Fansubbing and Scanlation:
Counterculture Translation & Intellectual Property

In the Beginning

During the past four decades, the Japanese art forms of manga and anime have gained an ever-increasing following in the west. Manga is the name for comics and anime for animated films and TV shows. They have a very specific style regarding content and graphics, but also a wide range of genres, all of which have specific names, such as shōnen (targeting teenage boys) and shōjo (targeting teenage girls). Although some of these productions have made it onto children’s TV or the bookshelves in other countries, such publications only represent a very small percentage. As such, fans have problems getting hold of further material in their language. Considering these publications are not available in the fan’s target language, this created a dilemma.

Right from the beginning, fans of manga and anime were aware of the problem and decided to find a solution. That solution was to take an original copy and translate and subtitle it so that it could be distributed in other countries, in either English or else the native language of that country. In the beginning, this was not done for any profit – it was purely a labor of love by fans for fans. This fan translation also became known by other names: fansubbing for anime, and scanlation for manga (a word mash-up between scanning and translation).

Most fansubbing and scanlation goes back to the 1980s when the use of older technology, such as VHS tapes, made it a longer and more expensive process. With the development of computers and the Internet, fansubbing and scanlation became far easier – sourcing, translating, producing and distribution could all now be done with the click of a button. All that is required is a computer with a fast processor speed, the right software, people with the necessary skills and a platform on the web to let fans know where to download their next copy.

The Process
Both fansubbing and scanlation are very rarely carried out by a single person. Instead, several people organize themselves into a group and take on various roles, dependent upon their skills. These people are also often located in different parts of the world. The following process and people involved, described in an article by Porras, José, and Daniel, is related to a scanlation operation, but the procedure for fansubbing a video is very similar.¹

• The source material, called a ‘raw’ is obtained by the raw sourcer, often the group’s manager. This is usually in the form of digitally scanned pages of a manga comic in its source language. If the raw has been previously translated into a pivot, or bridge language, such as English, permission is sought from the previous translators to use their work as a starting point.
• The manager then sends the scanned raws to both the cleaner and translator so that they can work on them at the same time. Cleaners use software such as Photoshop to take out the text from the scanned pages to leave clean areas for the translated words. This also applies to any words on the page that are not speech – such as sound effects and signs. If the deletion of the text also means that some of the picture is destroyed, it is the cleaner’s job to redraw it.
• The translator takes the original text, whether in the source or bridge language and translates it into the target language. Rather than a straightforward translation, they have to also include details relevant to the next stage. For example, they have to show which page the translated text refers to, and where there are sound effects or signs, they need to differentiate these from the speech by use of italics, bold, brackets, or whatever conventions agreed upon by that group.
• Once these two stages have been completed, the clean version and the translated text are given to the typesetter who inserts the translations into the correct areas on the page. It is up to the typesetter to choose how the text will appear. For example, speech may appear in a certain font, size, and color whereas other bits of text will have a different font, color, and so on.
• On completion of the typesetting, the new version is looked over by the proofreader who checks for any mistakes and identifies any corrections to be made. This is then passed on to the composer who corrects the errors and then formats the whole comic. It is then uploaded to the Internet and the link sent out to fans, either by email or the group’s website.

Of course, when it comes to fansubbing some of the processes are a little different, as video requires different software and techniques. For example, an encoder is needed to determine the quality of the raw as well as to encode the final translation by configuring a video codec.² There are also timers who make sure that the subtitles match the audio and even specialist timers who work with karaoke to make sure that the translation is timed to coincide with each note.³ The finished product is then distributed, usually over Bit torrent or some other file sharing method.

Quality
One of the criticisms often thrown at fan translation is that the quality of the translated material is not as good as it would be from a professional translator. While in some cases this is undoubtedly true, there are also some very good fan translations. Likewise, there have been poor professional translations within the genre. However, it is a mistake to compare quality on a like for like basis as the fan translation of Japanese material, differs in one very particular way.

