This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.
Fair warning: if the title doesn’t have you salivating, the content of the article won’t either.
Join my clan, kplz
Much like any trendy gathering of youths, fansubbers are divided into tribes based on member affiliations. The following four are the main ones.
“This is our life”
If you were to ask a random anime fan for a list of fansubbing groups, the majority of their (very short) list would be comprised of groups from this category. And that’s by design — these groups are desperate for your attention and tend to get it because their members have literally nothing else going for them in their lives.
You think I joke, but ask these groups’ members for what they do for a living and how much they make doing it. There’s a reason they’re throwing everything they have into fansubs. Gotta validate their existence somehow.
But whether you love ’em or hate ’em, the groups in this list tend to inspire at least a sense of emotion. They’re the heart of fansubbing and they’ve earned the designation. However, maybe their members should learn what’s most important lies outside the realms of their parents’ basements.
gg
UTW
CoalGuys (Spoilers: CoalGuys is gg)
Commie
WhyNot
Underwater (It’s Commie, but led by Daiz)
Mazui
rori (By virtue of being Mazui on steroids)
FFF
“Waps, assorted”
If, instead of a random anime fan, you chose the most elitist, creepy anime fan you could find what their favorite fansub groups are, you’d come up with groups from this list.
These groups apparently survive on pandering to the lowest common denominator of anime fan because they’re made up of the lowest common denominator of anime fan. If they could afford fuck pillows, these fansubbers would carry them around in public as their waifus. Fortunately for society, these creeps are focused more on their internet reputations than breathing fresh air.
Come to think of it, the only thing differentiating them from the first group is that they’re not as popular.
sage
Hiryuu
Asenshi
GotWoot
IB
SFW
Muteki
Anime-Koi
EveTaku
NyanTaku
CTSS
Kiteseekers-Wasurenai
CMS
Whine-Subs (I guess)
Oyatsu
“United in detest”
Whether the revilement is deserved or not (and I would argue it’s best not to throw out the baby with the bath water), these groups tend to be the brunt of everyone’s jokes about fansub QUALITY. To put it in high school terms, they’re like the members of the lunch table that you sat at.
At the very least, they should be admired for their tenacity to forge ahead despite the criticism levied at them. You know, like the Westboro Baptist Church.
Hadena
Chihiro
CoalGirls
Doki
Hatsuyuki
Tsuki
Ahodomo
Asuka-Subs
Zenyaku
Ayako
Hybrid
SubDESU
Shini-Subs
Kata-Subs
Chiki-Subs
Esc-Shinbunbu
AFFTW
AraAraUfuFu~
“When I was your age…”
Whether solitary by choice (old subs who have outlasted prior generations’ affiliations and really don’t give a shit about the newfags) or by chance (too new to have delved deeply into the fansub circlejerk), these groups tend to play a game of their own. But they’ll find their way into one of the main folds eventually. Nobody can stop the cancer’s growth for long.
m.3.3.w (the last remaining member of the old BakaWolf alliance)
Taka
SHiN-gx (How the fuck are they still alive?)
Mezashite
Nutbladder (No, I wouldn’t place them in the first list.)
Tonde
CCS
Ruri
Ryuumaru (They’re basically dead now, but once would have been in list 1)
Saitei
Shikkaku
Due diligence
I know you’ve already started writing that angry reply in Microsoft Word, which is why I placed this at the end — to render your effort invalid.
No, this is not a comprehensive assortment of groups. But it is the easiest assortment I could come up with after chugging a fifth of vodka.
A truly comprehensive list would require fansubbing resumes from every fansubber, past and present. Then which groups these fansubbers belonged to would be mapped out and clear affiliations would present themselves. Unfortunately, that’s not feasible, so a more simplistic means of sorting out the groups is what you got.
‘Yes, but no.’
Because fansubbing is one giant circlejerk, throwing groups into silos isn’t a good idea. Does rori belong in “This is our life” or “Waps, assorted”? You could make a convincing argument either way. The same could be said of many groups. But I sorted groups into which silos I thought most made sense, based on my impressions of the fansub scene.
And there are a lot more impressions — mine’s just the best.
Wait… Ayako? Aren’t they dead?
A lot of groups listed here no longer exist. And there are also a few active groups I left off my list. To make things simple for me, I included groups based on my reviews — if a group was reviewed twice or more, it made the cut. If not, too bad.
How about a handy image to summarize this?
No. I refuse to dumb my posts down to 4chan levels.
“I disagree with…”
Well, you’ve made it this far, so post away. As a blog community, you all tend to be smarter than me anyway, so feel free to come up with your own affiliations/fixes to mine. I’m not against editing the post based on your thoughts. Tears are acceptable as well.
XD
Best post evar!
Either Dark_Sage and vodka don’t mix, or they mix REALLY well.
Still not sure which it is. Still not sure it’s important.
I think we can all agree that Dark_Sage and vodka mixes like Dark_Sage and vodka.
Dark pls
Can I send you more vodka or other spirits?
