I picked up this fan made Anime, which seems to be a grand experiment of the often cited 'Fansub helps everybody' theory that people talk about. In the hirearchy of legitmacy I figure this fan based Anime is probably thrice-pirated which means the original maker literally has no recourse whatsoever to get their money if you choose to pirate this stuff since they're like 2 levels of piracy away from the guy who might possibly own the rights to this stuff. You can buy this for ~3000 yen at ComicKon 75 or, like most people, find this online somewhere for free. There is probably no plan for this to come to America whatsoever, so I guess it all depends on how honest Japanese really are! I found an English subbed version here at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3tOwqp3 ... re=related but I'm sure Eric can direct you to a somewhere with better reliability.
As far as I know, the guy who is the closest to actually owning the copyright to this stuff actually doesn't like the Anime and said on his blog that people should just pretend it never existed, so it almost sounds like your typical fan versus The Man stuff, except in this case both the fans and The Man are dirt poor individuals who will probably never make a profit from the work. In fact looking at the voice actor cast for episode 1, I'm not sure where they got the money to pay for them since there's quite a few household names (and strange I still recognize them even though I haven't watched Anime in a long time). I have a feeling whoever is responsible for making this will lose money on this, which is why there's already speculation on whether there is ever going to be an episode 2. I guess whether we see an episode 2 will say whether you can actually count on a word of mouth model to spread stuff while not getting any money back, or do you always have to end up having some kind of big money behind you to do anything.
So far as the actual Anime goes, obviously the quality is kind of low (which makes me wonder why some of the better known fan artist didn't just contribute to the drawing), but it's passable. Aside from Remilia standing in direct sunlight with no apparent negative effects, I cannot find too much to complain about in terms of continuity/consistency. Some people say Aya's voice sounds too slutty and I'm not sure if that's the right word, but it's certainly annoying. Marisa being the typical tomboy voice casting is annoying too but I guess that's what stereotypes are. Obviously the Anime is saving Yukari and Yuyuko for the second episode, and in terms of popular character coverage, I'm not sure if leaving out the 2nd and 5th most popular character in the series is a good way to break into new ground. Especially since these two are absolutely essential to the world of Touhou, as opposed to say Aya who is mega popular but has absolutely nothing of importance to the story.
As far as I know, the guy who is the closest to actually owning the copyright to this stuff actually doesn't like the Anime and said on his blog that people should just pretend it never existed, so it almost sounds like your typical fan versus The Man stuff, except in this case both the fans and The Man are dirt poor individuals who will probably never make a profit from the work. In fact looking at the voice actor cast for episode 1, I'm not sure where they got the money to pay for them since there's quite a few household names (and strange I still recognize them even though I haven't watched Anime in a long time). I have a feeling whoever is responsible for making this will lose money on this, which is why there's already speculation on whether there is ever going to be an episode 2. I guess whether we see an episode 2 will say whether you can actually count on a word of mouth model to spread stuff while not getting any money back, or do you always have to end up having some kind of big money behind you to do anything.
So far as the actual Anime goes, obviously the quality is kind of low (which makes me wonder why some of the better known fan artist didn't just contribute to the drawing), but it's passable. Aside from Remilia standing in direct sunlight with no apparent negative effects, I cannot find too much to complain about in terms of continuity/consistency. Some people say Aya's voice sounds too slutty and I'm not sure if that's the right word, but it's certainly annoying. Marisa being the typical tomboy voice casting is annoying too but I guess that's what stereotypes are. Obviously the Anime is saving Yukari and Yuyuko for the second episode, and in terms of popular character coverage, I'm not sure if leaving out the 2nd and 5th most popular character in the series is a good way to break into new ground. Especially since these two are absolutely essential to the world of Touhou, as opposed to say Aya who is mega popular but has absolutely nothing of importance to the story.
