I haven't seen them do anything lately, but kaa is cool, it amazes me how much they've subbed.

KAA is great for old shows but sometimes they use awful, awful, awful font selections. I've seen shows from them done in Comic Sans.

Too many of the groups around just troll in the subs. This can mean outright changes or just subtle word play to make it funny. I think it's stupid. When I was young and to get anime you had to download a million chunks off Usenet, people took it way more seriously...

>>2487
I think the problem is people have an audience for trolling now. If you pulled that stuff when the majority of western anime discussion on the Internet was centered in AnimeSuki, Boxtorrents, ANN, etc. you would've been called out. Now with /a/, and people that'll support trolling in subs, they can get away with it.

>>2489
To be honest, I really couldn't care less as long as the meme/joke/troll subs are kept out from serious anime. I mean, with stuff like Kampfer, it honestly fits in line with how ridiculous/stupid the plot is.

If I'm not mistaken, KAA just uploads American DVD-rips. I don't think you'll ever see them upload any show as they're running for that reason, or use any other font than the one colored bright yellow. I.e. I believe they're not a fansubbing group per definition.

>>2495
Yeah, I don't think they do any actual subbing themselves.

>>2495
>or use any other font than the one colored bright yellow
I don't think I've ever seen a kaa release with the ugly bright yellow dvd subs, I'd say their subs look very good, and if and when they do use colors, they usefully match the characters specking, and don't stand out to much.

It might be true they don't sub anything that's currently airing, but what's the point in doing so when we already have five sub groups per anime that's airing in any given season?
you might have to wait a bit for it, but dvd versions are almost always much better quality then tv versions, but not always do sub groups that subed the anime as it was airing will turn around and sub the dvd, or blu-ray versions.
also, much of what they subbed, as it's mostly older anime, is hard to find subbed by other groups now.

I figured I might as well whip up some quick proof of their quality subs from some of their stuff I had laying around.

As a final nail in the coffin - you'll see no word of subbing in their forum, or tracker site for that matter. They have a section for encoding, so there's that - they encode stuff. Seeing how they run their own trackers they also upload stuff. In conclusion: they encode and upload stuff.

As for the topic: I perhaps enjoyd Frostii the most out of the bunch while I still enjoyed anime. They didn't provide me with the most releases, but they were fairly frequent in releasing episodes from their on-going projects; though not the fastest. It was the quality, and consistency thereof, of their work and community that I took a liking to. They didn't spew out memes or hate when updating, kept things clean in the releases, and provided highest achievable resolution for those who could spare the bandwidth/disc space. Of which calls for a seal anonymous recommendation..

>>2497
Okay, I stand corrected as far as the font selection goes. My experiences only went so far chronologically.

>but what's the point in doing so when we already have five sub groups per anime that's airing in any given season?
That might very well hold true in your opinion, but might I add that this isn't a very healthy form of opinion when it comes to acknowledging the works of actual fansubbers? The community is enough so in disarray as is (the very reason why the various groups can't seem to distribute the workloads evenly for the life of them). There will always be encoders around willing to upload their stuff, but actual translators might very well disappear should the pay-off minimize any further. Now I don't mean to marginalize the work the KAA-group did, but as the fansubbing community grew, the market for a profiled encoding group kinda vanished.

>>2499
how can they expect good pay-off when they ignore what other groups are doing and sub what's most popular regardless of how many groups are already taking care of it?
I have little respect for subgroups that do this, because at that point, it's not for the community, it's for their ego, they sub the most popular stuff to get their name out there, for recognition.
Seriously, if you see another perfectly capable group already has a show taken care of, why re-sub it?
Every season that are handfuls of anime that don't get subbed, because of just this, because of everyone not spreading out like they should and all working on the same thing.
The sub groups I respect are the ones the ones who truly do it for the community, not for fame, the guys that sub anime most people might not know about, the shows each season in the shadows that go overlooked by most, the shows no one else wants to sub, they are the ones I admire.

