They did for Zyu, Dai and Kaku. Then Ohranger came out and the people that received their box sets early noticed that the wording of the subs was strangely familiar. They did some comparing and it seems that Shout's official subs are identical to MFC's fansubs, which sure would be an amazing coincidence if Shout had gone to the trouble of having their own translation done. :hmm:
Where is this comparison? Did someone make a side-by-side comparison picture with screencaps? I'd like to see.
Then burn them to your own DVDs and stop throwing away your money if that's the case, cut out the middle man.
...But the point is to support an official release. So why should we "cut out the middle man" when the fansub has become illegal in both countries?
Prime said it best that the fansub groups have no legal claim to their translations. They are translating and illegally sharing the show for people in other countries to enjoy. The only thing that doesn't shut these fansub groups down with a C&D order is the fact that they operate in a different country where there is no legal way to watch those shows. That's really the whole point of a fansub group in the first place, to help people watch a show they like in their native language when there is absolutely NO other legal way of doing so. So who cares if Shout is borrowing the works of fansub groups? If the distributors at Toei approve the translation, and the fansub groups are okay with lending their works to an official release, we should continue to support said release. That's how we ensure more official releases in the future. I've seen worse things when it comes to official releases.
Oddly enough, I'm still willing to believe in coincidences, no matter how uncanny. The thing that sets MFC, HaroRangers, and many other fansub groups aside from TV-Nihon is the fact that they actually care about translating the show thoroughly and accurately. And when you have an official studio doing the same thing, there is bound be similarities. Japanese might not be a language that instantly translates well into another language without a little nuance, but that doesn't mean it's a super complex language that can be translated a million different ways. It's not unheard of for some translators to come up with the same translating conclusions as others. If anything, I've seen it happen among fansub groups to the point where their translations are practically interchangeable, but I'm not quite ready to call it a conspiracy just yet.