Japanese media is loaded with cultural references. How people are addressed, specific traditions and places may not be understood readily by the fans of the source language. However, these fans often like anime or manga in the first place because of its Japanese subject matter. Professional translators tend to localize the material, thereby losing some of these nuances. However, fan translators keep most of them in and, if necessary, use notes either at the beginning or within the material to give an explanation. Taking this into account, a study done on this subject by Minako O’Hagan found that there was very little difference in accuracy between professional and fan translators.⁴ O’Hagan’s purpose in this study was to determine whether the scanlation community could serve as a ‘training ground’ for professional translators. The conclusion that he reached was that, yes, in the majority of cases, fan translators could easily transfer from the periphery of translation to the center if they so wished, and once they had gained a little experience in the commercial field.

Concerning accuracy, one problem often faced by fan translators is when they use a raw that has been previously translated into a bridge language. Unless they also have a copy of the original language source, it is possible that the English translation has mistranslations that can’t be checked. Then, no matter how good the target language translator, the end result will still be wrong. Usually, the better-known and respected fansubbing and scanlation groups will have the original and checks are always made. However, some laughable mistakes have occurred in the past.

One well-known error was committed by the fansubbing group, Anime Junkies, while translating Ghost in the Shell. They managed to translate a sentence that should have read something like, “You know that there have been mass abductions here involving overseas mafia recently, right?” into “Are you aware of the frequent occurrences of mass naked child events within the country?”⁵ This well-known mistake may have occurred either because the translator hadn’t heard the words correctly, or there was interference in the original audio.⁶

Fan Translation Ethics & the Law
It may be supposed that any movement involved in what is, to all extents and purposes, piracy, will not possess any ethical boundaries. However, the fan translation community does have codes to which, for the most part, it adheres. The first of these is an undertaking to not translate any work into a language that has already been licensed by the rightful owners. If a translated work is subsequently licensed for distribution in the target country, then that work is removed from the Internet by the group responsible. In this regard, the community tends to police its own members.

Another part of fan translation ethics is that the translations are distributed free of charge. Despite all the time and money spent in developing them, fan translation groups make no money from their efforts, that is, from the media itself. There are, of course, always exceptions. In 2003, the Ninja Scroll TV series was licensed for distribution in the US, and it was expected that all fansubbers would take their copies down. However, Anime Junkies (the group responsible for the translation howler above) continued to fansub the programs, as they believed the official version was too expensive for fans. It is wrong to think that the groups go totally uncompensated though – as previously mentioned, their sites are usually monetized through pay per click ads and donations.

Of course, no matter what ethical code the fan translators adhere to, it is still illegal to distribute pirated copies under the terms of the Berne Convention. After all, Robin Hood may have robbed the rich to feed the poor, but he was still, in the eyes of the law, a robber! Nevertheless, although frowned upon by most of the copyright holders, up until lately, not much has been done to stop it. Sometimes this has been because the translation activity has taken place outside of Japan and not within a country that recognizes Japan’s copyright rights. In other cases, as in that of the US, clauses such as ‘Fair Use’ permit the distribution of copyrighted material as long as no profit is made and that it is for educational purposes. Besides, the grey area of Internet distribution, where no borders ostensibly exist, can make prosecutions difficult.⁷

Publishers Fight Back
With the ever-increasing growth in the anime/manga markets, many Japanese publishers are now seeking ways of shutting down the fan translation industry. Several have issued ‘cease and desist’ orders and have threatened legal action if they are not complied with. Since 2010, many large fan translation groups and aggregation sites, such as OneManga have been closed down by a coalition of over 40 Japanese and US publishers.⁸ Publishers claim that because more people now want manga and anime, it is now economical for them to publish and distribute the media to countries that previously found access difficult. As a result, there is no longer a need for the fans to take matters into their own hands. The monetization of fansubbing/scanlation sites has been a further provocation, as the fan groups can no longer claim that they do not turn over a profit – and they are using copyrighted material to achieve it. There have been arrests: five Chinese scanlators were arrested in Japan in February 2018 for being members of a large scanlation group, translating mangas and video games from Japanese into Chinese.⁹

