Hi all,
First, an apology for the lateness of this reply. I know a lot of you have questions about the future of this group. It doesn't help that I also feel overwhelmed and have been avoiding tough conversations and decisoins.
Please be cool with Toei. They're the makers of these shows that we're fans of. It's perfectly in their right to ask us to stop. All we do is put funny moving subtitles on top of their creations. We don't want people sending death threats or insults or doing anything in our name that would make us or the fandom look bad.
I've responded to their e-mail informing them that we've removed all links to their files from our website. You won't find any files here anymore, sorry. This is our hobby and we love it, but it'd be a terrible blow to us if any of us were hit with legal problems because of this. We can't make fansubs if it's not safe to do so. In my e-mail response, I told them I respected their work, took their letter seriously, and also cheekily asked if we could work for them legally (A guy can dream right?)
But that doesn't mean we're dead either. We're still a fansite and we'll still have discussions about Toei shows and movies.
Personally, I still want to translate these shows. I think that maybe we can do the translations and just release the soft subs? You'll have to buy the Blu-rays or grab the raws from somewhere else like Tokyo Toshokan or Nyaa, but what other people post isn't my responsibility. This is just to keep our own hands clean.
I still want to post to the super thread at some point, but at 174 replies, it might take me a while to do so. So check back there in a bit, I might have replied or answered a question you posted!
People have been asking what they can do to help us. I don't really know, besides staying cool fans. It's been really heartwarming receiving all the e-mails and posts and visits to our discord server and meeting with y'all. There's definitely been times when it's felt like our time in the sun has passed and it's time to move on, but it's cool to know that there's people out there that still like us.
And on a personal note, this has been some week for me. My mom had heart problems Monday morning so they took her in an ambulance to the hospital. The next day, she was in surgery to have a pacemaker installed. Getting a letter from Toei that threatened my hobby and identity wasn't really what I needed to end the week. On top of that, my Switch broke lol. It's been stressful, but it's been fun responding to your e-mails and goofing with you all on Discord and stuff.
For now, I'm still waiting for a response from Toei before making any major decisions. Till then, hang out. Let's talk toku, games, and whatever old and new. Our biggest strength is our bond as a community. Thusly, I'm going to plug the members-only lounge again in case people from different locals wanted to meet or just talk with people who are close by. There's also the self-introduction thread that has an age poll. Edit: The Otaku room is also a good thread.
Finally, thanks to the different groups for responding to me. Like KRDL or people who work as lawyers or different toku blogs like Himitsusentaiblog or people from Ov-erti Me or others that I'm overlooking. Also, I'd like to anonymously post some of the letters I've received since I think they're worth sharing at some point.
Edit: I can't stop watching this
