Shirakura's response to the fansub issue

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Re: Shirakura's response to the fansub issue

Post by Blackcondorguy »

Let's not forget Toei is a Japanese company and I honestly think they don't give a f*ck about western fans of Sentai. They sold the license to Saban, Disney, Hasbro, or whoever is willing to pay, but they most likely don't care about what they do with the license and the availability of their series in the west. I don't have the numbers, but I guess most of what they sell comes from kids and Japanese fans. And even regarding that, the discontinuation of Super Sentai SHFIguarts indicates that adult sentai fans are not that profitable when youre not releasing Zyuranger or what's considered "classic Power Rangers" (compared to other licenses they still do SHFIguarts of, KR is another story).

My point is, we all might be a little too western-centric about the issue. I honestly think Toei doesn't care about us, but as a company, they can't officially condone people illegaly releasing their stuff, so they acted when someone puts light on the fansubbers. That's why unless you have a local company releasing official stuff (as you guys had in the US did with Shout Factory), you shouldn't care much about supporting the official release. Because it's not meant for you. The only meaningful supporting act concerning tokusatsu shows is to buy licensed products so they don't end up shutting down the license (which is unlikely to happen anyway).
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Re: Shirakura's response to the fansub issue

Post by Ashki »

I find his response to be quite revealing and not meant as an attack at all...

1. He's been known to feign ignorance about things more than once when someone brings it to his attention. This goes from spoilers to the fansubs.
2. The first time someone approached him about toku, he jokingly said that it wasn't for watching outside of Japan.
3. The official TOEI Toku channel actively asks for fansuibs (although they failed to enable to submission option)
4. I've had personal dealings with companies that silently support fan efforts but must officially oppose it. It's a tightrope walk for their legal department to turn a blind eye while not averting both eyes.

In my case, it was Activision (back before Blizzard turned the company into hell on earth). They supported the emulation community and even did some emulating of their own. However, were they to publicly show support for the romhacking community, it would have put them in a serious legal liability. It would open the door for active piracy, whereas the community that they supported was all about preserving "abandonware". We had the same rules as TVN: If a game is made available again, we stop sharing it. The only difference is our community focused on abandonware (i.e. games that have not been in production for at least 2.5 years and no longer had official support).

5. A company that's called out publicly must put their foot down. In this case, someone made a stink about the quality of TOEI's subtitles (if this was on the TOEI Toku channel, those subs are actually government funded and not actually done by TOEI, hence the low quality and episode limits). By outing fansub groups by name, it forced TOEI to do a token crackdown to save face.
5. Shirakura's final sentence is very true and understandable. He basically said "I tried to play dumb so these groups could continue, but you forced us to do something by not shutting up about it."



What I got from all of this:
The C&D is purely a token action. They're not going to respond because the whole point was to make it LOOK like they were cracking down. Like the two before it, there'd be no legal repercussions if TVN went back to business as usual. HOWEVER, because there are certain idiots actively harassing TOEI and swinging around TVN and possibly other groups like a weapon, I agree with Take about the risks of continuing as usual. TOEI might not care, but if people keep shining spotlights on TVN, they may be forced to take actual legal action in future, and that would pretty much cause most of the other fansub groups to disband out of fear.
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Re: Shirakura's response to the fansub issue

Post by phlip »

I think before people read too much into this tweet, bear in mind that it starts with him saying it's a "guess".

He probably doesn't know the exact history of events any more than we do... and while he definitely has more access to find out, I'd be surprised if he has. This is his speculation about what might have happened, not necessarily what actually set all this off.
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Re: Shirakura's response to the fansub issue

Post by Aeikozz »

He literately doesn't care. People are ungrateful.
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Re: Shirakura's response to the fansub issue

Post by Blackcondorguy »

Tokyo wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 12:19 pm I believe the fan stepped on some employee ego while stating the (very much true) fact that the fans do a better job than the professionals when it comes to subtitling stuff.
I really don't think it's a matter of ego. That's assuming Toei cares about viewers outside of Japan, and regarding Super Sentai, I really think they don't.
I'm sure they're very happy with Dragon Ball, Naruto or whatever license that's big worldwide, but mostly, their main insterest in the West is whoever is paying for exploiting their licenses. The subbing/dubbing work is really none of their business, so if whoever wants to do the job, however it's done, they're fine with it.