So does this mean /you/ carry around dakis as your waifus in public?
What’s part 2?
My waifus are stored on my PC, so sort of.
Part 2 is… I haven’t thought up part 2 yet. But it’ll be something or another, rest assured.
Maybe you can compromise put all your waifus on a laptop and just carry that around in public. (Gently caressing the screen is optional.)
I somehow misread waifus as walrus for a while there. This discussion is sadly more mundane than I first thought.
You listed Asenshi twice under the “Waps, assorted” category.
fix’d
No Eclipse? D_S please.
Oh, SS too.
Both those groups are dead.
> A lot of groups listed here no longer exist.
No EclipseSubs listed
No FMS (free money subs if I remember it correctly. they/that person did Kimi Ni Todoke S1) listed
Protip: All these groups would go in the last category. There are hundreds of groups that didn’t make D_S’ old-timey/dead list.
Is that so? mmkay. I felt they need some mentioning for their contributions, nonetheless.
Or, D_S is probably too young to remember such groups. *a shame*
I might be off, but I remember there was a Dark_Sage credited in a Kesenai-Subs release when I was streaming awhile ago.
It’s true. He was in that group for a bit. One of his first groups.
Nah, he just didn’t review any of their releases, all except for Shakugan no Shana, Mirai Nikki…
“United in detest”
Asuka-Subs
Shini-Subs
Kata-Subs
Chiki-Subs
Seeing a pattern emerging.
There’s also some positive correlation between using some kind of Japanese word in the group name and being worse, lower quality.
Note that it’s just a correlation, so there are many counterexamples for both sides.
Eh, Japanese phrases are omnipresent in fansub group names for reason which go without saying, and I don’t believe one would find there to be much difference in the proportion of “low quality” groups as compared to groups as a whole.
No, I was referring to a much clearer common element.
It probably says a lot that I’ve only heard of a handful of these groups. I think your last grouping needs expanding a bit (or at least renaming) because the only group on there that’s been around for a while is m.3.3.w – and actually, gg’s been around longer than them, so… yeah, not so sure about the subtitle on that, I guess.
Having said that, there are very few old groups that are even still alive these days.
Triad’s website seems to imply that they’ll come back some day. I still have hope that I’ll get my quality Cryji some day.
Speaking of dead groups, is SFW full-on dead? There were only like two seasons where they were active, but they were _great_. Like, I have no idea how good the subs were, I just like those guys.
They’re just on hiatus. <3 SFW too. I'd put decent odds on a return next season.
SFW was thinking about coming back for this season, but the shows we wanted to do were going to be subbed already by some of those guys in the first list ^_^ – Maybe next season?
Ryuumaru :c
Commander`A ;<
Is coalguys really just gg? I though it was jaka + whoever he could get to translate. I mean, jaka is in gg sometimes, but I thought koda had to be in the staff room yelling for it to be actual gg.
So, we’re doing this as gg instead of CoalGuys, since it’s like 80% the same team anyway.[/url]
-Mango-chan, on Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko
Goddamnit, BBCode. http://www.ggkthx.org/2013/04/henneko-02/
Yeah but I was under the impression that for the first episode it was just him and vale, and then when they released it as gg, they grabbed someone to qc. I could totally be wrong, though.
Okay, may as well ask here. Does anybody know what happened to Ryuumaru or Commander`A? The guy just disappeared (or at least I haven’t seen any posts nor comments from him at all), and the group was basically him. So yeah.
Hello.
oh hi
Hai. <3
Ok let me apply this to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. factions:
This is our life = Military
Waps, assorted = Monolith
United in detest = Duty
When I was your age… = Loners
“We will do what we want, and do not care about your opinion.”
Just this single motto makes Coalgirls seem more likeable than most fansub groups.
And then you start reading BakaBT comments and find out exactly how much Kristen cares.
lol. bbt comments…I know I’m bored when I start reading them. Then I start alternating between laughter and depression…though some of the arguments between Kristen and Daiz nearly made me piss myself laughing.
Mezashite’s a old sub group?!
I don’t think that group is intended primarily for old sub groups. It’s for groups that don’t fit into any of the other groups, for whatever reason.
I guess that, as they’re fairly new, it’s hard to determine where Mezashite really belong.
I kinda miss Frostii.
They’re still around… sorta. They help Saizen and Live-Evil on some shows.
SHiN-gx still exists because I applied to be their QC two years ago. True story.
As a fun fact, it’s also because I became their TL around the same time. What’s kinda shitty is that when I joined, seemingly all the previous TLs quit or eventually lost interest. So we currently release pretty much only what I can translate…
Tondemonai is part of the baka-wolf network, or at least most of us are. And we’re quite alive thank you very much.
and while probably considered another ‘shut in’ group, we’ve been partnering with stardust fansubs for the past year or so.
Why are you taking this seriously?
Maybe they just want in on the fun.
Duly noted. I’d still stick you as mostly unaffiliated, unless you’ve really been going after that wap circlejerk.
this post really made me laugh