I recently learned of a way of procuring Anime called fan-subbing. Fan-subbed Anime is available for download at many different sites, and it is an excellent way of getting Anime that normally wouldn’t be available in America.

Fan-subbing is a process done most often by people with good video software and either a knowledge of the japanese language or a dictionary and WAY too much free time. Fan-subbing consists of using a video editor to convert the video to .avi format, where it can then be edited and viewed on a cocmputer. The person then uses a video editor to add subtitles to the show, thus showing where the name Fansubs comes from. Fan- people who enjoy anime, and sub- Subtitles. In this way, Anime only released in Japan can be made available to people in America without needing to know how to speak Japanese.

Note that unless you find less reputable sites, you’ll never be able to download anything that has been licensed by an American company. Why? Because once it’s licensed, the download of the fan-subbed version is illegal to have, since a local company owns the rights to it. Therefore, most fansub hosting sites will remove said licensed series immediately. This isn’t to say that the download of the unlicensed is any more legal, it’s just that since it isn’t available for purchase in the U.S., the companies don’t pursue them as often.

How does one get these fan-subbed anime? The most common way of downloading them is called “BitTorrent,” a platform for downloading large files over the internet. On the net, there are numerous sites called “trackers” that host torrent files, which allow you to begin the download. In order to use BitTorrent, you must download the BitTorrent client. It is available at the BitTorrent Homepage.

As always, feel free to post comments. Until next time…