Thursday, May 31, 2007

• Look upon my works, and despair, for you shall never get them! So says Odex.

  The unthinkable has happened. Odex, working together with AVPAS , has sued a fellow member of the anime community. The poor guy probably fainted after reading this.
  
  Photo taken from http://www.darkmirage.com/. All credit for editing the letter goes to him. For the original letter, go to Riuva.
  
  
  
  

  This is bad news for the Singapore anime community. We live, breathe and eat fansubs. Fansubs are the driving force behind the growing Singapore anime market. It is through them that fans like us (aka people who are willing to fork out money to buy ridiculously expansive merchandise), know what to buy.

  Fansubs introduces us to notable series out there, and helps create awareness for the series. Do you think I would be buying Shakugan no Shana and Suzumiya Haruhi novels if it weren’t for fansubs? No, of course not. I won’t even know they exist, let alone go out of my way to save up money to buy them. By try to catch anime downloaders, Odex is shooting themselves in the foot.

   

  And anyway, how did a private company like Odex get information on that unfortunate individual anyway? Don’t they have to go through the court or something? And what about our ISPs protecting our privacy? I am not too clear on the law system of Singapore, so I am unable to really talk about it. But something about a private company having this much power just doesn’t seem right.

  And talking about Odex, they don’t seem to be making any effort to engage the anime community here. Sure, they are saying that they are trying to improve, but I don’t see that happening. According to forums, the quality of Odex’s subs remain as bad as ever. Since I have a workable understanding of spoken Japanese, I can tell just how off the subs are. Sometimes they don’t even get the spelling and grammar right!

   

  Furthermore, Odex releases anime in VCDs. Who the hell releases stuff in VCDs these days? The only place anime should be released in is DVDs [DVD>>>>VCD]. Actually, I won’t mind much if they release it in VCD, but the horrible box covers of both the VCDs and DVD just puts me off. They could have done so much better, but no, they don’t.

   

  Yes, I do know Odex released Shakugan no Shana in DVD format, but the box art still sucks, and I’ll bet that they don’t have Shakugan no Shanatan as bonus material in there. So there. We demand bonus material in DVDs.

  Damn.

   

  Anyone willing to join me in boycotting Odex till they release something of an acceptable standard?
  

  • 12:24 PM
  • 2 eprops
  • 1 comment