicals such as The Sneaker. [↩]
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A Technically Minded look at MVM’s FLCL Collection

Posted on March 16, 2009 by Jamie Spong in the field of Anime and Stuff I've Bought.

Wondering why this blog hasn’t been getting as many page views as I’d like, I postulated to myself that perhaps the problem was that I wasn’t updating the blog. In order to remedy this, I started typing the words that you are currently reading.

flclset1

So I’m going to be taking a look at that FLCL DVD set released in the UK a few weeks ago. I pre-ordered this one from Amazon back in January using a gift card. I hate gift certificates, but Amazon’s gift voucher implementation is (grudgingly) one of the best: When the FLCL collection was released and Amazon hadn’t received any copies (and still haven’t to this day), I cancelled my order and placed another with Play.com. Amazon automatically gave me back the credit for the gift certificate which I was able to apply to another pre-order I’d made without having to place the order again. (The contents of said order can wait for another post.)

We watched the series over a period of about a week. We do most of our viewing on a Yamada DVX-6700 (which, to date, is the best DVD Video player that I have used), but we had to watch the last disc on Brother’s iMac due to the general television area being occupied. It was Brother’s first time watching the series, but I’d seen it several times (in both Japanese and English variants). As such, I’m not going to bother talking about the show itself. Maybe I’ll get Brother to do a write-up.

Continue reading ‘A Technically Minded look at MVM’s FLCL Collection’

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BREAKING NEWS: gímik To Produce New Series

Posted on February 26, 2009 by Jamie Spong in the field of New and Upcoming Anime.

Kiddy Girl-and

This is big, guys. gímik {sic}, the three-kin anime powerhouse behind such series as Kiddy Grade and Uta∽Kata, are working on a new show. For real, it seems. It’s a spinoff of the aforementioned Kiddy Grade franchise, and it is to be entitled “Kiddy Girl-and”. I kid thee not (pun not intended). Much thanks to my Twitter followers who alerted me of this, and to the Anime News Network for discovering it in the first place. Man, this gives me a great idea for a blog post: a gímik retrospective. Just as soon as I’ve finished watching Gigantic Formula. And, come to think of it, Kiddy Grade itself. I’d better make preparations for a marathon showing…

EDIT: Shiroi Hane, to whom I give credit for promoting gímik awareness across the English-speaking world, has mentioned us on his blog. Wow… *sniff* I’m so moved. Has this blog hit the big time already?

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