If Anime Matsuri wants to start its own dubbing studio because of this mess and is actually succeeding at it, it brings a smile to my face. if the OP to this thread helped that in some way, well, maybe it did maybe it didn't. But I'd like to think it did.
I don't think I ever mentioned what brought me to write it, so I may as well mention it now. For 15 months I had to spend time in a little shithole called Iraq, on a small fire position protected by sandbagged HESCO barriers. No internet, no TV, and lots and lots of long 12 hour on duty shifts followed by 12 hours off. On those 12 hours off, I was blessed by "the Hajji Movie".
Hajji Movies, were the catchall term we gave to pirated DVD's. On the main FOB's, division command would allow locals, almost always Iraqi Christians, to sell various things. Including pirated movies. Lets just say the US Army in a combat environment gave not one solitary shit about the DMCA. And what were these Iraqi's selling? Well, they were selling pirated movies, of course. But a shitty hidden camera capture of the newest release. They were always shit.
But the Animes, well, that was where the real joy was. Because you could get entire seasons of everything from Naruto to Wolfs Rain. Not individual episodes. Oh no. The ENTIRE show. Hours and hours and hours. And unlike the shitty pirate movie, these were true too form rips. The source? Without fail, they were are ALL fan subs. Which is why incidentally I am Sub > Dub. What was always funny to my younger self as I set my rifle up against the bunk and busted my laptop out of my rucksack to put in the next episode of Naruto was that at the start of each episode it would say something like "fan subtitled by Fairypixie2541" not for resale. Guess the Iraqi's ignored that part. They charged me 20 bucks for this!
It was also clear to me that there was a pretty dedicated fandom around these things, and, working in the military I could respect the level of translation quality as well. It was also such a moral boost. So this drama was offensive to me on two levels. While I am far from an Anime fanatic per se, I can respect the medium. And I also feel I owed those nameless fan translators something,. Because the second thing that offended me was when I dug into this drama I came across the parts about "selective translation" of the original works. And that was something that really offended me.
I didn't come across this until Nick Rekieta brought it up, because my autism is generally focused on legal matters and culture war stuff. But once I was told about it, I read into it, and then decided I needed to write out a full brief like I did back when I was in Iraq. I guess you could say I was "triggered". It took me two days of research and writing, and then the Mods told me the OP was shit, and it took me another two weeks. Parts of which I am sure are also hidden from my memory in a drunken haze.
I am still amazed that this thread is still going years later. And I hope Vic gets his justice. Guess its a testament to a crazy fanbase that would go to the trouble of translating (in subtitles) 9 seasons of Naruto, and do such a good job that Iraqis would pirate their work and sell it to US soldiers for 20 dollars in a box DVD set.