Ask John: What’s the Status of Gundam Seed Fansubs?

Question:
I hear Gundam Seed is still being subbed even though it got licensed, but wouldn’t Bandai crack down on them for that? By the way, John, I’ve been wondering. Do you like Gundam?

Answer:
Bandai Entertainment executive Jerry Chu personally contacted several fansubbing groups and requested that they cease fansubbing and distributing Gundam Seed. To the best of my knowledge, all of these groups immediately stopped distributing the Gundam Seed anime. However, in their absence, at least three new fansubbing groups emerged to take their place, picking up translation of the show where their predecessor translators left off. Of course, it’s unethical to do this, but it’s not without reason. Naturally official licensors don’t want free, unlicensed bootlegs of their anime floating around and potentially compromising sales. Every copy of a fansub in existence can potentially mean one less copy of the official release that will be sold. But fans that have been faithfully watching the Gundam Seed series for months naturally want to continue watching the show, especially now that the program is theoretically approaching its resolution. An official domestic release may be a year or more away, and that’s an awful long time to wait to find out what’s going to become of Kira and company.

At least in theory, the fansubbers that are now translating and distributing Gundam Seed are not intentionally trying to harm future sales of Gundam DVDs in America. On the contrary, they’re theoretically trying to solidify more Gundam devotees that are more likely to support the release of more Gundam merchandise in America. Since fansubbing itself is illegal, fansubbing Gundam Seed is no more or less illegal than fansubbing an anime title that hasn’t been licensed for US release. But continuing to fansub Gundam Seed in spite of a direct request from Bandai Entertainment is selfish and disrespectful. Understandable, yes, but still selfish and disrespectful. Bandai Entertainment has ever moral and legal right to lawfully prosecute individuals that fansub, distribute, download and/or watch Gundam Seed digital video files (either in untranslated Japanese or fansubbed), but the possibility of Bandai bringing legal action against private anime fans is not an action that the company can or should undertake lightly. A sizeable portion of the consumers that Bandai Entertainment markets its DVDs to is the same group of people that are involved in or with the digital fansubbing community- either fansubbers themselves or fansub watchers. For a company like Bandai, it’s simply not good business sense to bring lawsuits and heavy handed pressure to bear against the very people you’re depending on to purchase your products.
And anime fans, as amateur laymen, tend to feel unjustly persecuted in a David versus Goliath match up when a multi-million dollar corporation singles them out for individual legal attention, even when the individual fan singled out is totally at fault and deserving of punishment. In effect, Bandai may be totally in the right, but still be unable to defend itself because any attempt to defend its property rights against an individual may result in as much negative publicity and damage as benefit.

The domestic anime industry and the fansub community are perpetually engaged in a precarious balance. Fansubs have no legal justification, but exist on a quasi-moral plane because they theoretically provide more benefit to the anime industry than harm. The professional anime industry has the law on its side, but without the word of mouth support of fansubs likely wouldn’t be nearly as profitable and influential as it is. So the continued existence of Gundam Seed fansubs is merely a matter of appearances and an intentional shift of the balance between the fan community and the professional industry toward the “fan side.” This hypothetical balance usually stays evenly balanced between the industry and fans, or tilts in favor of the industry. So it’s only in a case like the present Gundam Seed fansubs, when the balance swings toward the fans, that anyone really pays extra special attention. There’s no clearly right or wrong answer here. Bandai wants fansubs of Gundam Seed to cease now. Fans want to see the rest of Gundam Seed while it’s still current. The law is on Bandai’s side, but both sides have reasonable demands. Which side is right? I guess that depends on which side you’re on.

And for what it’s worth, I’m not a big Gundam fan although I’ve seen at least one episode of every Gundam series and movie from the original 1979 debut up through Gundam Seed. I have great respect for what Gundam accomplished in the 1970s and early 80s, and I acknowledge Char’s Counterattack as one of the very best giant robot movies ever made. But I’m just never been very interested in the hard sci-fi genre or giant robot shows of any type.