The concept of fansubs since the early 1990’s has been to expose more people to any given show, and to get them to talk about it – review it, request it at anime conventions, whatever it takes to see a better version of the show readily available.
It’s a much easier method for everyone involved, and it means – in cases of popular titles like Naruto or Bleach – that you can literally watch a new episode the day it comes out in Japan, no matter where you live. Nowadays, fansubs are usually made entirely on computers, compressed to small sizes using advanced video codecs (like XVID or WMV) and then distributed for download instead of on VHS. Still, these were the good old days, and nothing can beat enthusiasm for keeping at it. I watched all 152 episodes this way, and let me tell you, staring at a jittering, fuzzy tape with illegible translations is not the ideal way to watch anything. The quality was usually pretty crappy, the translations questionable… but for a long time, this was the only way to see plenty of hard to find anime titles, Hokuto no Ken included. They would, after this labor of love, share the tapes for free with other clubs, and with the advent of the internet, fansubs would often be offered for non-profit distribution, with each tape being at-cost (or sometimes just bootlegged outright, of course). It’s pretty easy to share the love with Bittorrent, and if you want more info on these releases and just what it is they do, just go to and check it out for yourself.įor the benefit of those who don’t know, a “fansub” was a fairly novel concept that started in the early 1980’s, when anime clubs would consist of a bunch of people who literally spent hundreds of dollars importing Japanese videos, and used a primitive computer and expensive video hardware to superimpose English subtitles onto VHS tapes. It’s nothing like old file sharing software in that anything on your PC could be taken – just the file and bandwidth that you want, from a “wrapper” file you download first. So they set out on a mission to fansub the entire TV series and all of the movies – then just the original 1986 feature and “Shin” OVA’s, though as of 2006, the Hokuto no Ken franchise has grown some…Ĭurrently episodes 1 to 116 out of 152 have been made available via the Bittorrent client, a program that lets you download large files by sharing chunks of the file with others as you also download it from someone else. Heart of Madness, a pack of saints if you ask me (or perhaps Saint Emperors?) decided long ago that more Hokuto no Ken needed to be made available to English speaking individuals. Part 4 of 5 – Discovering Hokuto no Ken First Handĭon’t speak Japanese? Can’t afford a grand to buy import DVDs? Still want in on this party? There’s still hope.
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