Japanese TV Channels To Provide Subbed NARUTO and Kaiji Online [Updated on Nov 27]

with regard to the OP edit:

You have to wonder what precisely is behind not simply listing all the series they'll have on there. Any statement like "X, Y and many more!" always seems fishy to me, since nine times out of ten, "many" is in fact few.

Who exactly is translating these? More to the point, if anime companies can serve a C&D notice, they can also ask a fansub group to assist with translations and let them go somewhat public. Cheaper and simpler than integrating translation into a production process that does not natively include it. Best way to defeat an enemy is to make them your friend.

are the episodes available through download, or is it just streaming?

cause if it's just through streams, it doesn't help anything at all, for me at least.

Naruto and crunchyroll, worst combination ever, I swear to god. Both need to die.

YourMessageHere said it best. I mean, if this works out, we could eventually see official, legal fansubs of many other animes. There would be no more slow fansubbers that release one episode per month (>_>), or animes that have their fansubbers drop them after being licensed.
It may take time, but if it works out, it could be very benefecial to the anime industry.

And localization is fine and dandy for some things, but personally I think it is better that things are left to their original form. Id much rather learn a little bit about the japanese culture through annotations, than to have some things lose meaning through translation.
Just think about Yakitate Japan. It is an anime that lives off of accurate translations that stay true to their original.

Suffixes are also really important in animes. There is a level of respect used with each term, and there are quite a few animes that take note of that( "How dare you say my name in such disrespect", for example)


But like I said before, if the subs are done in a successful way, more and more anime could get the same treatment. A definite step forward

Well, they will be releasing them through Crunchyroll as stated in the first post (it's a streaming site, like Youtube). I'm not well versed on how the rules there work, but the first post also states that it's intended for everyone, except Japanese (for obvious reasons). Seriously, just read the first post, all the info is there.

So, how would the episode be broadcasted? Will it be like the other official subs that's not available for certain countries?

^This. My cheif concern is whether or not the actual subs will be up to par. I don't really know if they will or won't, but I'm keeping my Triad subs on hand while getting a Joost account. I'm not gonna take a side on public vs. private fansubs, though it is nice that you can keep them longer than streams and they're liscense-proof. I'll be interested in sub quality, not legal ramifications. If Nihon TV has better sub quality, then they've sold me. If not, then it's back to fansubs.

I'm all for this - in principle. I don't watch Naruto or any of the other series mentioned here, but the idea is absolutely in the right direction. As soon as they start offering torrents rather than streams for things I want to see, so I can watch things where and when I like, I'm there. I don't do streaming for anything I'm really interested in, but surely there's software out there that can save streams - so why not go a step beyond that now and offer 'official torrents'?

The other thing - Sub quality. Gonzo's subs for Kurogane no Linebarrels are dreadful (disclaimer: I'm behind on this, only seen two of them so it may improve). I'll not go so far as to say this is 100% bad, but if people who do it for free do a better job than people who are paid to do it, they need to pause a minute and ask themselves what's going on. Plus, I'd far rather watch a fansub than the official stream if they're going to have a better translation.

Got to wade in on the whole translation point, though.



Japanese itself constantly needs romaji words (i.e. loan words) taken from English or other languages far more than English appropriates Japanese words. Japanese really does have a hell of a lot of directly untranslatable words and inference. It's not that it's strange, it's simply very different from English. If you simplify the language so much it loses much of its implied meaning, doesn't that also mean you fail?

This is not about creating loan words, it's about understanding native words. Yes, we really need 'san' and 'oneesan', that and keigo is the key to the whole hierarchical status-derived worldview on which Japanese is built, and English has no analogue for whatsoever.



This is why commercial subs are immeasurably worse than well-crafted fansubs. DVD sub standards in live action films are dreadful, and not a lot better for anime. The basic meaning of translations may be the same, but that's hardly the point. If you modernise and simplify the text of Shakespeare you lose most of the point of reading it - the skill of the writing lies in the richness of the detail. Not a lot of anime ought to be compared to Shakespeare, of course, but the point is the same. I want to savour the writing in as much detail as possible, just as I want to savour the detail of the art, rather than have it replaced by, say, South Park-ised versions, which might convey the idea but are hardly as enjoyable. The only way to do this is with annotated translations that preserve untranslatable components.

