Fansubbing: How it works

Ureshii Anime have posted an amazing piece detailing the long process they go through in creating one of their excellent fansubs.

For those of you not familiar with the practice, fansubbing is the act of taking a foreign TV show or movie (usually, but not always, Japanese anime) that’s been uploaded to the internet, and translating it and adding subtitles before re-distributing it online. Sounds simple enough, but as you’ll see from that post it’s a long and complex process. There’s also the added legality issues – obviously any fansubbing process includes piracy as a key component – but as most content by definition lacks distribution rights outside of the country of origin it’s kind of a grey area. Arguably the act of doing it opens up anime to wider audiences, so to date most Japanese studios have turned a blind eye to the practice.

Me, I live for fansubbed content. I know that a lot of what I watch will never see the light of day over here in the UK, plus nothing beats the buzz of watching a show only days after it first aired on Japanese TV. Hyper-props to Ureshii, Anime-Kraze, Saizen and the other groups…legendary.