Their problem with fansubbers is only a matter of licensing rights (that's why they encouraged fan submissions). If they don't get money from anyone releasing their stuff, then they'll shut them down. But since they don't care about the West they won't hunt them down either. So, bringing fansubbers to Toei's attention was the dumbest move.

And Shirakura's response, as ungrateful of Westerner fans (and as badly translated) as it is, illustrates this perfectly, in my opinion.
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Re: Shirakura's response to the fansub issue

Post by archer9234 »

Watching everything going on. Both sides are to blame. But Toei has a history at being a horrible company, in all areas. Because they don't care to respect the costumer. So they are the side to complain about first. Their subtitles that's done by them (3rd party or not) are okay to very bad. With Digimon being their worst offenders. There was so much I had to correct in their Digimon Tri subtitles. On the Bluray releases. It makes watching the discs worthless. Because of how bad they are, with them using Dub terms in the subtitles for zero reason.
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Re: Shirakura's response to the fansub issue

Post by Gokider »

Blackcondorguy wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 11:36 pm Let's not forget Toei is a Japanese company and I honestly think they don't give a f*ck about western fans of Sentai. They sold the license to Saban, Disney, Hasbro, or whoever is willing to pay, but they most likely don't care about what they do with the license and the availability of their series in the west. I don't have the numbers, but I guess most of what they sell comes from kids and Japanese fans. And even regarding that, the discontinuation of Super Sentai SHFIguarts indicates that adult sentai fans are not that profitable when youre not releasing Zyuranger or what's considered "classic Power Rangers" (compared to other licenses they still do SHFIguarts of, KR is another story).

My point is, we all might be a little too western-centric about the issue. I honestly think Toei doesn't care about us, but as a company, they can't officially condone people illegaly releasing their stuff, so they acted when someone puts light on the fansubbers. That's why unless you have a local company releasing official stuff (as you guys had in the US did with Shout Factory), you shouldn't care much about supporting the official release. Because it's not meant for you. The only meaningful supporting act concerning tokusatsu shows is to buy licensed products so they don't end up shutting down the license (which is unlikely to happen anyway).
Super Sentai has been getting sporadic official subbed releases lately so they get something out of the Western audience, which may even be why they're doing this now after all these years.

Also, anyone seen this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d2yCr3k-fU
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Re: Shirakura's response to the fansub issue

Post by Tokyo »

Blackcondorguy wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 4:44 am
Tokyo wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 12:19 pm I believe the fan stepped on some employee ego while stating the (very much true) fact that the fans do a better job than the professionals when it comes to subtitling stuff.
I really don't think it's a matter of ego. That's assuming Toei cares about viewers outside of Japan, and regarding Super Sentai, I really think they don't.
I'm sure they're very happy with Dragon Ball, Naruto or whatever license that's big worldwide, but mostly, their main insterest in the West is whoever is paying for exploiting their licenses. The subbing/dubbing work is really none of their business, so if whoever wants to do the job, however it's done, they're fine with it.

Their problem with fansubbers is only a matter of licensing rights (that's why they encouraged fan submissions). If they don't get money from anyone releasing their stuff, then they'll shut them down. But since they don't care about the West they won't hunt them down either. So, bringing fansubbers to Toei's attention was the dumbest move.

And Shirakura's response, as ungrateful of Westerner fans (and as badly translated) as it is, illustrates this perfectly, in my opinion.
Maybe you're right.
I guess bottom line is:
Toei always knew about fansubbs
Someone called too much attention to it
Toei felt forced to take some action
They probably WON"T take any real legal action.
Now what we should do is just keep it all low profile and wait for things to come back to a normal. Which I believe they will.
PS: When I say low profile, is not to talk directly to Shirakura or any Toei staff online. Talking among us, specially in less public spaces, like discord, is probably OK in my opinion. Even though I've crossed paths with some people who disagree. Whatever...
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Re: Shirakura's response to the fansub issue

Post by Ashki »

Tokyo wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 9:42 am Maybe you're right.
I guess bottom line is:
Toei always knew about fansubbs
Someone called too much attention to it
Toei felt forced to take some action
They probably WON"T take any real legal action.
Now what we should do is just keep it all low profile and wait for things to come back to a normal. Which I believe they will.
PS: When I say low profile, is not to talk directly to Shirakura or any Toei staff online. Talking among us, specially in less public spaces, like discord, is probably OK in my opinion. Even though I've crossed paths with some people who disagree. Whatever...
This is precisely it.

