ask the teeming millions

[davemerrill]

This got brought up on the Twitter and now I'm bringing it up here. Anime fans of the 1980s, what was the first fansub you ever saw? I know we showed a fan sub of the Macross movie at a C/FO Atlanta meeting in 1985, fall of 1985, and as far as I know that's as early as fansubs ever got. What are your early fansub experiences?

Comments

[gyopi.livejournal.com]

To be honest I can't remember what the first fansub I saw was, but its hard to imagine it was before 1985. The Amiga came out in 1985 and as far as I know that was the earliest that an affordable genlock was available to fans. Before then I can only imagine a fansub could be done by sneaking quite a bit of time in a college A/V studio.

[kikaiju.livejournal.com]

No idea. It was undoubtedly at an Anime X meeting in Buckhead. Fansubs were still pretty rare back then. It was more common to have a pile of printed paper* reading scripts to go with unsubbed videos.

*Got to emphasize PAPER because people these days are so used to e-reading everything. No. This was dead-tree reading. You were supposed to watch the video and read along.

I never did that. Too much work. Watching it "raw" was fine.

[dave-iii.livejournal.com]

I used to watch it, then read the script/synopses/whatever, then watch it again. Feeble attempts to teach myself Japanese were also made, and it was always exciting to hear a word I actually understood. Efforts stalled when I realized that anime was a poor medium of exposure, Lord knows I didn't want to sound like a cartoon character while trying to have a serious conversation. ^_^

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

First fansub? I'm pretty sure it's those Vifam episodes you were kind enough to burn for me.

If we broaden the net to 'first subbed anime' that would be 1982 when I got my copies of My Youth in Arcadia and Cagliostro Castle, both the Toho international subbed versions.

Otherwise it was pure Japanese for the most part, with some branching out into dubbed and subbed material as the '90s and the American Anime Industry marched on. Sadly, I was more price driven at that time so I did buy some dubbed tapes I would have preferred to have subbed and of course Macek/Streamline didn't offer a subbed VHS option on most of their output.

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

Seriously? I never sent you a tape of the CPF Arrivecerci Yamato or 999 or Harlocks? You never saw a fansub of nuthin'? No Conan or Dirty Pair or the "Operator 7G" version of Nausicaa or Be Forever Yamato? Rilly?

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

Well, now you jog my increasingly feeble memory...boy, I'm not gonna score with the chicks if I decay much more!

Let's see. OK, yes, the Star Dipwads movie, and of course Mazinger Z Vs. Devilman, I have vague memories of a couple of the middle Giant Robo episodes, I think one of the Gatchaman OAVs, and the Captain Harlocks, I think that was like 50/50 fansub/raw.

See, proof I am crazy, when I hear 'fansub' I automatically go to the Internetwebtube age with the bittorrent and the download and the rezeenfrazzen. Ha Ha ha.

And I need to stop watching I Spy episodes on RTV because I just flip-flopped between doing Robert Culp and Bill Cosby impressions. That's the wonderfulness of me.

OH! How the hell could I forget Flying Phantom Ship?

fnord.

[dave-iii.livejournal.com]

I genuinely don't remember. The whole thing required a series of unlikely elements to be brought together, like the box to do the actual subtitling and decent copies (ideally laserdisk copies) to sub. Honestly, I think fanDUBS existed before fan subs.

The first one, though..... Hm. I want to say I remember either Minky Momo or Future Boy Conan, but it's all pretty hazy. The Macross movie is sticking in my head as a commercial job.... and no, I'm not thinking of that dub with the Japanese subtitles.

Hrm.

[childings.livejournal.com]

I asked my husband Antony and he said it was probably Antarctic's horrible sub of Orange Road in '88 (though he was watching anime in raw Japanese years before this)

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

Oh jeez, I forgot all about "Artic Animation"; weird little editorial commentary added to the scripts... "video pirates are homosexual fags" was one I recall. They did the Patlabor movie, that was what, 1989?

[guyhatesyou.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of disqualified because I got into this crap back in the mid-90's but I am posting anyways.

I think the first fansub I've seen was Slayers episodes 3-8 at Project A-kon back in 1997. Which were shown immediately after Software Sculptors premiered episodes 1 and 2 of their Slayers Dub. I doubt that would fly well at cons anymore. haha.

[(Anonymous)]

I had ass-u-me-d that the fansub of Macross: Do You Remember Love was done in 1986, because I first saw it at BayCon '86, being sold in the dealers' room. But that doesn't mean it couldn't have actually been made the previous year, which is when Dave recalls seeing it. My own first fansub was done in 1987, on an Amiga.

Macross, by contrast, was done in a rented A/V studio (that's why it was sold--to recoup costs, although this was regarded as controversial), but I think the essence of "fansub" is that it was done by fans without permission, rather than what equipment was used. For example, although the vast majority of fansubs have been done on home computers, a few early ones (such as Area 88) were done using dedicated titling hardware devices.

It may be that fansubs actually did arise in the San Francisco Bay Area (that's where Macross was done) and it took some time for word to get everywhere--needless to say, there were no fansub webpages then, let alone digital "distribution." So it's also possible that a person elsewhere in the country might think that other titles, later in the 1980s (such as Vampire Princess Miyu) were first.

--Carl