Times, They Are A-Changin'

Today (or I suppose yesterday) marks a huge shift in anime here in America.  Dattebayo has announced that it will DROP Naruto Shippuuden, effective January 15th.  (You can read the press release here.)  The long-time-Naruto fansubbing group has decided to do this because Viz will be offering subbed versions of Shippuuden streamed for free on their website only a week after the show airs in Japan.  Also, Crunchyroll will be offering streamed versions of Shippuuden for a small fee almost immediately after the airing in Japan.  This is huge and marks a turning point in how anime is done here in America.

I have friends that have been into anime since the days of copied VHS fansubs, but I got into fansubbed anime right on the tail end of the last big shift: the shift to internet distribution with the advent of broadband.  When I started downloading fansubs, the majority of internet connections were still not broadband, but the change was occurring rather rapidly.  Within a few years, the change was complete - most people had broadband internet connections.  With this shift, anime fansubs shifted, too.  The primary mode of distribution became the internet.  Quality shot up.  When I began downloading fansubs, 320x240 was the typical resolution.  With broadband, this went up to 640x480 and beyond.  Distribution methods shifted from KaZaA and LimeWire to Bittorrent.  Fansubs became quicker and of higher-quality with regards to translations and typesetting and karaokes for the OP and ED.  Broadband refined the fansub to the point where many releases rivaled professional DVD quality.

But now the wheel has turned again.  Fansubbed anime addressed the consumer demand for high quality subtitled episodes released mere hours after airing in Japan - all downloadable (or at least viewable) for free.  And the anime industry has now responded.  It began with a few peripheral series.  I first noticed Hulu had streaming episodes of SquareEnix's new series Shikabane Hime Aka almost synchronous with its airing in Japan.  The series seems to have been licensed in America nearly at the same time as in Japan.  But this was a new series, not a well-established one with a rich history of fansubs.  Now with Naruto, the mainstream is changing over as well.  American distribution companies have learned to harness the same broadband that brought about high-quality fansubs in order to compete with those same fansubs.

What does this mean for the future of anime fans in America?  For fansubs in general?  Will the fansubbing community step aside or will they compete?  What will the ability to only stream new releases mean for anime DVD sales?  What will become of fans like myself who prefer to download a file and then watch it, rather than stream?  I don't have the answers.  I merely am pointing out that this is history in the making for the anime community.  We are at a turning point, and it will be interesting to see how this will all turn out.