Ask John: How Do America’s Fansub & Consumer Markets Compare?

Question:
How do the fansub community and US commerical market (those who license or purchase anime DVDs) differ if issues of accessibility and budget are taken out? For example, some titles haven’t been fansubbed at all, yet manage to get licensed for US release, and many titles are fansubbed but never licensed. Some genres are popular in the fansub community yet don’t have much following in the US market. I am curious about any trends, patterns, or such differences you may have noticed within the communities of two major sources of anime for English-language.

Answer:
This is such a broad question that my answer may overlook or forget certain points; however, I’ll do my best to be thorough, based on my personal knowledge and experience. America’s fansub community is a reflection of America’s consumer market for anime. But America’s fansub community is also different from America’s consumer market because the population of the two groups is not entirely identical. America’s anime consumer market includes both hardcore fans and mainstream consumers. The fansub community encompasses these two groups, and also eclectic anime fans who are not well represented within the American consumer market.

The fansub community is an assembly of fans who enjoy Japanese animation. American fansubbing includes vintage and niche shows that simply do not appeal to any significant number of average American consumers. Even if legality and cost are excluded, I don’t think that America’s commercial anime industry will ever be as diverse as its fansub community because America’s fansub community has a more eclectic taste in anime than the commercial market. Anime titles like Rose of Versailles, Anne of Green Gables, Angel’s Egg, Petopeto-san, Sazae-san, Violinist of Hameln, Space Adventure Cobra, Peter Pan no Bouken, Yawara, and Hikari no Densetsu have been fan translated, yet the majority of America’s mainstream commercial market wouldn’t be interested in these shows even if they were available at no charge. American commercial anime releases like Time Bokan, Tobe! Isami, Ariel, Tenshi ni Narumon, and Prefectural Earth Defense Force have had minimal or failed American DVD releases because the majority of America’s anime DVD consumers won’t buy these titles under any circumstances. On the other hand, while average, mainstream Americans won’t even watch these shows if they were available for free, hardcore American fans will watch them. It seems obvious, but I think it’s worth emphasizing that America’s fansub community consists largely of America’s hardcore anime fans who are interested in a wider variety of anime than average, mainstream American anime viewers.

Despite arguments to the contrary, fansubs do have a helpful impact on American commercial releases. Shows that are common and popular within America’s fansub community regularly become successful American commercial DVD releases; shows that see American release without advance support from the fan community are rarely successful. In fact, I can’t think of a single anime series that has become a major hit on American DVD that was not common in the fansub community. American consumers buy what they’ve seen or heard of, and avoid anime that they’ve not heard of or seen before. The only anime titles available on commercial American DVD that had not been available in the fansub community prior to their commercial release are ones that have not been very commercially successful in America. A few examples include Corrector Yui, Time Bokan, Tobe! Isami, Miami Guns, Tennamonya Voyagers, and Makasete Iruka. It’s possible for anime productions to be licensed for American release during pre-production, and it’s possible for American licensors to pick up obscure shows that they know of, but which the American fan community isn’t familiar with. But as a general rule, regardless of quality, shows that have little or no name recognition in America’s fan community prior to their American release don’t sell well in America.

The majority of America’s anime consumer market seems to gravitate toward a small handful of major titles, among them: Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, FLCL, Outlaw Star, Dragonball Z, Fruits Basket, Inuyasha, Naruto, Fullmetal Alchemist, Evangelion. The hardcore fans within America’s consumer market support the remainder of America’s official DVD releases, to varying degrees. Then there are a remaining few hundred or few thousand very hardcore American anime fans who are interested in an even wider variety of anime. It’s this small number of ultra-hardcore fans at the core of America’s fansub community who translate and watch vintage, obscure, and unpopular anime. This handful of America’s most ardent otaku will watch Space Runaway Ideon, Hana no Ko Lun-Lun, Gekifu! Bakegyamon, and Inukami while the majority of Americans won’t watch these titles even if they’re available for free.

This may seem obvious, but again, I think it’s worth clearly explicating. The mainstream American anime watching community that purchases commercial DVDs and watches anime on television is the biggest audience for anime in America. This layer of anime fans includes everyone from casual viewers to America’s most obsessive fanatics. But the majority of this layer of American fandom ironically has the most limited taste in anime. The majority of the members of this community have little or no interest in vintage or obscure anime, nor anime that’s not trendy. A smaller subset within this community is the fansub community that has a somewhat broader taste in anime, which explains why there are fan translated shows that aren’t commercially available in America. Then the smallest subset with the most diverse taste for anime are the ultra-hardcore American fans, many of whom are fan translators. It’s these Americans who eagerly watch anime that more casual fans won’t watch. That’s why there may be some specific titles, and certain genres of anime that are more adopted in the fansub community than in the larger consumer DVD market. A title need only have a thousand fans to be “big” in the fansub community, but a commercial release with only a thousand fans is a commercial failure.