*WARNING - ANOTHER INTERNET RANT INCOMING; LOOK AWAY WHILE YOU CAN*

>>2500
See, this is what I was talking about. I'm not going to stamp you as ignorant just yet, but you have to know that it's a bit more complicated than what you make believe. Wouldn't it be great if anime was just like a piece of cake? One group politely takes the first slice, the next one settles for the next evenly sized slice, and so let it go until the cake is but eaten up and shared with the community. No foulness whatsoever. Yeah that would be great. Reality however is a bit more complicated than eating cake. I'm not from within the community, and that for a good reason, but I hear enough via conventional contacts to know that the likes of drama, intrigues, douchbaggery, preassure, etc. will have it otherwise than mere cake eating for the love of cake. It's just not that simple, and those who truly wish to sub out of ideology, love and flowers are those who disappear the fastest out of the table. Reality is a bitch, and the only way to get by is to adapt. If they were to keep things clean, structutal, formalized and have them running on rails - the industry would have their heads. You can't honestly expect the fansubbing scene to be organized on level with the corporations, you can't have them compete. So instead of competing directly with the industry - the various groups are forced to keep things underground, hope for the best, and compete among themselves. All while the internal community tear every unquestioned piece into even tinier pieces. In anarchy, not even the strongest contendors get to choose how things will work out. The biggest groups usually take, finish and dump what they want. Smaller groups have to choose their projects based on the top dogs' actions, all while facing internal conflicts based on how things 'should' turn out rather than how things do turn out. That's the closest thing to an organized fansub scene you'll ever see. Then there's those who say "fuck it, we're just gonna sub what we want - fuck the notions of the wretched fansub scene", which in turn throws the scene further into chaos. It's a story of tragedy, ungratefulness, internet drama, powerlevel conflicts, random shit occurrences and the big man further fucking up your shit. There's no guarantee any show will be finished subbed, so there's a sense of redundancy in overlapping the project lists of various groups - all for the sakes of delievering a subbed show to the masses. For the fansubbers it's something hard to swallow, like a cake made of yesterdays garbage - but the fansubbers do it none the less. And I'm not about to patrionize the actions of fansubbers, but I would to some extent if I were to enjoy some of their works - just saiyan.

>>2502
I'm sorry if I sound stupid here and miss the point of your post, but how exactly is subgroups fighting amougst themselfs good?
also, I never said anything about being organised on a profeincal corprate level, I just don't think they should sub anime that's already being subed, there's just no need for 7 versions of the same show, is that really so much to ask?
I'm not saying they have to get together in a meeting with representatives from each group and decided who subs what at the start of each season (although that does seem like it would be nice)
Who the heck cares about their dumb drama? it's just anime, why are they even fighting over this stuff anyway? do they really take that much pride in being one of the dozen groups to sub the seasons more popular anime?
Wouldn't that stand out more, and make more of a name for themselves to sub something no one else is?

>>2500
Here's my (selfish) viewpoint as someone who scanlates manga. If you're going to translate/encode anime/manga for free, then you should choose projects that interest you the most and not give a fuck about what the "community" wants because you are the one who’s going to be putting in all the time and effort. The community can go fuck itself for all I care. Plus, you're much more likely to do a better job on things you truly care about. Ideally, you should be picking up projects that you wouldn’t mind working on even if not a single person reads/watches your stuff.

That being said, people need to learn to stop being so stubborn and recognize when other groups are doing a competent enough job. There’re plenty of anime/manga that’s untranslated so there’s really no need to fight over projects. If someone’s doing something that you wanted to do, find something else to work on. Surely there must be other projects that might interest you than that one hot anime of the season filled with fanservice. However, if that project was something you really really really wanted to work on no matter what, then by all means, go ahead.

Tl;dr
If you’re going to work for free, do it for your own enjoyment of working. Don’t do shit just for e-fame because that’s just being an immature attentionwhore.

