___I'd like to take a moment to express some current concerns of mine. These concerns deal with the amazing world of Japanese Animation, or more simply, anime. Anime is native to Japan and therefore it can be difficult to get a hold of for people who do not speak Japanese or live in Japan. As a movement of cultural enrichment, I believe that anime should be experienced by non-japanese people and in general, people who are not aware of anime. Of course, besides enriching our culture, I also want more anime to be experienced in America and other countries other than Japan because it is such an amazing media. At least in my opinion, anime is the greatest and most succesful form of animation across the world that I have experienced, far superior to animation I have seen in America. Anime spans the huge multiple chasm known as the genre by providing anime in every form you could possibly imagine, therefore allowing for an enjoyable viewing experience by virtually any kind of person. Anime ranges from futuristic-yet-frighteningly-realistic sci-fi adventures to epic historical voyages of famous or fictitous explorers, from wacky comedies to heart-wrenching dramas, from incredibly unreal or fantastic stories to various tales of everyday life; anime has all this and everything in between, with countless mixtures of these genre that just seem to work.

___Like all media presented in a different language, anime has to be translated in order to reach people who do not understand the Japanese language. Of course, one always has the choice of learning Japanese and experiencing anime in its truest form(the path I have chosen), but this is too much of a task for casual fans. Therefore, anime must be translated. Therein lies the problem I wish to confront. Translated anime comes in two main forms, either dubbed or subtitled. An anime feature can be dubbed in another language(so the new language is heard), or it can simply be given subtitles of a different language to provide a guide as to what's being said. The problem with many dubs that make it to the American television screen is one of editing. In order to adapt to "America's strict guidelines," anime on television in America is consistently "hacked apart and dummed down for the audiences." (Certainly this is not always the case and represents the few extremes, but I feel it is necessary to regard these cases as they are most in need of help and are often followed as examples.) I can understand various reasons for the restriction of certain offensive material such as nudity, sexual situations, extreme language, and intense violence, but there are a number of problems concerned with this. First of all, anime that makes it to US TV is too often taken as a typical children's cartoon, and therefore the intended audience is younger than perhaps it should be. Numerous examples exist within the first two seasons of American Dragon Ball Z. All mention of death is removed and anything that is killed is instead "sent to another dimension." I don't know why we have to keep the public or even America's children from hearing about death. It happens. And by taking it away from Dragon Ball Z, DBZ is reduced to a truly lifeless and emotionless fighting show. Another problem which should not exist but can be seen in way too many examples is the editing of material or cutting of scenes that have nothing to do with offensive material. A lot of this occurs due to "time restrictions" when adapting a series' run to television. I believe this to be just ridiculous. Too many times is an essential scene or crucial plot point eliminated for time.

___One possible cure for the "editing massacre" is producing an uncut version of a show that is significantly altered on TV to be released on video. Luckily, this is becoming more common. There are still problems to be found, however, these problems are hopefully too small to inhibit those who want to watch anime in English. These problems mainly deal with the "Americanization" of anime. Most more serious fans (such as myself), enjoy the "Japanese flavor" of anime, including the original Japanese voices as well as the sound of the Japanese language itself, the music and sound effects which are sometimes changed in dubs, and the cultural influence through what is being said(japanese customs, phrases, attitudes...). This last item may be the most important, since many dubs will change various jokes and lines of dialogue and replace them with something that Americans can recognize. A subtitled anime feature mantains all the flavor of the original Japanese series, given that the subtitles are accurate. Which brings me to another problem, the problem that I feel is most important.

___If you live in Japan and understand the Japanese language, you can watch anime. If you do not live in Japan and do not understand Japanese, you have a choice. (1) you can be satisfied with the low variety of hacked-up and censored anime on TV; or if you are more serious, you can (2) look for uncut videos or videos of series that are not shown on TV and are not heavily edited. If you still want to experience more of the Japanese influence, you'll have to turn to the subtitled videos. Your choices are; (3) commercially released subtitled videos, or (4) locally and privately released fansubs (videos subtitled by fans, for fans), which are often regarded as immoral and even illegal. The problem is that sometimes a company which owns the rights to an anime series never subtitles it, and therefore the sub option is gone. That's where the fansubs come in. I find nothing illegal or immoral about this. In fact, in an act of morality, many fansub distributors will stop distributing fansubs when a commercial sub of the same series is released.

___The remaining problem is that with only one version of each subtitled tape out there, there's no way to tell how accurate the subtitling job is unless you know Japanese, but then you can just watch the original Japanese version anyway. I believe translation to be an art, rather than a method. True enough, there is no correct translation between two languages. Therefore, I'd like to see a world in which anyone can try their hand at translating a Japanese masterpiece of anime and then share their work with others if it is significantly special. Then, various subtitling groups can gain popularity for good subtitling jobs, rather than giving the job to just one company who can do it anyway they please. To put it simply, I believe in a world of choice, a world where people have the choice of which subtitling job they would like to experience. In this way, I think fansubs should not be considered illegal, and I wish that more people would feel free to share their own skills of translating. Of course, many people would say that if you love anime so much, why don't you just learn the language already. And that is precisely what I aim to do. However, should I be denied the true anime experience until I learn the language? That's a kick in the face for cultural enrichment. What about all the people out there who may love anime and want to see it in its original, Japanese form while still being able to understand it that don't have the time to learn Japanese? What about all the people who have tried to learn Japanese but just couldn't make it? Until this country focuses more on learning and teaching about other cultures, it is up to the few who can expand their cultural horizons to help the rest of us experience these new cultures, without the experience being edited to our own culture's standards.

___So that's what I wanted to say. (I hope I haven't exceeded my time limit!!!) If you, the reader, find any of this to be wrong or misinformed, then by all means, drop me an e-mail and straighten me out. If you have a website that promotes any of the ideas I have presented above, then notify me and I'd be happy to allow consideration of your site to be put with those below. Otherwise, if you agree with me, are interested, or just want to hear more, check out the sites below. If you want to participate in the movement, the first step would be to join SOSE (Save Our Subtitled Episodes).

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