Best of Times, Worst of Times

Streaming has transformed the hobby of fansubbing. Traditional fansubbing, that is, the creation of amateur translations for current series, has almost completely disappeared, because almost all series are streamed with professional (or near professional) English translations. The most active and popular "fansubbing" group is HorribleSubs, which uses automated processing to package up anime streams for computer playback. For most people, that's good enough.

At the same time, interest in the anime back catalog has increased, but nowhere near as much as traditional fansubbing has declined. Orphan has been able to increase its output substantially (from a low starting point), but that is precariously balanced on the availability of a small number of contributors, particularly translators. The community of back-catalog enthusiasts, split across groups like Orphan, Soldado, Saizen, Live-eviL, etc., is pretty much the same as it was a few years ago. And I see no evidence that the fan base for old shows is getting much bigger.

That's a shame, really, because for back-catalog enthusiasts, this is the Best of Times. More and more material is becoming available. There are a number of factors at work:

1. Used laserdiscs and VHS tapes are flowing into the second-hand markets, particularly in Japan, as owners and collectors age and try to dispose of bulky physical artifacts. This has been Orphan's best source for material that was stranded on the wrong side of the Digital Divide. We've occasionally found shows that have never appeared in Western online references like AniDB, ANN, and MAL.
2. Japanese media companies are remastering and releasing Blu-Ray editions of shows that were hits when shown. Most of these are from the 21st century and are awful-looking upscales from the 480p digital animation era. However, a few are beloved shows from the cel-animation era, like Yawara!, Oishinbo, and the Tezuka Osamu "Love Will Save the World" specials; and after remastering, they look wonderful. I'm hard pressed to understand the market for a $1000 complete edition of Yawara! in hi-def, but I'm grateful nonetheless that it exists.
3. Most recently, Japanese streaming companies are putting older anime online to beef up their offerings. Amazon Japan is the leader, but NetFlix Japan, Hulu Japan, and UNEXT all have substantial catalogs of older shows and movies.

This third development is relatively recent and rather unexpected, but it makes economic sense for the media companies. Digitization of cel-based animation is only one step, and not necessarily the most expensive step, in preparing a physical release. Blu-Rays typically require remastering as well as creation of extra content to entice buyers. After digitization, Blu-Ray production requires mastering of physical media, design and manufacture of a physical enclosure, creation of marketing campaigns and material, predicting and managing inventory, and so on. In contrast, streaming only requires digitization and a licensing agreement with a streaming company. While a few of the streaming offerings have clearly been remastered, most have not.

So if you love older anime and you live in Japan, this is a Golden Era. But as Arthur Clarke pointed out in Childhood's End, gold is the color of autumn, and winter will follow. The analog-only releases will become unreadable as tapes and discs age and playback equipment breaks. It's a race against time to get VHS tapes and laserdiscs digitized, and success depends on the continuing efforts of a handful of collectors. Remastering old show as Blu-Rays is a hit-or-miss proposition economically. Once the major hits are done, the media companies will have little incentive to continue. And finally, the streaming model has unproven payback and longevity. Content disappears as licenses expire or streaming companies need to reclaim storage space. And if you don't live in Japan, you're SOOL.