>>2506
I get the doing what you want to do, and enjoying it and all, it just makes sence to want to work on something on your spare time you're interested in.
I just don't understand why someone in their right mind, would spend their time working on translating something, that's already been translated 5 times before, then expect people to be grateful and thank them and suck them off when they upload it.
But I do agree with what you said, if someone is seriously nuts about doing something, then so be it, can't hurt, they just shouldn't expect a thanks for doing the same job that's been done more then enough times already.

Personally, I dislike spending time working on something someone else already did, it feels like I wasted my time seeing it already out there, especially when it's done better.

>>2507
>I just don't understand why someone in their right mind, would spend their time working on translating something, that's already been translated 5 times before, then expect people to be grateful and thank them and suck them off when they upload it.

It's quite simple, really. Those people are desperate for fame and attention. Personally, I think it's rather pathetic but then again, it is only human to want to be respected and admired by others. Still doesn't change the fact that they're massive egotistic dicks, however.

>>2504
I'll just give you an example of how things can work out:
Group A picks a show that's fair game - free for the picking - and flags it as a project of theirs. Then later, while group A is working on the project, released one episode or two, group B comes along and spontaniously decides to work on that very project. Group A, having decided to do this show because no one else did, while actually wanted to do a show group B previously had flagged, are now in disarray. Do they continue alongside group B, or do they drop out? The problem is that group B is that much more renowned than group A, so most people would rather download group B's releases just because of that. Like this group A lose terrain, and misses an opportunity to widen their span of followers.

That's an example of drama, and no - we don't care about their lousy drama, and yes - it's "just anime, silly". This point of view however doesn't make things any better for the various groups in situations similar to that of group A in this example. You'll be damn sure this happens multiple times during every season.

We like to think that fansubbers do it because they like it, though this is just half of the truth. Fansubbers engage in fansubbing projects out of love of anime; fansubbers stay out of love of the community. If there's nothing to love, then shit. Fansubbers know that they won't get paid for their work, that's a part of the concept - but if you recieve hate from frustrated followers, foul attitudes from fellow members in disapproval of your work, and bad behaviour from fellow fansubbing groups in competition, then fuck yes drama will be had. No one wants or care for drama, but it's a part of the game as how things are organized in the current situation. This pattern of won't seize unless the fansubbing scene tidies up - but then there's anti-piracy forces making sure fansubbing stays underground - one way or another. Believe me, there's no rules in the underground. Man without rules... you know how that ends.

Again, I don't mean to bash on your or anyone else's opinions - I can merely provide my own, and I can honestly not say that mine are superior to anyone else's. I just hope some of it can make any sense of this ugly mess called fansubbing, and to why there's so many groups doing that one lousy, populare show while some of the gems gets left out in the dark.

>Fansubbers engage in fansubbing projects out of love of anime; fansubbers stay out of love of the community
I prefer
>Fansubbers engage in fansubbing projects because it's easy; fansubbers stay to feel important and get their dicks sucked

>>2510
That's a cool opinion; power to you. And it's probably true.

>>2511
It's not empowering just depressing

>>2510
people who do good things deserve to get their dick sucked.
even if they only did it to receive fellatio, if they did a good job they deserve to cum in my mouth.

Since fansubbers' only payment for what they do is "dicksucking" then it doesn't bother me at all.

>>2514
If that's all there was to it, I wouldn't care.
My problem is all the anime out there that doesn't get subs because of the retarded sub groups fighting over the same shows.

>>2517
>My problem is all the anime out there that doesn't get subs because of the retarded sub groups fighting over the same shows.

I don't see it that way, the way I see it is that there are a lot of animes that do get subs because sub groups subtitle them.

I quite like UTW. They tend to do fast releases that aren't filled with grammar errors and /a/ bullshit (like gg).

As for blu-ray encodes, I like THORA

>>2510
I don't see that as a problem as long as it doesn't lead to too much self-promotion. I remember dl'ing Serial Experiments Lain only to find out that all the episodes were fucking watermarked with the group's logo.