Twitter is a cesspool of people who want nothing more than to watch the world burn. I honestly don't know why decent folk even still use it, especially with alternatives such as locals. I only kept using it to keep up with a friend in Japan and it was destroying my mental health in the process. When he deleted his account last year, I quite using Twitter and my health has vastly improved since then.

But back to the point, the Twitter mob will actively attack people and call them out in their tweets whenever that person is perceived to say or do something that the attacker doesn't like. In this case, someone complained on the TOEI Toku World channel about the quality of the government-provided subs. They then outed one or more fansub groups, ignoring the fact that TTW BLATENTLY requests fans to provide subs for the channel (how much more pro-fansub can a company get?).

This then made its way to Twitter where certain idiots decided the CEO is responsible, despite him making it very clear (without directly stating so) multiple times that he's got no issue with fansubs and may even personally support them.

Twitter: Friend bad. Friend say nice hat but not you look better in nice hat. Hulk smash!

As Twitter doesn't have very good moderation, those of us who use the platform and support fansubbing can TRY to mass report any related comments that target TOEI staff. It may not do much, but there's always a small chance an attack will be deleted before that staff member sees it. But that's a very small chance.

I would also strongly suggest fansub groups (as in, ALL of them) begin to boycott Twitter and move to Locals (I've heard really good things about it) for group-related or release posts. Post a message stating something along the lines of:

"The ongoing attacks against TOEI and its staff are counter to the spirit and intent of fansubs, which are meant to support franchises and encourage purchases of merck/official releases. As a result, our group shall no longer hold a presence on Twitter in response to these attacks. Remember, any attack against TOEI is an attack against the fansubbing community."
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Re: Shirakura's response to the fansub issue

Post by Tokyo »

Ashki wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 11:09 am
Tokyo wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 9:42 am Maybe you're right.
I guess bottom line is:
Toei always knew about fansubbs
Someone called too much attention to it
Toei felt forced to take some action
They probably WON"T take any real legal action.
Now what we should do is just keep it all low profile and wait for things to come back to a normal. Which I believe they will.
PS: When I say low profile, is not to talk directly to Shirakura or any Toei staff online. Talking among us, specially in less public spaces, like discord, is probably OK in my opinion. Even though I've crossed paths with some people who disagree. Whatever...
This is precisely it.

Twitter is a cesspool of people who want nothing more than to watch the world burn. I honestly don't know why decent folk even still use it, especially with alternatives such as locals. I only kept using it to keep up with a friend in Japan and it was destroying my mental health in the process. When he deleted his account last year, I quite using Twitter and my health has vastly improved since then.

But back to the point, the Twitter mob will actively attack people and call them out in their tweets whenever that person is perceived to say or do something that the attacker doesn't like. In this case, someone complained on the TOEI Toku World channel about the quality of the government-provided subs. They then outed one or more fansub groups, ignoring the fact that TTW BLATENTLY requests fans to provide subs for the channel (how much more pro-fansub can a company get?).

This then made its way to Twitter where certain idiots decided the CEO is responsible, despite him making it very clear (without directly stating so) multiple times that he's got no issue with fansubs and may even personally support them.

Twitter: Friend bad. Friend say nice hat but not you look better in nice hat. Hulk smash!

As Twitter doesn't have very good moderation, those of us who use the platform and support fansubbing can TRY to mass report any related comments that target TOEI staff. It may not do much, but there's always a small chance an attack will be deleted before that staff member sees it. But that's a very small chance.

I would also strongly suggest fansub groups (as in, ALL of them) begin to boycott Twitter and move to Locals (I've heard really good things about it) for group-related or release posts. Post a message stating something along the lines of:

