The Day of Black Sun

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"The Sealed Card"?

Before the digital winds of change swept through the anime fansub world circa the turn of the millennium, fansubs were almost exclusively a VHS-thing. During this clunky tape era, fansubs were considerably more difficult and expensive to produce and filter to the public. And of course, I was one of the masochists who spent too much time subbing the "old-fashioned way."

It all began with my involvement in the anime club known as Animania. As a staff member, I watched a lot of anime whether I wanted to or not. Predictably, after many hours of viewing, I became quite familiar with the quality of subtitle translation and timing work offered by the various fansub groups, and I also became a bit of a "quality snob." On one hand, I had to remind myself to be grateful no matter what, because regardless of the quality, all fansubbing groups work on a volunteer basis. On the other hand, many fansubbers were purposely churning out sloppy work because they were convinced that all that mattered was to be the first to release a particular show. I kept thinking, "I can do better," and I wanted to prove it. Keeping in mind a few subbers I hoped to emulate, I set out to form my own group. A group that would work just as hard on the translation as on the display and timing, with high expectations on both quality and release date. In other words, I wanted a group that would strive to have its cake and eat it too.

Anyhow, to keep this anecdote from reaching epic lengths, let's just say that with a lot of sweat and tears, we achieved our goals. And while we were never known as well as the groups that we looked up to, in part because we chose to avoid any national-level promotion or trading, we were surprised just how much praise we received from outside of the local area. But regardless of where the kudos came from, the message was the same: we were considered on par with the fansubbing elite. There were probably two moments in particular that really defined what we were all about. The first came at one of the premier anime events in the U.S., Otakon (Baltimore, MD, 2001), where our fansub of Cardcaptor Sakura: The Sealed Card was shown during opening ceremonies. The show was viewed by a capacity screening hall of 1,600, which included members of Madhouse Animation as well as other folks directly involved with the the original production. (I was told later that someone from their group asked the Lord of Insanity for the screening tape. And yes, he gladly gave it to them, of course.) But the real surprise for me came months later, when I spoke to several non-local audience members (some from other states) at an Animania screening who recognized our group name from TSC's credits and had many kind words for us.

The second moment was our last real foray into the subbing world. It was two months before the end of the 2001-2002 school year, and Animania was scheduled in the final month to show the conclusion of the Love Hina TV series, which they had been showing as a "running series." Then the Cowboy Bebop Movie was released in Japan. In what can only be described as a moment of temporary insanity, my translator and I offered to take on the movie as an additional project on top of the Love Hina episodes, so that the year would really end with a bang. In short, Naru-chan and I went sleepless many nights over the final month so that we could somehow translate and subtitle three episodes of Love Hina and the Cowboy Bebop movie (almost two hours in length!) in three weeks time (per person). Well, we got the job done and the screening in April '02 was quite the hit. However, I think we might have lost our souls that month, among other things.

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The Day of Black Sun

ANIME: ANIMANIA & THE SEALED CARD

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"The Sealed Card"?

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