An odd point many of us are missing here, and that is this:
Although we do represent the elite among anime watchers, as we have already seen most/entire series by the time the first episodes have hit the televisions/DVD players of the non-downloading public, we are not the majority. There is, at the very least, 15-20 people who use public medians, such as Anime magazines and Adult Swim, to find out about anime and such per one person who downloads our anime. We are a very minor faction of it, and we are viably not a great source of income since it is apparent that a large majority of the people who download anime do not in turn purchase the anime. Therefore, what we want as far as anime/public medians is irrelevant. We don't make a contribution to the market, therefore we have no opinions to offer on what should/should not be done. We can cite our problems with marketed anime, whether lingual differences in what we are used to and what was done to a show, but saying that you will not buy anime for whatever reasons you may have boils down to the fact that "why buy the cow when the milk is free?" philosophy, and Naruto could be the one to bite us on the ass.
As far as my personal research goes (and this is publically available information - check stat trackers on any bittorrent site), Naruto is the single-most regularly downloaded anime that is running currently. I'm sure that anime companies such as Bandai, ADV, and Funimation have someone that checks out the download ratios for episodes to determine how popular a show is, while checking out the content for themselves. And I know that they are aware that there are thousands of individuals such as ourselves downloading different shows, some of which they already own the rights to. But if you get bored, check some stats for some of our popular shows. If you get bored, count the number of downloads from every group for the next Naruto. ANBU-AonE easily had 30k for most of theirs, then account for your speedsub groups. Then also look at the fact that their are groups out of Italy, Spain, and other non-English speaking countries that are also subbing, some of whom are committed to only doing Naruto. Then account for the fact that another few thousand people are using programs such as Kazaa, DC++, IRC, etc., and you have a shitload of people. But in the end, as popular as some shows are, none have as many hits as Naruto.
For those of you who really are committed to not feeling like a total ass about anime downloading, buy the DVDs. They put some form of contact in the DVDs for you to voice your concerns. If enough people bring the problems they have with anime to a company's attention, they will fix it. ADV is putting more episodes on their DVDs, and Pioneer/Funimation have lowered the price on their DVDs, or added more content in the form of episodes and extras to theirs. You can't claim they don't, considering I bought Trigun over 8 DVDs and Evangelion on tape and then look at what both companies are doing with their products now; the re-release of Evangelion has 4-5 episodes per DVD at the same price, and Geneon has dropped the price of their 3 episode DVDs by $5. I will admit that I got screwed on the Evas, but at the same time ADV was still starting out on popularizing anime and needed some way to guarantee they would make their investment back. Doesn't mean I was happy about it, just that I understand why every VHS tape had 2 episodes on it. But the more we tell them what we want from our anime, the more they'll work for our money.
With Naruto, a very valid point is there: If Naruto were licensed today, it would be no sooner than three years (and that's if they go into massive overdrive to get the series over here) until the American audience was caught up to where Naruto is currently; and after that point, they would be X number of episodes behind where it would be by the time they caught up to our current point. I wholeheartedly agree with the viewers, I could not nor would not wait three years to see what happens next in the show. It's of the level of kicking little kids and pulling pranks on mentally challenged people, it's undue suffering. Once Naruto is licensed, I will still get current episodes, even if I have to spend every Thursday night with my Japanese teacher having her translate everything I don't understand from the raws. But I will buy the DVDs. If anyone licenses this and they take a bath on it, the finger is going to be pointed at us, the people who download. And when that happens, the ADV witch hunts are going to look like hiccups from drinking Coke too fast compared to what a company that has lost millions of dollars at the hands of thousands of people who were too lazy to dish out $20/month.
I seriously doubt that many people will derive any source of deeper understanding of what we potentially mean to downloading anime and licensed DVDs, but I know that if it were my dime on this show and I wasn't getting the business on it that it should be giving me because of people downloading instead of buying, every one of us would have our asses kicked back to 1964... where anime was in Japan until a company brought it overseas. Bitch all you may want to, but we're going to be the ones who are shit out of luck if someone picks this show up and it doesn't generate massive amounts of money (with exception to 4Kids, obviously we could see that being a bad call). Funimation couldn't screw this show up horribly; at least they, along with everyone but 4Kids, leave the Japanese track on all their DVDs. And don't say "But they could ruin the subtitling on the jutsus!#@!" Then don't look at the words at the bottom when they do, you know what it is without reading. Don't be a nancy over it, and just write the company and express your discontent.
I'm gonna go grab a fire extinguisher and catch some sleep, something tells me I'm gonna have a lot of flames to put out later. =b
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