Scarywater
http://a.scarywater.net/


Scarywater is another great place to browse around and find your new favorite show. They list their information by fansub groups as well as providing the most recently added torrents and links of interest. Statistics are updated every five minutes, and they even graph their users and traffic levels! News about series/shows/movies that have been licensed appears in their Server News section. Anime-Otakus

Animesuki
http://www.animesuki.com/


Animesuki is a great place to start if you know exactly what series you want to download, but it's excellent if you just want to browse for something new. Animesuki lists their information by most recent releases, fansub groups, series, mirrors, and is searchable in case you missed an episode. All of their mirrors are currently up to date and they have a FAQ and a forum. Animesuki makes a point of keeping a Licensed Anime database and an explanation of licensed anime available through their main page.

Naruto

A long time ago, a demon fox with nine tails appeared. When a tail was swung, it would destroy a mountain and cause a tsunami. To counter it, the people gathered ninjas. One ninja sealed the monster in a life or death battle and died. That ninja was known as the Fourth Hokage... and with his death, he sealed the powers of the Nina-Tailed Demon Fox into the body of a young boy...

This young boy's name is Naruto. Naruto hopes one day he can become Hokage. Most people in the village dislike him and consider him a pest. Naruto causes havoc in order to get attention, since he is ignored due to the fact that people think he is the demon fox itself. After failing the Genin exam, Naruto is tricked into stealing a scroll to become Genin. He ends up in severe danger but Iruka, his teacher, comes to saves him. It ends up that Naruto saves Iruka from possible death and for that, he is upgraded to an official ninja where he begins his journey to become Hokage!

Fansubs originated during the explosion of anime production during the 1980s in Japan. Relatively few titles were licensed for distribution in foreign countries. This made it difficult for anime fans to obtain new titles. Some fans, generally those with some Japanese language experience, began producing amateur subtitled copies of new anime programs so that they could share them with their fellow fans who did not understand Japanese. In an attempt to avoid ethical and legal problems, fansubbers adopted the practice of distributing their works at zero profit.

The first distribution media of fansubbed material was VHS tapes. Such copies were notoriously low quality, time consuming to make, expensive to produce, and difficult to find. A limited number of copies were made and then mailed out or distributed at local anime clubs. Fans could purchase fansubs at a modest cost or could contact clubs who would record the material on their own blank video cassettes.

However, with the advent of widespread high-speed Internet access, desktop video editing, and DVD ripping, the original process has largely been abandoned in favor of digital fansubbing (digisubbing) and electronic distribution of the resulting digisubs. This has allowed fansubbing to transform from a slow and tedious task that generates a low quality preview of an attractive show to a cheap, easy, and quick way to create a high quality and high availability alternative to an only-slightly-better quality official DVD copy, although some groups release HD quality fansubs.

However, a majority of fansubs are encoded at distinctly less than DVD quality, often featuring fewer channels of sound and less picture quality since many stem from TV recordings. Even fansubs based on Japanese DVD rips have less quality. The primary reason is file size: 175 MB, 233 MB, and 350 MB are generally treated as the "standard" sizes for a fansub file because they divide evenly into 700 MB, the size of a typical CD-R. Since the introduction of the DVD, sizes like 172 MB and 344 MB are also used, allowing 13 or 26 episodes (one season) to fit on a DVD. However, since most digisubs now use a better MPEG-4 compression, in comparison to the MPEG-2 compression used by DVDs, the difference in quality is becoming less noticeable despite the smaller filesizes.

Digisubs are now of such quality and free accessibility that the incentive to upgrade to a legitimate copy once a title is domestically licensed may be severely diminished. However, recent research by the Yale Economic Review has shown that people who download movies are no less likely to buy movies than those who do not, calling this conclusion into serious question.[1] Economic instabilities in both the US and Japan have made it hard to gauge the precise consequences of digisubs on the commercial industry, as well.

Some in the anime community argue that digisubbing has distorted the original fansub culture and transformed it from a respected practice to nothing more than pirating for cheap entertainment, and consider it the anime equivalent of Zero day warez trading. Some fansubs even show up on warez sites - though mainly because there are warez traders who also happen to be anime fans, leading to a coincidental grouping of the two, much the same that pornography and anime show up together on several sites.

A fansub (short for fan-subtitled) is a version of a foreign film or foreign television program which has been translated and subtitled by a fan(s) into a language other than that of the original. It is most commonly used to refer to fan-translated anime that is shared amongst other fans.

- Evolution of the fansub
- Early fansubs
- Modern fansub techniques

Anime has many genres typically found in any mass media form. Such genres include action, adventure, children's stories, comedy, drama, erotica (hentai), medieval fantasy, occult/horror, romance, and science fiction.

Most anime includes content from several different genres, as well as a variety of thematic elements. Thus, some series may be categorized under multiple genres. A show may have a seemingly simple surface plot, but at the same time may feature a far more complex, deeper storyline and character development. It is not uncommon for an action themed anime to also involve humor, romance, and even social commentary. The same can be applied to a romance themed anime in that it may involve an action element, or in some cases brutal violence. Like the genres, no two characters are ever the same.

