Ask John: Why Don’t More Japanese Anime DVDs Include English Subtitles?

Question:
Why don’t more R2J [Japanese DVD Region 2] anime releases include an English sub track for the foreign market? The expense is small compared to a dub, and the additional export sales – though also small – would contribute directly to the bottom line. It would give Western fans access to many series that have little chance of overseas licensing. For some of us, cost and region encoding are not an obstacle. Only the language barrier stands in the way of importation.

Answer:
I don’t have any concrete knowledge of the internal policies of Japan’s home video industry, so I can only speculate with theory and second hand information. I think there are a number of reasons why English subtitles are rarely included on Japanese anime DVDs. Those reasons may including thoughtlessness, practicality, and concerns about piracy and international marketing.

When I state that Japanese DVD producers may be thoughtless, I don’t mean to suggest that Japanese anime DVDs exclude English translations to intentionally annoy English speakers. Rather, I suspect that the possibility of international sales never occurs to many Japanese DVD producers and home video distributors. Japan is the primary market for Japanese DVDs, and unlike America, where multiple languages are common, Japanese is almost exclusively the only commonly spoken language in Japan. So most Japanese DVD producers don’t think beyond the Japanese market. Similarly, American movies are tremendously popular in Japan, but few American DVDs include optional Japanese subtitles. Reportedly the decision to add optional English subtitles to the first Japanese Animation Runner Kuromi DVD was made only after director Akitaro Daichi pointed out that optional English subtitles would make the DVD more attractive to foreign collectors. The Japanese FLCL episodes 2-6 include optional English subtitles, but the first DVD does not, possibly because Gainax didn’t think of including English subtitles on the DVDs until after the first disc was already complete.

Since Japan is dominated by Japanese language, Japanese DVD producers may not always have access to fluent bilingual translators able to create an optional English subtitle translation. Since there’s presumably such small demand for English subtitled anime in Japan, many producers may consider finding an English translator and including an optional English subtitle track more effort and expense than it’s worth. An optional English translation on a Japanese DVD isn’t useful to the average Japanese consumer, but may be very tempting for video pirates. Japanese language only DVDs are difficult to market internationally, which makes them a less appealing target for video pirates. Furthermore, DVD region encoding is specifically designed to prevent territorial DVDs from being exported outside of their native country. The inclusion of English subtitles on Japanese DVDs practically invites circumvention of the international DVD guidelines. So, in other words, it’s possible that Japanese anime DVDs don’t include foreign language subtitle options specifically as a means to keep the DVDs within Japan.

Keeping anime DVDs within Japan may be a valuable marketing tactic for Japanese distributors. A highly sought after anime series that’s not available with an official English translation may encourage an international distributor to seek translation rights. A pre-existing official English translation may be simple to recycle, but may also discourage a potential international license if a distributor believes that the English subtitled version is already widely available and has already satiated much of the demand for the title.

On a side note, optional English subtitles seem to be much more common in Japanese DVD releases of live action Japanese movies than Japanese anime DVDs. I honestly don’t know why subtitled live action Japanese DVDs are more common than subtitled Japanese anime DVDs. I’d also like to emphasize that authentic, official Japanese anime DVDs with optional English subtitles are quite rare. Even more rare are official Japanese anime DVDs that contain Chinese language options. The official Japanese Legend of the Galactic Heroes DVDs may be the only official Japanese anime DVDs that include optional Chinese translations. So as a rule of thumb, “import” anime DVDs that contains optional English and Chinese subtitles are almost always illegal counterfeit discs made in Hong Kong, China, or Taiwan.

Article updated March 31, 2006 with assistance from “Twinbee.”