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Proposal: Anime & Manga

You know it';s going to be asked, so I had to put up a discussion.

Example Questions:

Where can I watch Baka to Test to Shokanjuu online free?

Where can I download Sailor Moon in English?

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I think it was discussed before, but I believe it should not be allowed unless there's an official site that publishes it (which there usually isn't).

Subbing groups and online manga translators, while found in abundance, are in fact, illegal. And we should not support it.

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    Which is really a shame because you get access to content you otherwise wouldn't be able to.
    – DForck42
    Nov 16, 2011 at 14:43
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    Obviously, I can also ask where can I download this and that game for free, and I won't be able to access it because it's illegal to answer it here, so what? It's illegal, so it's off-topic and shouldn't be allowed.
    – Madara's Ghost
    Nov 16, 2011 at 18:03
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    To clarify, I meant it's a shame that it's illegal.
    – DForck42
    Nov 22, 2011 at 17:40
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Why not have a meta page with links to the few legal streaming sites?

I think this would be better than having potentially one "Where can I watch Show X online legally?" for every single anime. Many anime do not have a free and legal method, so these would probably be closed if it's decided that illegal releases shouldn't be discussed.

And the remaining ones that do have a free and legal method would probably be from one of only a few sites - CrunchyRoll, Funimation, Hulu, Youtube (yes, for at least one anime I know, the show was legally uploaded to Youtube with subtitles within a week or so of airing). There may be a few more that I don't know, but I highly doubt there are even 10 such sites.

Instead of linking to these same few sites over and over, I think it would be better to advise users to look at each site to see if the anime they are interested in is available free and legally.

Edit: A similar idea is now in use at Japanese Language & Usage SE. In the meta, there is a resources "question" and each community wiki "answer" is a different type of resource. I personally think that it's great. You can check it out for youself though: https://japanese.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/756/

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    This page will be surely useful, but there aren't only streaming websites in English. