Coming off Japanator, Eric Sherman, President of Bang Zoom! Entertainment, is heralding the End of Days as he sees it:
Last year we saw Bandai fire 90% of their staff on one Monday in January, and two years ago we saw Geneon (neé Pioneer) shut their doors and auction off their wares to the highest bidder. CPM died a slow, painful death. And ADV fell hard and fast, the way mighty giants will. But from here on, it won’t be so exciting. Japan is already suffering and struggling to bring out quality titles. They can’t rely on everything being picked up by US distributors anymore. And little by little, it just won’t be here anymore.
The cause? Straight up theft.
Though since he is speaking for a company that provides localization for an English market there’s an interesting point to found here. Even if you really do understand the culture, localizing a show to a new market spins it into a wholly unique entity. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, but certainly unique–that Americano flavour that you can’t get with a direct word-for-word translation. I don’t feel Sherman is saying fansubs are hurting the market (heck fansubs are in part as to why some shows localized) but I can feel his urgency in asking us to meet them half-way.
Anime – R.I.P (via Japanator)
Tags: Eric Sherman, localization, pirating
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I much prefer word to word translation, than “americanized” translation. Sometimes you see there’s a vast difference, such as when you compare the official NGE translation with the dubbing, heh.
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