J‐Zine First Edition October 2008 www.Fansub.TV CONTENTS 3 Behind the Scenes of an Anime Site 5 Code Geass Lelouch of 3 Behind the Scenes of an Anime 20 Hachimitsu to Kuroba the Rebellion R2 Site 7 Macross Frontier 9 Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu 11 Allison and Lillia 13 World Destruction 15 Kaiba 16 Kurenai 17 Anime Previews 20 Hachimitsu to Kuroba 22 FLOW 23 Okawari! CREDITS Management Project leaders Noshi, monsta666, Dragon-of-Rune Editorial Editors chiisai_hana, ImTakes, monsta666 Design editor Maiku_Ando Front cover 5 Code Geass Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 Dragon-of-Rune Staff writers Kit-Tsukasa, monsta666, Nahrallah, biankita, Noshi, labk1ta Pictures oppai-ga-suki, monsta666 Thanks to hamasusuke 22 Flow 23 Okawari! ONE‐ON‐ONE Fansub.TV Behind the Scenes of an Anime Site Interview by: Stan (aka Daft) found himself faced “I gave the link to a few of my with both the need to satisfy his friends so they could easily get appetite for anime and a wish for a anime too, made one post convenient way of gathering new Nahrallah material to watch. about it somewhere (which got appropriately deleted as spam He decided to find a creative solution. within like 5 minutes), and The fact that his university blocked that was it for promotion. That's pretty much how FTV BitTorrent traffic was not about to Some people view anime as an disrupt this dedicated anime fan’s started.” addiction. Sometimes it can be a type of supply. As a work around for what was, creative inspiration. It could be said that to Stan, a minor obstacle presented by From these humble beginnings, a both these factors were behind the his university, he created what would dynamic community of almost 120,000 creation of the anime site Fansub.TV. eventually become a very popular members developed. There are now anime network. A bit of code, a 23,000 daily visitors and members from the United States, Canada, Malaysia, Profile: database, and a webpage to interface with the system saw the birth of what United Kingdom, Singapore, Germany, would later be known as Fansub.TV: Japan, Philippines, Australia, Poland, just to name the most common ten Daft27 “After I wrote the thing to countries: download stuff automatically, I put up a small page so I “We get about 5 million page could access my files in a quick views (with over 3 million and easy way. I registered separate requests to servers a day) and transfer around Name: Daft fansub.tv, and boom.” 40,000 gb of data a month … Age: 22 The site was launched in October 2004. there are currently 12 Sex: M When reflecting on the first iteration of different servers that run Location: Washington D.C. the site, Stan stated that he never fansub.tv and its related Blood Type: AB realised that it would become so services, and it has lived over popular. In fact, he saw it more as 20 different servers so far … Favorite Anime / Game: something he could use as “an we have over 1.2 million The one I’m working on experimentation ground”. images for screenshots … all of Favorite Sweets: this for over 400,000 visitors a French vanilla ice cream, crème To begin with, news of his new site was month.” brûlée spread by personal recommendations: Wages in ice cream: One a month 3 Fansub.TV has moved far from the Effectively, the development of “It's all possible because small site that originally only advertised Fansub.TV has always been a process there's a community behind by word of mouth. of continual enhancements. Although fansub.tv. Even though there incremental improvements have been are like 50+ people with At the core of Fansub.TV is its an ongoing focus, there have been a sempai / staff status, I know I members and general users. All features number of particularly significant can trust all of them to do of the site have evolved with usability additions to Fansub.TV. what they think is right.” and the changing needs of this group as a main focus. Although Stan himself Chuukurai and the Koushin scheduler, As far as Stan is concerned, it is the did not originally wish for the site to the code for which developed from community which gives Fansub.TV its host a forum, he responded to the experimentation with P2P related “flavour and life”. He hopes to expand request for one. Alpha Test Phase 2 saw concepts, would have to be two that had this community and, in the future, the introduction of Fansub.TV’s forum. the most considerable impact for the integrate it with others: Both experimentation and innovation users. have been at the heart of the philosophy “I see it as part of a bigger that has driven Fansub.TV from its