Jake Forbes, a veteran professional manga editor and writer, is very clear that scanlating and fansubbing are illegal activities, damaging to the industry: ‘This isn’t 2000 anymore – collectively we can’t claim naiveté as an excuse [for] overstepping our bounds as consumers. Let us be completely honest here. Scanlations don’t fall in a legal grey area – they are brazenly illegal copyright violations’.¹⁰ Yet he is also critical of the publishers in Japan for still not doing enough to further globalize the business, and even the US distributors for charging exorbitant prices that many fans can still not afford. On the other hand, there are still a few publishers who see fan translation as a good thing. Jason Thompson, a manga editor and author, has admitted that quite a few manga producers look toward the scanlators to see what titles are gaining the most popularity: they then know which ones are going to sell the best and market accordingly.¹¹

The Future of Fansubbing & Scanlating?

So, what does the future hold for fansubbers and scanlators? It seems that it will always exist – as long as the demand for anime and manga outstrips the officially licensed media, especially when that available from legal outlets is overpriced and often over-edited. There will always be that subculture that wants to kick against the mainstream, so there may be a move away from easily obtained, popular anime and manga toward the ones that the main publishers reject, such as more violent or pornographic variants. The publishing companies will continue to pursue and take down illegal copies but it may be that they will be fighting a losing battle against the increasing number of scanlation and fansubbing groups and also the creative ways in which they can exploit the Internet. Professional translators may find greater numbers of fan translators joining their ranks and maybe even working for the publishing companies as they discover that their need to make a living outweighs the thrill of working for a semi-underground organization. Whatever the details, unless the actual demand for anime and manga outside of Japan declines drastically, the two sides will continue to be uneasy bedfellows.

1. Valero Porras, María José; Cassany, Daniel (2017). ‘Translation by fans for fans : organization and practices in a Spanish-language community of scanlation’. BiD: textos universitaris de biblioteconomia i documentació, núm. 38 (juny) . <https://bid.ub.edu/en/37/cassany.htm>. Accessed on 02/26/2018
2. Jorge Díaz Cintas, Pablo Muñoz Sánchez, ‘Fansubs: Audiovisual Translation in an Amateur Environment,’ The Journal of Specialized Translation, Issue 06, accessed at https://www.jostrans.org/issue06/art_diaz_munoz.php, on 02/26/2018
3. Ibid.
4. Translation Theory for Anime Fans: A Case Study of a Fan Translator vs a Professional, Fantastic Memes, accessed at: https://frogkun.com/2015/10/07/translation-theory-for-anime-fans-a-case-study-of-a-fan-translator-vs-a-professional, on 02/26/2012
5. Jorge Díaz Cintas, Pablo Muñoz Sánchez, ‘Fansubs: Audiovisual Translation in an Amateur Environment,’ The Journal of Specialized Translation, Issue 06, accessed at https://www.jostrans.org/issue06/art_diaz_munoz.php, on 02/26/2018
6. Jorge Díaz Cintas, Pablo Muñoz Sánchez, ‘Fansubs: Audiovisual Translation in an Amateur Environment,’ The Journal of Specialized Translation, Issue 06, accessed at https://www.jostrans.org/issue06/art_diaz_munoz.php, on 02/26/2018
7. Ibid.
8. Chris,’That She Blows: One Manga Signs Off’, Project Haruhi, accessed at https://www.projectharuhi.net/?p=4129, on 03/01/2018
9. Gino Diño, ‘Arrested for Translation: Japan Detains Five Chinese Nationals or Pirate Translation,’ 02/06/2018, Slator, accessed at https://slator.com/industry-news/arrested-for-translation-japan-detains-five-chinese-nationals-for-pirate-translation/, on 02/26/2018
10. Nick Forbes, ‘Guest Editorial’, Dear Manga, You Are Broken,’ MangaBlog, Manga Bookshelf, accessed at https://mangablog.mangabookshelf.com/2010/03/26/guest-editorial-dear-manga-you-are-broken/ on 03/01/2018
11. Patrick Macias, ‘Fans lift J-culture over language barrier,’ The Japan Times, accessed at https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2006/09/07/culture/fans-lift-j-culture-over-language-barrier/#.Wpg3IhPFLXS, on 03/01/2018