Originally posted by: Aikouka
Originally posted by: frostedflakes
The Japanese studios probably don't care about fansubbing because when they sell a North American distributor a license it doesn't matter how many copies over here are sold, they make the same amount of money. I think the people getting up in arms about subs are the NA distributors (Bandai, ADV Films, etc.) who are potentially losing sales. But I also think they understand that their business model is part of the reason fansubbing is so prevalent. IIRC Bandai is starting to look at doing simultaneous JP and NA releases for their anime.
But a distributor may be a bit more reluctant to purchase a license for the IP if the anime or manga is already saturated via underground work. This is why the original intent of fansubbers is to never subtitle licensed work, because the idea was to spread anime that people never had the chance to see before. Unfortunately, fans often feel slighted because honestly... half the time the fansubber's work is better (and free)! I assume you can easily think of a couple examples of highly Americanized animes that sent fans in a bit of an uproar over it. Some just over-edit a show to try to downgrade the intended audience to children rather than teens. One Piece is one of the worst that I've seen (and you can just guess who did it).
Unfortunately, you don't see too many simultaneous releases, but you are starting to see quite a few series gobbled up by licensees before they even get on TV. What the NA distributors need to realize is that anime can get fairly expensive. If you're going to charge me $20 for 3-4 episodes, it better damn well be good and not the typical crap that we get. We're used to decent to great translations with fancy crap like karaoke ( which you won't see on DVDs anyway ) and stylized subtitling. High prices for DVDs are typical in Japan, but that doesn't work here where we have a mindset of lower prices for our media.