first Chuukurai was an original solution collection of sites. As some sort beginnings: created to provide a simple and of unified community across effective method of downloading in the multiple sites that serve “If this is our alpha, can you form of a Java applet. The Koushin different purposes and needs.” imagine what our beta is going scheduler was another Java applet be like? Dream big, take risks, which allows users to schedule anime Created to support a love for anime, and have fun. downloads by subscribing to series and built on dreams and sustained by a Fansub.TV” thereby conveniently automatically dedicated community, Fansub.TV has downloading new releases. Stan stood the test of time. Popular though it himself, however, views the episode is, Stan does not yet see his creation as screenshot engine as a particularly complete: important development: “I'd like to just polish what we “I think one of the most have at the moment. It's still significant additions to rough around the edges. It's Fansub.TV is the ESE, or getting better, but it still has a “episode screenshot engine”. It long way to go towards a gives FTV its characteristic finished product.” front-page look. … The screenshot thing actually came Change is something that Stan openly to me in my sleep. … It pretty embraces. He has never been afraid to much takes the episode and experiment with new features and decodes the episode frame-by- encourage people to become involved frame then it uses the frame in various projects. In fact, this very data to produce screenshots at webzine is an example of one of the regular intervals ... ~50-60 per latest Fansub.TV community projects. standard length episode.” With blogs, guides, manga and karaoke advertised as future features, the While these additions are important for Fansub.TV community has a number of Fansub.TV, Stan would like user- new additions to look forward to. It generated content to be a key aspect: would appear that the future will continue to bring interesting developments to Fansub.TV. 4 With the removal of Lelouch’s Kit’s Anime Throughout the first half of the primary opponent in episode 21, season, fans may recognize many are wondering how Reviews several parallel episodes or plot Sunrise will carry the show to its lines from season one. Although end. With Lelouch’s main By: this is Sunrise’s typical method concern supposedly removed of recycling, the company’s from the series, some new and ability to properly make use of reasonable plot line will be the reused plot, unlike in needed for the final episodes in Kit Tsukasa Gundam Seed Destiny, prevents order for the series to truly losing the viewer’s attention. redeem itself for the fans who waited for this second season Unfortunately, as many viewers since last July. Plot score: 9/10. have already noticed, the series (Be Warned of Possible Spoiler has suddenly started emphasizing The art is no different from R1, Material) the supernatural genre more. For with CLAMP still producing the NOTES TO READERS: These some, this has the effect of character designs as well as the are ALL ONGOING Series, making the series less realistic, rest of the show’s artwork, meaning they have not yet resulting in R2 being less including the mecha designs, finished and reviews may not entertaining. In addition, many sceneries, and backgrounds. necessarily match comments have commented that the series There is really no need to and criticism of what happens has recently begun to rush the comment on the magnificent later or at the end of the series. plot. Those who recently work of CLAMP. If there are any watched episodes 18 through 21 concerns, it’s with the animation, Code Geass: Lelouch might find the series heading though on the whole it hasn’t towards a train wreck ending as been extremely bad. So far, only of the Rebellion R2: the elimination and omission of episode 20 has shown signs of significant characters intensifies. diminished quality. The sequel takes place one year after the events of R1’s final episode. New viewers of R2 will be completely clueless as a recap of the aftermath of R1 does not occur until the second episode. Nevertheless, the story has magnificent pacing for the first half of the second season. Each episode ends with a cliffhanger, using suspense to keep the audience coming back for new episodes. 5 Other than that, animation has series. There are speculations of Where Code Geass does succeed been rather superb and consistent a third opening like R1, but it is is in its ability to keep viewers and with HD viewing it only highly doubtful at this point as glued to their seats.