"The ongoing attacks against TOEI and its staff are counter to the spirit and intent of fansubs, which are meant to support franchises and encourage purchases of merck/official releases. As a result, our group shall no longer hold a presence on Twitter in response to these attacks. Remember, any attack against TOEI is an attack against the fansubbing community."
As much as I agree with all you said when it comes to what's important to the community and what lead to this whole mess we're seeing, I don't agree with the politics of action you propose. It's been some time since I abandoned the mentality of telling people what to do online. As you said, twitter is a wild west of the internet. Everyone wants to be right about everything all the time, and they constantly get very unpolite to other people for no reason. And I believe, once we label those people tweetards (not that you said explicitly that), we are doing basically the same thing! Toei is a company. We are consumers. Consumers have the right to criticize the company. Of course, politeness and good manners are desirable (and should be mandatory), but don't put myself in the position to tell other people what to do, or what not to do. All I'm saying is that I like to step back, watch, and wait. And I don't feel confortable reporting people, or calling them out for their actions, or anything like that. Please, don't get me wrong. I hope I'm not being rude or anything. I'm just saying that I disagree with part of what you say. Even though I understand your reasons.
You mentioned you mental health and its relation to tweeter. I had the same experience. I left social media a while ago and I'm much better now. But for me, what really messes up people's heads is precisely this "we are right, let's make the wrong pay" mentality. Much more so than just cursing at each other. That's why I like to just observe and make no comments about other people's actions. And try keep judging to a minimal, and understand everyone's motives.
Again, don't take any of that personal. I'm just respectfully disagreeing with (part of) what you said =)
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Re: Shirakura's response to the fansub issue

Post by MagusKaiser »

dryedmangoez wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 10:27 pm
zero00 wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 5:22 pm in the end, toei knows the existence of fansubs now,
Well, they've always known the existence of fansubs.
MagusKaiser wrote: Sun May 23, 2021 10:03 pm so wait let me get this straight this whole bloody damn shit show is because someone bitched about the subs quality of the youtube subtitles for Faiz and Agito and then pointed out the fan subbing groups who were doing better and essentially got them shut down............. so this whole mess is because some freaking idiot bitched about subs quality of one version versus the fan sub version ffs I need a strong drink
Nobody knows that for sure. It's just people on the Twitters making assumptions and then using those assumptions to negatively generalize every toku fan.
well whatever the reason is it's just disappointing for me cause I was really enjoying Saber and Zenkaiger was getting interesting too. plus I'm just really irked that the day I found out the start of this whole snafu was the day I usually check the torrents for new episodes which was also after a really rough day after work. I just hope if Tv Nihon Can get back to subbing rider and sentai there'll be a big update for both if and when it ever happens
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Re: Shirakura's response to the fansub issue

Post by faizinmotion »

I like to think that a grown adult like me isn't exactly the target audience that Toei is trying to appeal to when it comes to Sentai/Rider.

But the other hand, I also think that Japan's entertainment industry is not willing enough to embrace a digital future. It's nice to see TOEI TOKUSATSU WORLD post official episodes of Kamen Rider online, but this is like Toei getting their feet a little wet and assessing the possibility of providing content beyond something such as Kamen Rider Amazons, while ensuring their efforts don't conflict with the success of Power Rangers. To be honest, the face of tokusatsu in a way is synonymous with two IPs overseas: Godzilla and Power Rangers. It would be nice for tokusatsu to grow past that conception with the success of superhero movies and TV shows from Marvel and DC.

A couple of things I want from Toei is to release more recent seasons of Sentai/Rider, but again, I don't think Toei wants their Sentai IP to conflict with Power Rangers. And if Hasbro one day manages to make a successful adaptation of a Kamen Rider series (let's be honest, THAT will be the day), it just makes things more complicated. I admit, I see the potential in adapting Kamen Rider into the Power Rangers mythos especially with how the Boom! comic books approached their takes on previously written stories. Sentai/Rider crossovers are a guilty pleasure of mine.

(If I may ramble for a bit, if Hasbro could one day take Kamen Rider Decade and take inspiration from the source material to have the show focus on various story arcs involving adaptations of past Riders, I don't think it would take long to adapt all the Riders into the Power Rangers continuity, only a few years. I think the best way to do that is through the comic books however. That way, when the time comes to bring this IP into live action, it would not be hard to introduce the rebooted Masked Rider continuity to a new audience because the storytelling formula that was established would be QUITE modular enough to no cause confusion. If a person were to read a specific Hasbro-Decade arc they would not have to worry about whether to read a previous story or not as Hasbro-Decade would be more of a storytelling tool rather than a complex character in the middle of his story...this is all just wishful thinking, I guess. If no one will write this, I will. Saban's Masked Rider is trash and needs to be redeemed.)
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Re: Shirakura's response to the fansub issue

Post by mantis »

Basically it all boils down to this - people need to keep their g*ddamn mouths shut. But 'nerds' don't know how to do that.
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Re: Shirakura's response to the fansub issue

Post by shade_style »

I hope that in time, this will all pass. I don't think they want to do anything, but were forced to, as many others said. Either way, you all are the best, thanks for everything, regardless how it turns out.
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