Pfft. They haven't stopped this far, and it's been licensed forever. they're just being trolls again.

Streaming.I appreciate the effort but again...streaming. *sigh*

Sorry to burst your bubble but...
"Dattebayo to Stop Fansubbing Naruto on January 15"

May be a troll, but the reasoning makes sense.

No thanks.
I'll stick to watching it near full quality from Dattebayo rather than streamfagging it up.

i think this is kinda bad and good cause well i mostly like to download and rewatch over and over and for all we know what they r doing you might have to pay money or they might take it off 1 week later. I love to rewatch all the anime until dvds comeout and sadly some anime i love aren't on dvd like da capo and eternal rainbow, da capo is probably my 3rd fav anime

Exactly. Anime business finally recognize what the fans need: speed and quality subs (of course there is more but these are the main). If the efforts of the organizations are not appreciated by the fans then we are being very selfish and unreasonable. They are learning and really appear to work with, not against them with stupid court cases like software companies do. We should work with them too. If this works out, then some day we will be able to enjoy anime completely legally without compromising economical stability of the anime makers.

Naruto does not interest me all that much, but for other good titles i enjoy i would gladly support the industry by paying up in order to see the release subbed within a day.

You might want to add Shugo Chara and Skip Beat! to the TV Tokyo service.

OK, I'll take up your challenge. Try this: the Japanese are watching anime as soon as it's release, for free (unless they have cable). Waiting isn't so much a problem, but I wouldn't want to pay money for the same service. Sure, I may be paying for official subs, but I can get those for free from fansubbers with a three, maybe four day wait. You see, I don't care too much for sub accuracy, because I only get the general meaning of the text anyway, I read them so fast. Also, after watching even 50+ series, I have enough of a grasp for Japanese phonetics to understand common terms, including titles and many wordplays. And since I only stream (saves dl time, hd space, and torrent pains), the anime companies can get their money the same way they do from the Japanese: DVD sales. If the show's good.

Thanks for the link, Plate. For some reason, they never taught me self-sealing fallacies when I took a Logic course.

I only have one or two question. Can I download these shows in equal or greater quality than current fansubbers offer for free? If yes, will they use some kind of torrent/shared bandwidth system or just make their servers cough up all the bandwidth?
I dislike the fact that CR/YT/whatever try to conserve bandwidth by destroying video quality. I have some upload speed, why not take advantage of it and give me better quality? If it works for fansubs, it will work for official subs as well.

@mitamaking: Sucky anime does not deserve my money. Likewise, sucky quality streaming anime does not deserve my time, even if it's free.

yeah I'm wandering the same thing

Are you saying Dattebayo makes all of their translations literal? If you do, you need to read some of their Adventures in Fansubbing. They do their fair share of localization as well, simply because most of us aren't going to get wordplay jokes, let alone some other stuff.

Personally, I'm excited to have a sub from a Japanese native who understands the show because they're from Japan. No more wondering if the script has been changed to give the character more flair, now. At the same time, I have the same concerns everyone else does that the translator has no clue about the subtle English language. Still, I think it's a positive step.

Like Cihan, I don't want to jump all over these guys right away and write them off. Let's give them a chance, first. I felt bad that I didn't support Gonzo's efforts on CR with Drugu and the other shows, but the combination of crappy encodes and, well, crappy shows wasn't enough to justify paying for. Like most of you, I don't want to play for these shows either, so at least they're offering it for free, even if the wait is a bit of a pain. Let's stop undercutting the industry we love so much and show that we can be reasoned with.

I feel so loved as a foreign anime fan right now.

So if people pay Crunchyroll, they are able to watch Naruto after it's release? Well, I don't like waiting for Dattebayo subs but I don't want to pay even more.