100% Legal Anime Fan

Most anime fans break the law, in some way, due to their fandom. It's been this way for years. Scanlations and fansubs are, technically, illegal. The only things that have changed over time has been the ease with which fans can get scanlations and fansubs, and the lengths companies will go to in order to get people to keep people from using fansubs and scanlations. (FYI, I'm talking about America here, though I suppose some points work the same for anime fans in other countries.)

It's not hard to be a casual anime fan that follows the law. If you want to watch the latest episodes of Naruto, you can do so on Crunchyroll, and if you want to read the latest chapters, the volumes in America have pretty much caught up with the Japanese volumes. Same with a lot of series, though not all of course. (Still no way to watch the latest episodes of Bleach, I believe.) So, if someone likes to watch anime and read manga, he/she can easily do so without breaking the law (as long as the person has money to spend, that is). However, there is a lot of stuff that isn't available in English, and probably never will be. Mahjong Legend Akagi is a prime example of this - it has a rather large English-speaking fanbase, but because the show focuses on the playing of mahjong, a game most Americans are unfamiliar with, it probably wouldn't sell well in America. If an American wants to watch Akagi legally, he is shit out of luck. The only thing he could do is learn Japanese and buy the Japanese DVDs, but isn't that a hell of a lot to ask for, just to watch a TV show?

To spell it out simply, is it possible to be a hardcore anime fan (meaning, you watch/read a lot and cannot be easily satisfied) and still follow the law to the letter? Isn't it expected that an anime fan will break the law if a show comes on in Japan that will never, ever be licensed in America?

I think it's perfectly possible IF, and that's a fat IF, you can speak Japanese and have your sources for legit manga/DVDs. The latter is the trickier part in my experience, as few Japanese online shops export at all.

You can read all manga in Japanese, watch all shows in Japanese on DVDs (though that can be REALLY expensive).

I myself rarely watch fansubbed Anime or scanlated Manga. Not too big on manga anyways and the select few shows I like to follow I have on DVD (I think I have about 7 DVDs of "Keroro Gunsou" alone because the show kicks that much ass)

I don't think you can be a hardcore fan living off the material that is translated. You'll eventually want more and more and in order to step up to the hardcore level you are going to find those scanlators and fansub groups and be constantly checking their page for updates. You won't be 100% legal but you won't be 100% illegal either because you will keep buying the legit stuff when it is out so you can add it to your personal collection. Pretty much the next step after that is to learn fluent Japanese and move to Japan just so you can watch the shows in real time.

That's why we have licenses, although Funimation is a special case because they sub the episodes for free. If someone was arrested for viewing licensed animation then the first thing they should do is check on your history of ever taking Japanese classes or other sources. Then again, the whole concept of this is obsolete if the person is self taught. This stuff has been going on for years and we still haven't got an answer if we should sue people for viewing private alternated licensed material.



From what I have seen, it's perfectly legal to view unlicensed stuff from foreign countries, although it's questionable like what Nash said if you understand the material, otherwise it's useless. It's like broadcasting a youtube video and suing people that you don't want to see your creation. Since this stuff comes straight from the TV, it's legal since they're risking the chance of a tape recorded copy.

This should be discussed in SD.

Piracy lol

Do this

@ title, heh is that even possible :)

Not possible so in many reasons....

obvious already stated reasons...

I am poor, I dont have enough money to go out and buy anime, so I download it for free off the internet, I do not read manga off the internet tho, I need to own them, so I do buy all of my manga :3

I don't think it's possible to be a hardcore fan and only watch legal (licensed) stuff. For me this would be impossible as I live in Hungary where only a handful of titles have ever been licensed.

Moreover a serious fan, (an oldfag like me) who'd really like to learn about the history of Japanese animation and watch classics simply won't find a lot of titles ever licensed because they're too old and the majority of fandom can't be arsed to look at anything made before ...hmmm.... say '95 or more like '98 nowadays.

In my case I love stuff from the '88-'95 anime BOOM, or even earlier stuff but most fans won't even bother when they learn I'm speaking about stuff all hand drawn.

I wanted to hear what anime fans thought, and though I know most users of Fakku are fans of anime, I'd like everyone to approach this from the perspective that it's anime fans talking to anime fans, not people in a classroom talking to one another (which is how I often imagine SD).

It seems that most people are saying that it's pretty much necessary to break the law to be a big fan of anime. That's the conclusion I came to as well. The question now is, are you okay with breaking the law? Do you think the laws are stupid or wrong? What could be changed, if anything, to keep anime fans from breaking the law?

Actually in this case I can't think of it as "crime". More like misdemeanor, however even that is not accurate. We're talking about trespassing on the copyright of foreign corporations who have no direct "profit loss" due said trespassing since most of the time they're not even distributing the product...

...moreover fansubbing is something of the ultimate "grey" zone of copyright as anime studios tend to turn a blind eye to the whole issue as long as they're not interfering with actual business. This is sometimes also the called the "gentlemen's agreement".

On the other hand, said fansubbing created an entire market out of thin air (as far as the producer's are concerned) so it's a good thing (for the producers).

When the subject gets fuzzy is when domestic companies are involved who finally license said shows. Depending on their attitude and honor (toward the source material) I find "competitive" fansubs either grossly parasitic or roguishly decent. The later happens in the rarer cases when the licensor was handling the material very poorly with no respect.

On the flip-side I find that a lot of modern fansubbing team's work (speed subbers, out right trash groups) to be of out-ragingly low quality. Compare this to the effort that went into early fansubs that were both technically as well as financially demanding. (You could just watch Otaking's Anime Fansub Documentary to see what I speak of). The fact that even professional licensor translations have adapted some of these lazy habits is alarming.

I was a "normal" or legal anime fan for many years. For several years I only watched anime that happened to be airing on Cartoon Network or other similar channels at the time, then I started to do research to find animes I might like and would buy boxsets. However, I quickly got tired of buying box sets after buying several and not like the anime that much over all. Of course that was back before Anime Legends and a damn twenty-four anime box set would cost you over $150 for the entire set.

Eventually I started streaming anime off the net, but then I found stuff that I really liked and wanted to keep them so I learned to find better quality by torrenting and DDL.

I very rarely buy anime now. Only after I've downloaded one and really like it will I feel like contributing enough to the industry to have an actual copy.

As long as you're fluent in Japanese and have enough money, it is theoretically possible.

As for me, just a quick rummage through 3 biggest e-shops with DVDs for my country, out of about 2000+ titles availible (their claim) are only 20 anime, and most of it is Naruto. "Cartoon=for kids" is the mindset around here.
Gets even worse with manga, I've only seen two series translated to CZE and even if something (at least in English) appears, it's about 1 year late.
And as I keep saying, shipping stuff from overseas makes it too expensive for me.

I think its pretty obvious that there normally is no such thing. Unless you're bill gates or something.

but then if you had that much money, your taste would probably be different rather than having anime/manga as a hobby