Post B1GjSlIbaEpMYpkhqy by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
(DIR) More posts by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
(DIR) Post #B1GiXnfs50mlQBTPkm by asie@mk.asie.pl
2025-12-15T09:39:27.728Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
A curious anime fandom question surfaced in a Discord.What is the first anime series Western fans could watch simultaneously with the Japanese broadcast, legally or otherwise? Let's define that as "most episodes being translated and distributed <1 week from airing".It is fairly well documented that the studio Gonzo's "Tower of Druaga: The Aegis of Uruk" was the first anime Western viewers could legally watch around the same time as its Japanese broadcast.What I'm curious about is when that became a possibility for unauthorized fansubs.
(DIR) Post #B1GjGW2OV1sLklKXi4 by asie@mk.asie.pl
2025-12-15T09:47:33.008Z
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According to ANN, the fall 2001 season was the first one where most shows were available to watch at this pace: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2002-01-01/6That answers part of the question, but that's just an anecdotal first season - an upper bound. It is not the first show.
(DIR) Post #B1GjSlIbaEpMYpkhqy by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2025-12-15T09:47:35Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
@asie It's probably not the oldest, but the oldest one I think I can personally remember is Inuyasha (which aired in 2000.) I was hanging out in some fansub channel on IRC that was churning out fansubs for a bunch of things super fast at the time and I believe that one was within a day or two of a new episode?It has been a long time. Don't quote me on that.I've probably actually seen something that had a < 1 week lead time in fansubs earlier than that, but it's the first I can really think of.
(DIR) Post #B1GjWcEHFMNJacZ7my by asie@mk.asie.pl
2025-12-15T09:50:32.572Z
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@nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social Well, that's a new upper bound. I think the answer is not far away, though I wonder if we can figure out an exact one.
(DIR) Post #B1Gju7RRMld13Mvi5Y by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2025-12-15T09:51:11Z
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@asie I absolutely feel like there was more before that one definitely! After all, I was hanging out in those channels after the show came out...
(DIR) Post #B1Gju8juXZzt4wZyW8 by asie@mk.asie.pl
2025-12-15T09:54:42.087Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social I mean, the lower bound must not be far off from the year 2000.The reason I defined it as "under 1 week" is because that meets the criteria of "both the Japanese and Western viewers are on the same page", which is simultaneous enough for me. Obviously, you can't get same-day subtitling without privileged/licensed access.
(DIR) Post #B1GjvOWpK5sSKx3cx6 by asie@mk.asie.pl
2025-12-15T09:54:59.278Z
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@nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social I mean, the lower bound must not be far off from the year 2000.The reason I defined it as "under 1 week" is because that meets the criteria of "both the Japanese and Western viewers are on the same page", which is simultaneous enough for me. Obviously, you can't get true simultaneous subtitling without privileged/licensed access.
(DIR) Post #B1Gl1AcS3B8CtE0S6S by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2025-12-15T09:56:22Z
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@asie Agreed. But in my gut I feel like if you can find a real answer it's going to be something more like 1998 or something.We had TV captures back then (with all the ups and downs therein' but they cut out the commercials at least) so someone captured, uploaded, someone subbed, and then encoded and put it out there via XDCC on IRC channels or similar (no Bittorrent back then!) Some even ran FTP servers, but they had ratio requirements (you had to upload stuff to download stuff. It kind of didn't make sense in context of a FTP, but they did it anyway. Really sucked if you had dialup which was already slow, but even slower at uploading...)The process was surprisingly fast!This discussion is getting me nostalgic in some ways for those days. (Not for dialup though...)
(DIR) Post #B1Gl1BaiR7Kxu8Ca2K by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2025-12-15T10:06:04Z
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@asie Say, do specific seasons count?I'm not sure, but I really feel like there was a group doing the later series of Sailor Moon (the ones that DiC never licensed and weren't airing in the US at their respective times — not sure if they ever got picked up for TV airing?) around the time it came out.However, super emphasis on the not sure. They may not have been at all close to < 1 week times. Just, maybe this is a thing to look up as that's obviously a famous show with lots of info around it.
(DIR) Post #B1Gl1CL9eSU4E9vfQ8 by asie@mk.asie.pl
2025-12-15T10:07:09.033Z
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@nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social Yes, they absolutely do!
(DIR) Post #B1GohkG8EQ23RyYjse by asie@mk.asie.pl
2025-12-15T10:48:25.463Z
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Love Hina (2000) is anecdotally quoted by multiple sources as the first anime using a fully digital distribution pipeline, as well as DivX over RealMedia. However, from Wayback, we can see it was not a simultaneous broadcast translation - episodes came out after the Japanese DVD releases.Vandread: The Second Stage (fall 2001) is explicitly named as a simultaneous broadcast translation by ANN above. So that's our lower and upper bound. Is anything earlier? Someone mentioned InuYasha could be, but is there any evidence for this?