Fansub chain-mail?

The roughly mid-90's and earlier (generally pre-Toonami, pre-anime boom) era of anime & manga fandom: early cons, clubs, tape trading, Nth Generation VHS fansubs, old magazines & fanzines, fandubs, ancient merchandise, rec.arts.anime, and more!
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mbanu
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Fansub chain-mail?

Post by mbanu »

Was catching up on the Anime Origin Stories project, and noticed this reference:
Ian wrote:When I was in middle school, a friend of mine from a few houses down the street (name omitted by request) acquired a VHS tape and some photocopied papers with a script printed on them. He invited me over, because I was better and faster at reading than he was. Between myself, and the few friends that gathered, we watched Ranma 1/2 each taking turns reading the script out loud as we watched the show in its original Japanese language. We got tapes mailed to us, and each box came with scripts for some, and they always contained a piece of paper with the name and address of the next person we were mailing them to. These were not even fansubs, and they had commercials from early 1990s Japanese television stations during the episodes.
(http://www.animeoriginstories.com/95-ian/)

This is the first time I've heard of tapes being moved along a mail-chain rather than being permanently traded; was this practice very common? What groups were doing it?
mbanu: What's between Old School and New School?
runesaint: Hmmm. "Middle School", perhaps?
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usamimi
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Re: Fansub chain-mail?

Post by usamimi »

I hadn't heard about this before...The chain mail part, I should say. Every time I got fansubs they where fir me to keep forever lol. I'd be curious to hear if anyone here participated in something like this tho!
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Drew_Sutton
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Re: Fansub chain-mail?

Post by Drew_Sutton »

I don't recall ever hearing about chain-letters + fansubs before either. When I got fansub (tapes), they were part of an exchange, favor or request (send me $5 + Tape + SASE) and I intended to keep my copies. When I duplicated copies, I never stuck a letter in that said, "Hey, watch these cool toons then send it on to 125 Maple Street, Anytown, USA". I wonder if something like this wasn't necessarily a fansub group project or activity but some club or C/FO chapter's thing. I'll admit, it seems like an interesting way to boost new membership if you're just randomly sending tapes and scripts via chain letter (all the while hoping those tapes don't disappear or find a new home in a dumpster).
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