Engaged in Translation: Fandom Production in The Latin America’s Anime Community of Syncrajo. MKVM13: Media and Communication Studies: Master’s Thesis. 2021 Faculty of Social Science, Lund University Author – Emilio González González Pliego Supervisor: Tobias Linne Examiner: Annette Hill [email protected] Word Count (21,187) Abstract Fansub (Fan-subtitled) is the term coined after the action of subtitling a foreign audio-visual production. Fansubs started being studied after the phenomenon started gaining popularity within communities of anime fans. That used them as a way of access to the products they desire to consume. Creating different opinions that range as a way of going against the “top- down corporate-driven process (using) a bottom-up consumer-driven process” (Jenkins, 2004, p.37) to remarks against their legality, as they modify and distribute a copyrighted work for free. The majority of the studies made around fansub culture revolve around the experience of anime, and until recently started researching different kinds of media, like videogames, news videos, webpages and more. Even with the existence of these studies, few researchers focus on the motifs of the fansubbers (fans that do subtitles) to start doing them. This thesis will focus on studying how the members of these groups get engaged with a product to start doing free labour using the theory of Spectrum of engagement of Hill (2019). Also interesting to this thesis. Will be the idea of appropriation to understand if the fansub does something beyond the translation to take ownership of the product fansubs re-distribute. In the last years, there has been a decrease of active fansubs, as new legal and accessible ways to get the content had been made available. This thesis argues on how analysing the engagement of the different members of the anime community Syncrajo, this will help understand the motifs and reasons behind them for becoming a member. Passing from consumers to producers, and how all of this process in an engagement process that will also deal with the disengagement of the fans. A factor for the decrease of fansub communities specialized in anime. Key Words: Fansubs, Free Labour, Prosumers, Co-Creation, Engagement, Disengagement. 1 Acknowledgements: I would like to give thanks to all the people that made this thesis possible, not only with their guidance and collaboration but also with their support: First, I would like to thank my interviewees, that were an amazing and incredible team of people, that not only helped in this research but that also entertained me in my teens, this thesis would not have happened if it were not for them. Special thanks to Kulco and Max. I would also express my gratitude to my family for being there at all moments, for listening to my ideas even if the distance was a problem. To my corridor mates, Esra, Rajeev, Dedy, Hugo, Valeriya, Jesús, and Edward, you guys became my family here and I would like to thank you for all the good moments and support you gave me. To my friend Mert that took his time to check my thesis and gave me ideas. Nouman with all those endless nights of working on our own thesis. Special thanks to Tobias Linne, you were an amazing supervisor, that guided me through the ideas I had. To Alejandra, Erik & Alejandro for the amazing support all the time, and for all the people that I met at Lund and listened to me whenever I had doubts or eureka moments. And lastly to the people that were not involved in the process but that helped me by giving me laughs and comfort, this thesis is for all of you. 2 Table of contents Introduction. ............................................................................................................................... 5 Aims and research questions. ..................................................................................................... 8 Literature Review. ...................................................................................................................... 9 What are fansubs? ...................................................................................................................... 9 Translation and Subtitling: differences between professional and amateur translators. ........ 11 Adapting or Subtitling ............................................................................................................... 12 Transnationalism: Japaneseness as a pull effect for anime fansubbing. .................................. 15 Power Relations. ....................................................................................................................... 18 Methodology and Method. ...................................................................................................... 20 Sampling. ................................................................................................................................... 21 Reflection on the method. ........................................................................................................ 23 Engaged in Translation. ............................................................................................................ 25 Getting Engaged: The first contact with anime......................................................................... 25 Positive and negative engagement. .......................................................................................... 27 From consumers to producers. ................................................................................................. 29 Places of engagement ............................................................................................................... 30 Fan Labour. ................................................................................................................................ 31 It’s all about offering quality. .................................................................................................... 35 Transnationalism. ...................................................................................................................... 39 Power Relations. ....................................................................................................................... 42 Hierarchies in fansubs. .............................................................................................................. 44 Disengagement. ........................................................................................................................ 45 Conclusion. ................................................................................................................................ 48 The extinction of anime fansubs. .............................................................................................. 51 External Factors. ........................................................................................................................ 51 Internal Factors. ........................................................................................................................ 53 “It doesn’t make sense anymore”. ............................................................................................ 54 The Future of Fansubbing Anime .............................................................................................. 55 Final Thoughts. .......................................................................................................................... 56 3 Further Research. ...................................................................................................................... 57 References: ............................................................................................................................... 59 Appendix. .................................................................................................................................. 63 Consent Form. ........................................................................................................................... 63 Interview Guide. ........................................................................................................................ 64 Changes on the interview questionary. .................................................................................... 65 Colour Coding. ........................................................................................................................... 68 Profiles of the interviewees to understand the coding patterns. ............................................. 69 Example of the excel coding. ..................................................................................................... 70 Interview example. .................................................................................................................... 71 Image examples ...................................................................................................................... 102 4 Introduction. “I did watch Elfen Lied but I loved it so much it made me feel so many things, like getting excited, even crying, it made me feel so much. That was what pushed me to continue watching Anime, the idea that I wanted to experience the same things with another series” – Kulco - Translator. The moon was shining so beautiful - “Hey! wait, it looks terrible” - I said to myself. I check the pixels per frame, and a dreadful number appears 480i. I see more pixels than I am supposed to see. I sigh in frustration. I would typically watch anime on YouTube, but this one is from