I read The Anime Almanac‘s recent essay with a great interest. Effectively titled “Greg Ayres and the Fight Against Fansubs”, it presents an industry-biased perspective on the massive proliferation of anime fansubs, via the enthusiasm of Greg Ayres, a “hardcore otaku” turned professional English dub actor. Basically, this colourful-looking chap travels to conventions dotted all over North America to preach the ills of downloading anime. According to the essay, one fan of his (called ‘Steve’) even goes so far as to admit that “I just wanted to say that because of your blog on MySpace, I have sworn off of fansubs as my New Years resolution for this year” which is impressive, though a more cynical person would point to the fact that this Steve is already enough of a fan of Ayres to be reading the man’s blog in the first place.

I don’t think he’s preaching to the choir, but at the same time, there doesn’t seem to be enough dialogue with the “hated minority”, as the Anime Almanac hyperbolically puts it. Viewing jpmeyer‘s video of the panel, one senses that there is some intimidation at work, as if Ayres (and by extension, the majority of the crowd) isn’t willing to listen to the speaker’s argument. Instead, as is usually the case with the fansubbing debate online, there is no grey area and no discussion, just white noise. A line is drawn between fans, who then proceed to shout at each other until blue in the face. Ayres is quoted as saying “the biggest wussies will always draw their swords on the internet”, but looking at jpmeyer‘s above video and considering that Ayres‘ insult was itself intended for an online publication, it’s a shame that the opportunity for a potentially important debate is lost within such double standards.

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