Dub Fans, Give It a Flipping Rest Already (Also Anime Lechers; FOAD)

ADV is completely severing it's disastrous partnership with Sojitz by killing off themselves and resurrecting the company as a legal labyrinth of limited liability companies and creating much confusion all 'round. They've also announced a slew of new titles including the second season of "You're Under Arrest", "Blue Drop", "Tears to Tiara", "Polyphonica" and "Special A". While you'd assume there would be a lot of rejoicing, there isn't. Instead we've been treated to the normal whinging from fans about the lack of dubs. One wonders if these people have been living in some sort of vacuum in the last year and a half. ADV has been doing this for some time. The subtitle only release plan has been the same during this period.

Kids, really, it's no longer 2003. I know that not having a dub causes less sales. I think in the long term it's not a good strategy. How are you going to build up any sort of mainstream fanbase. I know that there are a bunch of new fans who since the introduction of DVD have become fans because of dubs. And because companies have (deliberately) built up this fan base (see the amount of dub actors at any convention, see how ADV promoted its actors), now they're going ignore what they've built up. I understand what the problem is for the dub fan.

But look, US companies are sort of caught in a Catch 22 situation; do they spend around US$7,000 to 10,000 per episode to dub a title and potentially get a larger audience, or just release it sub only? They've got to at least make some sort of profit or break even. Either way they could end up with a loss. That's hard in this financial climate, especially for a company trying to escape it's overbearing Japanese partner. They're trying to get back in the red, not dick dub fans over.

First, I think too many anime fans got used to having the artboxes and other trash during the peak of 2002 to 2006. This was never going to last. The industry as it stood was never in a sustainable position. You can't keep expanding like there was no tomorrow. Something had to break, and it did. Quite badly at that.

Now kids, you're going to have to ask yourself; are you a fan of Japanese animation, which is a product in a foreign language made for a foreign audience, or are you a fan of English dub actors? Seriously, fans of French or Asian cinema don't act this way. And please don't give me that crap that animation is somehow different (because it's not) or that all anime is "dubbed" (i.e. they voice the Japanese version after the animation) unless you're going to tell me the original language of anime is dead silence. It's a Japanese medium. Get over it. Either be a fan of Japanese animation or be a fan of some American voice over artist. Either buy the anime you like or bugger off and do something else rather than whining.

Also to those so called fans filling up forums full of crap saying that sub only releases are nothing more than "fansubs on DVD", fuck off you lechers. You aren't going to buy the DVDs anyway, so why do I care about your opinion? I'm also quite sick of paying for your supposed right to download. Fans don't rip off the thing they love. They don't kill it. Have a think about what you're doing.