Year 1 Issue 2

Arcadia Dragnet, Year 1, Issue 2

January 8-14 2020

Arcadia Dragnet is, and always will be, committed to sharing all the great work English-speaking fans are doing to localize anime. The issue of curation, however, has put this blog at a bit of an identity crossroads. Should Arcadia Dragnet be an uncritical platform for sharing fansub projects, or should I exercise my taste and aesthetic considerations in some form? I have still not yet found a good balanced solution to this conundrum, please bear with me as I experiment with the blog's format over the coming weeks.

Contemporary Anime

There are many anime airing this season that, if not for fansubbing efforts, would be completely inaccessible to English-speaking anime fans. One project I would like to highlight is SpecterSubs's work subbing Youkai Watch episodes 176-178. For the longest time, this three-episode fansub gap has frustrated fans wanting to experience as large a continuous chunk of Youkai Watch as possible. With this work now complete, the first 191 episodes of the original Youkai Watch anime are available in English, and with episodes 200 and 214 already being fansubbed, that leaves only 21 untranslated episodes! It's exciting to see this project come on step closer to completion.

In terms of more regular weekly projects, Mezashite, AnonimOT and BuriBuri have been doing excellent work fansubbing Aikatsu On Parade, Star Twinkle Precure, and Super Shiro respectively. Some-Stuffs has continued subbing the new Pokemon anime now that the show has completed its one-week break, and likewise Hoshi-no-Yume FS has returned to fansubbing Beyblade Burst GT after a very short break. Breakers, a new anime about paralympic sports, has been picked up by the group Impatience, meanwhile Yamanaideoneesama (who last week subbed Kimi to, Nami ni Noretara) have picked up Natsunagu, a Kumamoto Prefecture PR anime meant in part to commemorate the horrific earthquake suffered by the region in 2016. LCE has continued subbing Hentatsu, and Flysubs completed their fansubs for Shoujo Conte All Starlight. Finally, the second omake for Senki Zesshou Symphogear XV was fansubbed by YameteTomete.

This week saw many established fansub groups pick up more projects. GoodJobMedia begun subbing A Certain Scientific Railgun T in addition to Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken. Commie Subs, in addition to continuing their work on Chihayafuru season 3 and Ace of the Diamond Act II, subbed the Haikyuu OVA Land vs. Air and picked up Haikyuu! To The Top. NBA has picked up number24, Asenshi has picked up Heya Camp, and a group called Inu has picked up Kyokou Suiri. Doki Fansubs has continued subbing Magia Record, and tenshisubs has continued subbing Nanatsu no Taizai- Kamigami no Gekirin.

Now I must discuss some fansubs that I do not recommend you watch. If you want to watch Iya na Kao Sarenagara Opantsu Misete Moraitai 2 or Rebirth, your only current choice is to seek out fansubs done by a primarily-Arabic group Heroku. These fansubs are simply horrible, the grammar is impenetrable and many lines do not feel like they could possibly be accurate. Similarly I would recommend you avoid AnimoTv Slash, the newest rebranding of the infamous "fansub group" Spring Animes 2018 HD. This group came to infamy after applying their watermark to LEGOF's fansubs for the Takagi-san OVA (an incident which resulted in LEGOF swearing to never fansub anime again), and since then they have been banned from fansub aggregator sites many times for their consistently poor subs and their frequent toxicity in comments sections. Unfortunately this "group" is the only one to have put out any English fansubs for Kuutei Dragons, but I would beg you to please wait until a more competent and ethical group works on it.

I am not yet ready to discuss the Dorohedoro fansubs. There seem to be anywhere from one to three fansub group attempting to localize this show, but from what I have seen so far none of them appear to be doing an especially good job. I hope to have some clearer information to share next week.

Classic Anime

This week, two especially exciting fansub projects released. Firstly, shiteatersubs released Let’s Go! Anpanman – Sushi-roll Maki-chan and Gold Kamameshidon Movie, the 2002 companion to the 14th Anpanman movie. Anpanman is a massive franchise in Japan that hardly ever sees discussion in English-speaking areas, shiteatersubs has always focused on fansubbing anime that never got to be known outside of Japan and I hope they keep doing their good work for a long time to come. Not long after, TenshiSubs took a surprise break from their re-releases to provide subs for the almost-lost episode 33 of Dragon Quest: Legend of the Hero Abel. Fansubs, through sharing otherwise-obscure media to larger audiences, are a vital link in the fandom process of media preservation, it is so good to see fansub projects like these elevate unknown media to a place of exposure and appreciation.

Many classic fansub projects continued as planned this week. OldCastle again released 2 episodes of Saint Tail and 1 episode of Paris no Isabelle. BuriBuri released episode 28 of Crayon Shin-chan, NoraInuG released episode 12 of Moeru! Oniisan, ToranSubs released episode 38 of Deltora Quest, Inka-Subs released episode 12 of Jungle Emperor 1989, and honobono released Goldfish Warning! episode 48. I neglected to mention Aniclub's Blu-Ray releases of Mashin Eiyuuden Wataru (with edited official subs) last week, but this week they completed episode 3 and they plan to continue. South Wind Subs and GANGO returned to work on Wandering Girl Nell, releasing episode 5. Zorori-Project released Tetsunoshin episode 31, their first release for the show in over 5 years. Finally, LonelyChaser Fansubs released the first episode of Choriki Robo Galatt.

Donghua

I was thrilled this week to see that a user named Troy had uploaded an English subbed version of the Luo Xiao Hei movie. The Legend of Luo Xiao Hei is one of the most exciting Chinese animated franchises right now, its action scenes exhibit a kind of dynamic and bouncy and frenetic motion I have never seen anywhere else, I would reccomend anyone to watch this movie! (And the webseries too but that's a bigger commitment)

This week sacredgold released Douluo Dalu (Soul Land) episode 86, HaxTalks released Ze Tian Ji (Way of Choices) season 3 episode 7, GuoManTeam released episode 4 of Zhen Hun Jie 2 (Rakshasa Street 2),and GuodongSubs released episode 7 of Hu Yao Xiao Hong Niang (Fox Spirit Matchmaker) season 8.

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As I look back on the last week's worth of fansubs, I am struck by awe at the amount of passion and work fans give freely to this community and this medium. Everything I have catalogued here is only available to us because of the cumulative hundreds of hours of work people did to translate these goofy cartoons, I hope Arcadia Dragnet is sufficiently expressing the appreciation I feel for my peers in the anime fansubbing community. I am also excited to announce that a fansub project of my own is currently nearing completion! I can't wait to share it with you all.

Fansubbing is certainly not dead.