[Frein]

Originally Posted by Taiyz

If you're complaining about translation quality, that's another rant altogether so I'm not gonna bother too much. I will say however, that if you think fansubs are in any way better than official subtitles, this point couldn't be any more wrong unless you're fluent in the language and can prove this point, in which I'm not gonna be happy to hear. D=

I think what he means is that commercial subs need to be purged of cultural references or in general anything that your average Westerner wouldn't understand. It's been a while since I saw a commercial sub* as very few have ever been sold here and I've seen them years before on fansubs anyway, but they didn't even have honorifics, which are essential for conversation in Japanese yet lack any equivalents in other languages.

*I'm referring to NGE and FMA which were broadcast here some time ago. The only DVD I've watched was Dragon Half, but it was so long ago I can't remember how the sub was.

This is why I believe a niche audience is better served by catering to them exclusively rather than trying to widen the market even though a wider market makes sense financially.

Even then, if it's just one series or a bad company, it's an isolated issue, especially compared to the amount of speed subbers and groups like Nyoro~n that can get away with automated translators and rewriting with embellished English. Gundam 00 — Nyoro~n Translation Errors - Ramblings of DarkMirage

Sadly, the fansub community can't enforce quality so we'll always have some bad apples in the mix, I'm afraid.

For the latter? I've gone to other anime-based communities before and it's the same issue as above. Shows like Naruto are essentially bottom-feeders in most communities; sure it might be a bit elitist, but I will indefinitely prefer a production like Ghost Hound compared to a multi-seasonal show rife with fight scenes, animated by Koreans on the cheap.
Case and point: Mistakes Of Youth-- VIP Quality

I'm also not gonna bring up the age demographic that Naruto is actually aimed at, because that's just mean. =P

Haha, exactly my sentiments.

Watch it sell like crazy; I don't doubt it will. Why would you think that the dub will be terrible? They're going to be adding in liner notes, which most fansubbers left out of Lucky Star and they're digging into the extremely renowned Bang Zoom! Entertainment talent pool.

I think the dub will be terrible (even the one in Haruhi, which you said sold well, was), but that's beside the point. I think dubbing Lucky Star is 100% unnecessary because only a relatively invested anime hobbyist will understand it anyway. It's a pure moe show, the main character of which is an otaku and much of the dialog is rather pointless rambling about our daily lives. It almost doesn't get more niche than that.

What's next, Kodomo no Jikan? That's not only niche, but also offensive.

It is common however for most people to want shows to come out faster, but I would say that the cases where people go ahead and start pirating ahead of time out of impatience are very isolated. If you don't do it already, then chances are you aren't gonna start.

Well, most of the time you can't really predict whether something will be licensed at all or not and that goes even for Americans who actually get a lot of licensed anime releases. Usually the show has been entirely fansubbed long before the announcement of a license.

Anime is already coming out on iTunes; Ghost in the Shell just landed. Xbox Live's Marketplace has had anime episodes for reasonable prices, and lots of popular series' like Trinity Blood or Akira, at that.
FUNimation's official site is now holding series' for download either by episode, or as a batch for a reduced price and ADV's been doing the same for a while. They're all pretty much .99-2.99 per episode.

Really? Hah, I didn't even know. But still, they aren't fast enough and need some kind of industry-wide collective contract that allows them to sub anything aired on certain channels and put it up there as soon as they can.

And also, DVDs are 20 bucks for 4-5 episodes; I think that's totally reasonable considering that they can't be paid to air the stuff on TV, nor do they get free advertising. The television market isn't welcoming for the Anime Industry either, which has affected prices.

I tried looking up some prices for anime series here, but it was hard as most shops don't seem to have any, but then I found one shop advertise box sets containing the entire Silver Fang (Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin) and Weed series and both were 49,95€. Also, episodes 1-4 for FMA were sold for 12.95€.

Anecdote: Silver Fang was somehow a huge hit for children here in the early 90s even though it was censored to hell and never intended for small children in the first place. Bizarre.

It's all a matter of how willing you are to dedicate yourself to your hobbies I suppose; I'd say it's entirely worth it for anime. =/

Yeah, I suppose. I'd rather not touch licensed anime at all then, though, as I feel it's just not worth it. Then again, I'm not North American and most licenses don't affect me and many of the series licensed over there don't really interest me anyway. Also, it is extremely rare for me to watch anything more than once.