How to Fansub Anime

Article, Fansubs — By Dark_Sage on June 29, 2012 9:11 pm

This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.

A lot of people have asked me, “Dark_Sage, how do you fansub anime?” It’s easy, my friends, let me show you how!

A traditional English fansub

First, you have to decide which anime you want to fansub. I’m going to choose Kuroko’s Basketball, the sleeper hit of Spring 2012.

So head on over to Tokyotosho and type in the anime’s name that you want to sub.

As a fansubber, you will never use the “raw” option. So go ahead and grab a HorribleSubs release.

Pull up your copy of MKVExtract and take those subs out. This is what we call “translating” in the fansub world.

Now it’s time to edit the script (the super hard part!). So boot up your copy of Aegisub.

A built-in spellchecker? It’s almost too good to be true! This is all you need to edit, so run that thing.

As you come across Japanese words while you’re editing, think to yourself, “Can I find this in a dictionary somewhere online?” If you can, leave it in. This is what we call “liberal editing”. “literal editing” results in you adding more words in Japanese to the script.

Banzai, itadakimasu-san!

After you’re done with your edits, save the file and exit. You’re almost done!

All right, so you’ve got a script and a Horriblesubs video. Now you just need to mux them together with MKVmerge. You need to name it, of course. So choose a cool fansub name. Something like [Repub]. It’s short for “Republican” and the viewers will know they can trust you because you’re being ironic, lol. Upload the result to TokyoTosho or Nyaa so everyone can watch it.

~You’re not done yet~

Okay, now you have an anime fansubbed. Time to shape public opinion. Create your own fansub review site and “review” the release you just made.

Now, remember, you didn’t create a review site to review other releases. You created it to tear down your competitors and say that whatever you do is the best. You may think, “Hey, isn’t it a serious conflict of interest if I review my groups’ subs, some of which I worked on?” And the answer to that is “Who cares? I have my own review site.”

Sweet review. You gave yourself a 5/5 and you totally deserve it. Think of all the work you put into this! A 5/5 may be too low, but you’re a humble person so you’ll keep it like that.

Whenever you comment on your site, be sure to be as bitter and sarcastic as possible. Always remember that whatever you say about yourself is accurate because you say it is. This is part of the review process.

And that’s pretty much it. Enjoy being a fansubber! ^_^