Who fansubbed Lupin III in 1986?

[mbanu]

I see mentions to this being the very first recorded fansub -- according to James Renault, Roy Black of the Blacksburg, VA chapter of C/FO got his hands on an Nth generation copy and sent one to the Rising Sun chapter in Japan where he saw it. However, in the stories I've read, nobody knows who the original fansubber is... did anyone ever track it down?

Also, does anyone know how it was ID'ed as a fansub? It's said that it had been genlocked with a Commodore Amiga -- is there something distinctive about Amiga tapes that makes them identifiable over commercial shows of the era even through multiple copies?

[SteveH]

I see mentions to this being the very first recorded fansub -- according to James Renault, Roy Black of the Blacksburg, VA chapter of C/FO got his hands on an Nth generation copy and sent one to the Rising Sun chapter in Japan where he saw it. However, in the stories I've read, nobody knows who the original fansubber is... did anyone ever track it down?

Also, does anyone know how it was ID'ed as a fansub? It's said that it had been genlocked with a Commodore Amiga -- is there something distinctive about Amiga tapes that makes them identifiable over commercial shows of the era even through multiple copies?

Need to be more specific. Which Lupin III? Series? Movies?

I can tell you that C/Fo had a subtitled copy of Castle of Cagliostro, this was an 'international' print sourced by Toho (who had the international rights to a whole bunch of stuff) in theory obtained via film chain transfer when TMS loaned film prints to the C/Fo for viewing (may have been tied to early '80s SDCC 'little Tokyo' outreach efforts, where the C/Fo convinced various retailers to group together. You could do that at SDCC back then. )

[davemerrill]

the first fansub I remember seeing was a fansub of the Macross movie, in 1985, which was created using the facilities at a public television station (or so the story goes).

Haven't seen or heard from Roy Black in years! Hope the Blacksburg crew is doing OK.

[mbanu]

Need to be more specific. Which Lupin III? Series? Movies?

I think it was an episode -- the details are a little sparse, as they are from a 2003 phone interview with C/FO Rising Sun's James Renault that was used for a 2005 paper on the early history of anime tape trading, Sean Leonard's "Celebrating Two Decades of Unlawful Progress": https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.c ... 02&mirid=1

The very first known fansub was reported from C/FO Rising Sun in 1986, sent to the chapter by the late Roy Black of C/FO Virginia in Blacksburg. Though the picture quality had been completely bled out, the tape represented the first faltering steps of a revolutionary leap: for the first time, a fan could watch an episode and fully understand what was going on.

Black sent C/FO Rising Sun a third-generation copy of a fourth or fifth generation copy of a Lupin III episode that someone had genlocked with a Commodore Amiga and had subtitled, scene by scene. The technology to fansub was extremely expensive for an average fan (on the order of $4000 in 1986); the time commitment per episode was over one hundred hours. Renault nevertheless was "blown away at somebody having that level of patience. It was kind of like giving the caveman fire. It was just now that we have it, we have to figure out how we're going to put it to use."

[davemerrill]

here's what Carl Horn posted in my LJ back in 2010, during a discussion of early fansubs:

I had ass-u-me-d that the fansub of Macross: Do You Remember Love was done in 1986, because I first saw it at BayCon '86, being sold in the dealers' room. But that doesn't mean it couldn't have actually been made the previous year, which is when Dave recalls seeing it. My own first fansub was done in 1987, on an Amiga.

Macross, by contrast, was done in a rented A/V studio (that's why it was sold--to recoup costs, although this was regarded as controversial), but I think the essence of "fansub" is that it was done by fans without permission, rather than what equipment was used. For example, although the vast majority of fansubs have been done on home computers, a few early ones (such as Area 88) were done using dedicated titling hardware devices.

My recollection of seeing the subtitled Macross film was that it was screened at one of the first meetings of C/FO Atlanta, which would have placed it in the fall of 1985, in the meeting room of a bank branch located on Clairmont Rd. Deidre Messerschmidt showed up and gifted us a stack of issues of the national C/FO magazine, which we then photocopied the heck out of (she was moving to Japan & was unloading stuff).

[davemerrill]

BTW thanks for the link to the paper, it's entertaining reading, and the pseudonyms ("James Renault") are amusing. I wonder if "James Renault" is ever going to get his convention started back up again...

[mbanu]

the first fansub I remember seeing was a fansub of the Macross movie, in 1985, which was created using the facilities at a public television station (or so the story goes).

That's amazing!! I haven't had much luck finding out about pre-Amiga fansubs; I guess that would make the Macross movie the very first?

A bit of digging suggests that the first genlock-capable Amiga was from early 1987... if that date is right, then the Lupin tape couldn't have been from an Amiga fansubber; it would have to have been from someone using studio equipment like the Macross movie fansub.

[davemerrill]

I will say, though, that any article about fansubbing that fails to mention "Operator 7-G" and his work on titles like Project A-Ko, Be Forever Yamato, etc... well, it's just incomplete, is what it is.

[davemerrill]

the first fansub I remember seeing was a fansub of the Macross movie, in 1985, which was created using the facilities at a public television station (or so the story goes).

That's amazing!! I haven't had much luck finding out about pre-Amiga fansubs; I guess that would make the Macross movie the very first?

A bit of digging suggests that the first genlock-capable Amiga was from early 1987... if that date is right, then the Lupin tape couldn't have been from an Amiga fansubber; it would have to have been from someone using studio equipment like the Macross movie fansub.

The Amiga really opened the field up for fan subtitling, but fan-subtitling does predate the Amiga, at least in this case.
If there's an earlier fansub than the Macross movie, I haven't nailed it down. I'd be interested in locating it myself. Might have to poke some old fans via email and see what they remember.

[mbanu]

I will say, though, that any article about fansubbing that fails to mention "Operator 7-G" and his work on titles like Project A-Ko, Be Forever Yamato, etc... well, it's just incomplete, is what it is.

Contacting him was likely a bit tricky back then, as he hasn't gone by that nickname in a long time. Fortunately, the search capacities of the internet are a little more robust now. (^_^) It looks like he now goes by "Spittledung" online, at least according to this 2003 post to the Perry Rhodan mailing list (the "I'm witty naturally. I don't need quotes!" sig is the same from Usenet days):

It is a shame what happened with Japanese anime cannot happen
here. I remember being an anime fan in the 1980s and the
Japanese companies had absolutely no intention of selling in the
USA. Why sell there when we make enough money in our own
country? Then the Japanese economy collapsed and the anime
studios said "You mean we can sell all these Gundam and anime
toys we have taking up space in our warehouse in another country?
Sign us up for that!" That, videogames, and a widespread
distribution of items allowed that to happen.

Ironically, it may take the fall and cancellation of Perry Rhodan in
Germany (like what has happened to Star Trek here) before VPM
will start thinking about drilling for a customer base in the USA.

--
Domo. Ja na.

Brandon Freels
brandon@...
ICQ# 2695168, AIM, Yahoo!, MSN: Spittledung
"I'm witty naturally. I don't need quotes!"

GOLEM Web Slab:
http://www.rhinoventures.com/golem/

(https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/per ... ssages/356)
The GOLEM Web Slab game website is still up, and he seems to post semi-regularly on board game forums.