Ask John: Do Fansubs Influence What Gets Licensed?

Question:
Do major anime companies look at fansubs as a way to tell what to bring to America? Anime such as Gundam Wing, Card Captor Sakura, Kenshin, Fushigi Yuugi, Rayearth, Nadesico, and Dragonball Z all have fansubs of the complete series or at least most of their episodes, and all are in America already. Does this mean that other fan favorites (Marmalade Boy, Kodomo no Omocha, Macross 7) will have a chance at appearing on American TV?

Answer:
I can’t speak on behalf of the domestic translating companies, but I can provide what information I’ve gathered in the past. Fansubs do have a significant influence on what does and doesn’t get licensed in America. In fact, the connection between fansubs and licensed translations is one of the fundmental reasons for the existance of fansubs. Anime fans fluent in Japanese or having altruistic devotion to anime create fansubs in an effort to promote the Western release of deserving titles. Fansubs allow fans to see anime they otherwise wouldn’t have access to, and generate interest in particular titles. Professionally licensing, translating and distributing anime is an expensive undertaking. To be successful, domestic anime companies have to select titles to translate that they’re certain will have a market in the US. The best way to do this is to look to the fan community. If a particular anime series is widely disseminated in the fan community, there’s probably a good chance that these fans will buy a professionally translated and mastered licensed version, and an equally good chance that mainstream viewers will also enjoy the series.

Consider American licenses including Fushigi Yuugi, Utena, Rayearth and Rurouni Kenshin. In the case of FY and Utena especially, previous to these two shoujo titles, the only shoujo anime available in America was Sailormoon and the fringe shoujo Maison Ikkoku and Orange Road. It’s unlikely that distinctly shoujo titles like Fushigi Yuugi and Utena, especially, would have ever come to America if companies like Pioneer and Central Park Media weren’t aware that there was already a great deal of fan interest in both titles. The same applies to Rurouni Kenshin. It’s difficult to imagine that a nearly 100 episode long animated political drama about 19th century Japan would ever find a market in America, but massive American fan support and widely distributed fansubs certainly helped pave the way for this series.

To quote Kodocha Anime, “Fansubs are not cheap alternatives for store-bought tapes! Fansubs are brought to you for the purpose of helping build an audience for anime titles so that an American release can be possible.” Fansubs make fans aware of what titles to ask for, and an professional translating company is certainly more likely to try to license and distribute a title that they know they have a market for than a purely untested, risky gamble.

But the fansub market alone isn’t enough to support the massive investment necessary to localize an anime series. You can extrapolate from the fact that both American and Japanese companies largely condone (by tacit approval) the existance of fansubber and fansub distribution and trading. This suggests that fansubs don’t make enough of a significant impact on sales to be anxious about. Assuming that this is the case, we have to recognize that fan support for a title alone isn’t always enough to see a series brought to America. Since the fan community is still a relatively small market compared to the total number of home video buying consumers in America, an anime title has to be marketable to mainstream, causal fans or non die-hard anime fans to be a viable commercial venture. Furthermore, a series has to be available for license from its Japanese copyright holder.

In the case of Macross 7, while fan support of the show is relatively significant, the mere “Macross” name makes this an unusually expensive and difficult to approach license. In the cases of Marmalade Boy and Kodomo no Omocha, both series may be wildly popular among die-hard anime fans that are used to distinctly Japanese humor and shoujo family relationships, but would the average Joe on the street “get” Kodomo or be willing to take a chance on Marmalade Boy? Under present circumstances, possibly, possibly not. This is where fansubs come in. Using fansubs to introduce these potential consumers to shows like Kodomo for free today creates new fans that will be willing to spend money on a licensed version of the show tomorrow.