Moetaku-Fansubs

Who are you?

A fairly large, considering we’re new, group of anime fans who’ve decided to sub series they like… for you.

How long have you been around?

As I said a second ago, we’re new. Stop asking questions >.< Seriously though, we’ve only been a group since around Winter of 07.

Aren’t there only like five of you?

Well yes and no; the core staff is generally around five or so people, yet overall (throughout the seasons) we work with countless other members. Keep in mind that once in Moe staff, always in Moe staff. Some of us may take a break here and there, but we’ll never just leave. So in short, we’re a pretty large group.

Who are those core members?

We don’t play favorites, everyones equal. If you hang around our channel then you’ll most likely know who the primary members are.

Where is your channel and how do I download your releases?

We all chill in #moetaku on the lovely AniSubs network. In fact, we were fed up with other servers and are now running on our own; moetaku.anisubs.net. All [MO]* bots are our official distro bots, and or anything you see within our online xdcc listing page. Numerous other bots and fserves idle the channel, but unless that bot shows up in the online packlist, it is run by an independent third party and we’ll take no responsibility whatsoever.
The other way of getting our releases is by using torrents. We’re in need of our own tracker, but for now all our releases can be found on the AniRena tracker.
ALL other ways (that is, everything except the official bots and the torrents), including HTTP direct downloads, torrents on other sites than moe[o]taku.com, and bots/fserves in the channel are not official ways of distro. Which in itself doesn’t necessarily mean that you shouldn’t use them; just don’t complain to us if they break somehow.

IRC channel rules?

Basically there are only two:

1. Do not spoil. Not anything.
2. Don’t offend the ops unless you feel like getting kickbanned. (The op in question reserves the right to define “offend”.)

This basically means we make up the rules on the spot. Just use your common sense and you’ll be fine. A clarification of the spoiler rule: episodes that have been released by us are spoiler-protected in the channel for 24 (twenty-four) hours after release; after that you can speak about them freely. In addition to that, here’s some general info to keep in mind:

• There are no “official” triggers.
• !list and @find may or may not do something, and if they do it’s only because individual users and/or bots respond to them.
• The fact that there aren’t a lot of explicit rules doesn’t mean you can feel free to go around making an ass of yourself. It just means that we can ban you when we feel you need to be banned, and also saves us the trouble of coming up with excuses when people whine about not actually breaking any rules.

I got banned from the channel!

You probably deserved it. Or maybe you didn’t. We’re not particularily interested in which, but if you weren’t a total asshole that really managed to piss us off, your ban will probably expire in a while. While you wait, consider your sins and be aware of the fact that intentionally evading channel bans can get you permanently banned from AniSubs. Oh, and PM’ing ops (the one that banned you as well as other ones) is a very good way to get your ban extended.

I’m not banned, but the instant I join the channel I get kickbanned by someone called “ChanServ”!

Congratulations, you managed to piss someone off enough to get yourself added to the channel access list at a negative value, which means you get autobanned if you try to join. Do yourself a favor and stay out, because if we find you in the channel again, you’re most likely getting akilled from AniSubs.

Would you drop a series if it became licensed in the US while you were subbing it?

No. True Tears was licensed within the first month of airing in Japan, for example.

Moetaku is a speedsubbing group, right?

No. It just so happens that we’re able to cover numerous parts of the subbing process simultaneously, as has been apparent in the past, we of course have our slow times as well :s

So Moetaku is a quality subbing group then?

Although we do strive for quality in our projects, it wouldn’t be correct to simply say we’re a quality group. We’re sort of in the middle. Our definition of quality is along the lines of near perfect translations, smooth editing, nice typesetting, translators/editors notes (at a minimum), good karaoke, typeset signs, and clean encodes. I’m not going to sit here and say we’re the best, yet we’re definitely not a speedsubbing group.

I heard your translations suck.

Heh, apparently some children who claim to be fansubbers felt the need to bash our group on various rating boards/sites such as anidb/mal. Ironically, even tho you may stumble upon a few negative remarks on some sites, we’ve received praise for our clean translations; yes, from persons who actually speak the language, not some other groups’ “loyal” fanboys. For those out there who feel we’re not doing our “job” properly because the script isn’t localized enough, or “too literal”, or we didn’t translate some pun but put a TL note instead, or even when we put a TL note at all: You might think that we’re doing that because we’re incompetent, stupid or just plain lazy, but it’s actually a conscious decision! Here’s the gist of it: we are not professional translators, and we are not making our translations available specifically for the american market. Period. If you are watching fansubs, we assume that you have some interest in Japan, the Japanese language, and Japanese culture in general that you’d rather have an explanation for that pun someone just made, than a half-assed attempt to adapt it into English. If you do not agree with this and would rather like your Japanese anime without Japanese, we suggest you contact a commercial licensor/distributor in your country; we are sure they’d be happy to supply you with a more easily digestible dub or sub.