The following is a list of the major genres and designations that are specific to anime and manga.[7]
For other possible genres, see film genre.

* Bishōjo: Japanese for 'beautiful girl', blanket term that can be used to describe any anime that features pretty girl characters, for example Magic Knight Rayearth.
* Bishōnen: Japanese for 'beautiful boy' blanket term that can be used to describe any anime that features "pretty" and elegant boys and men, for example Fushigi Yūgi or most CLAMP shows.
* Ecchi: Derived from the pronunciation of the letter 'H', Japanese for 'indecent sexuality' (although its origin not well known, even in Japan. Someone says it's because it's the previous letter to 'I', which is a homophone of 'love' in Japanese. It happens to be the first letter of the word 'Hentai' too but the relationship here is rather doubtful).Contains mild sexual humor, and some fan service, for example Love Hina or He Is My Master.
* Harem: Is a genre where several girl characters are attracted to a single, or sometimes multiple, boy characters. It is more often than not a Shonen and may be considered a sub-genre. Examples: Ranma 1/2
* Hentai: Japanese for 'abnormal' or 'perverted', and used by Western Audiences to refer to pornographic anime or erotica. However, in Japan the term used to refer to the same material is typically Poruno or Ero, for example: La Blue Girl.
* Josei: Japanese for 'young woman', this is anime or manga that is aimed at young women and is one of the rarest forms, for example Gokusen.
* Kodomo: Japanese for 'child', this is anime or manga that is aimed at young children, for example Doraemon, Hello Kitty, Keroppi, or Panda-Z.
* Robot/Mecha: Anime or manga featuring super robots, for example Mobile Suit Gundam. The first of these super robots was Mazinger Z
* Moe: Anime or manga featuring characters that are extremely perky or cute, for example A Little Snow Fairy Sugar.
* Progressive: "Art films" or extremely stylized anime, for example Voices of a Distant Star or Byōsoku 5 Centimetre.
* Seinen: Anime or manga targeted at teenage or young male adults, for example Oh My Goddess!, Outlaw Star or Cowboy Bebop.
* Sentai: Literally "fighting team" in Japanese, refers to any show that involves a superhero team, for example Cyborg 009.
* Shōjo: Japanese for 'young lady' or 'little girl', refers to anime or manga targeted at girls, for example Fruits Basket or Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch
o Mahō shōjo: Subgenre of shōjo known for 'Magical Girl' stories, for example Sailor Moon.
* Shōnen: Japanese for 'boys', Shōnen is like Seinen, but refers to anime or manga targeted at younger boys, for example Dragon Ball Z or Naruto .
o Mahō shōnen: Male equivalent of Mahō Shōjo, for example DNAngel.
* Shōjo-ai/Yuri: Japanese for 'girl-love', refers to anime or manga that focus on love and romance between female characters, for example Revolutionary Girl Utena or Kannazuki no Miko. It is often being replaced by the term "Girls Love" (GL). Yuri is more intimate girl love than that of Shōjo-ai, often sexual.
* Shōnen-ai/Yaoi: Japanese for 'boy-love', refers to anime or manga that focus on love and romance between male characters. The term "Shōnen-ai" is being phased out in Japan due to its other meaning of pederasty, and is being replaced by the term "Boys Love" (BL). An example of this style is Loveless. Yaoi is more intimate than that of Shōnen-ai, often sexual.

Some anime titles are written for a very specific audience, even narrower than those described above. For example, Initial D, Wangan Midnight and éX-Driver concern street racing and car tuning. Ashita No Joe, Hajime no Ippo were about boxing. Hanaukyo Maid Team is based on the French maid fantasy.

The history of anime begins at the start of the 20th century, when Japanese filmmakers experimented with the animation techniques that were being explored in France, Germany, the United States, and Russia.[citation needed]

Animation became popular in Japan as it provided an alternative format of storytelling compared to the underdeveloped live-action industry in Japan. Unlike America, where live-action shows and films have generous budgets, the live-action industry in Japan is a small market and suffered from budgeting, location, and casting restrictions. The lack of Western-looking actors, for example, made it next to impossible to shoot films set in Europe, America, or fantasy worlds that do not naturally involve Japan. The varied use of animation allowed artists to create any characters and settings.[1]

During the 1970s, there was a surge of growth in the popularity of manga— which were often later animated — especially those of Osamu Tezuka, who has been called a "legend"[2] and the "god of manga".[3][4] As a result of his work and that of other pioneers in the field, anime developed characteristics and genres that are fundamental elements of the art today. The giant robot genre (known as "mecha" outside Japan), for instance, took shape under Tezuka, developed under Go Nagai and others, and was revolutionized at the end of the decade by Yoshiyuki Tomino. Robot anime like Gundam and Macross became instant classics in the 80s, and the robot genre of anime is still one of the most popular in Japan and worldwide today. In the 1980s, anime was accepted in the mainstream in Japan, and experienced a boom in production (It should be noticed that, manga has significantly more mainstream exposure than anime in Japan). The mid-to-late '90s, on into the 2000s, saw an increased acceptance of anime in overseas markets.

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