Will you do show X?

Most likely the answer is “no”. If we said we’re doing something, we’re doing it. If we didn’t, we aren’t. Of course, this might change with time, but until you hear us say something about it or see us release a promo, you can assume the answer is “no”. We reserve the right to change our minds at any time, so even if we said “no way, we’ll never do that” last week, this week we may (or may not) release the first episode. O:

Why haven’t you released episode X of show Y yet!? It’s already been Z hours since it aired! DID YOU DROP IT!?

If we drop something (hasn’t happened yet in almost a year since the forming of the group), we’ll make damn sure you know it, so no, we haven’t dropped it. We will release it when it’s done. If you ask about when it will be released, we will delay the release just to fuck with you. (OK not really but sometimes some of you guys really make us want to do this.)

Can I join Moetaku?

You can /join #moetaku, at least unless you’re banned. You can’t join the group itself unless you were invited. Which you weren’t. (Since some people don’t seem to get it: YES, this means we are not recruiting. Let me put it this way, about three fourths of the group can be considered “founding members”. If you had any chance of getting in, you’d know about it.)

You’re a bunch of elitist pricks!

Yes, of course. Got a problem with that?

How do I play these h264/MKV things?

Download the СССР codec pack. Also make sure you read the FAQ, especially the installation instructions. If you run into trouble, ask on the СССР forums or in the СССР chat.

I’m on Linux/BSD/Mac/Solaris/something else, what do I do?

Get MPlayer.

What about VLC?

No. Just… no.

Is it true that I can steal the subtitles from your MKV’s?

You could steal them from the AVI’s too if you wanted (OCR is simple), but yes, it’s very simple to demux our scripts. Google mkvtoolnix and read its manual.

Does this mean you think it’s OK if I used your subs for X?

Depends on the value of X. We’d prefer you didn’t sell them on eBay or something like it, but it’s not like we can stop you. We don’t mind if you use them to make a non-English fansub, though, but even if we did, it’s not like we could stop you from doing that either. As for taking them and making your own English fansub, that’d just be silly, but again it’s not like we could do anything to stop you. Oh, and if you are using our scripts to make your own fansub in whatever language, please try to make sure you’re actually competent enough to pull it off without embarassing yourself, before you start doing it. Hint: you won’t like the answer if you ask us for help with retranslating, demuxing scripts, duplicating signs etc., etc. (Yes, people have asked us. Several times.)

It seems a lot of random people have +o or +h in your channel. Can I get that too?

Maybe. If we feel you contribute enough in some way, you might.

I come in peace. Take me to your leader!

We don’t really have a “group leader”. We’re actually remarkably democratic. (Or communist, depending on how you look at it. :P) But if you really need someone to talk Serious Business with, contact sho in #moetaku, he’s the closest thing we have.

Does that mean he’s the guy I should speak to about this awesome idea for a joint project I have?

Yes, that’s correct. Be warned though, we usually only joint with people we know and trust really well, so if you have to read this FAQ you’re probably not on the list of people we’d consider. Sorry.

Do you guys need help with server bills or anything? I’d gladly donate a few bucks/euros/yen to help keep you running.

“While we appreciate your desire to help, we really wish you’d do it in some other way. We don’t need the money, nor do we want it. We’re fans, doing this for fans, and involving money in it is not acceptable. In other words: thanks, but no thanks. This also means that “nag screens” saying “please donate to keep this service running” for ads (be it for DDL, bots or anything else) in the channel are not acceptable, either. If we see you doing this, you and/or your bot will be banned.”

Sho’s a bit young and unemployed at the moment, otherwise we’d totally agree with Eclipse’s principles on money w/ fansubs. You’d think we wouldn’t need to answer this question though, considering there happens to be a “donate” button on the top of this page O_x

When, if ever, will you guys stop subbing?

When subtitled anime airs at the same time as in Japan, worldwide. Or possibly when we realize there’s more to life then– …wait, what? Are you insane. Subbing is life.

this faq is based off of Eclipse’s f1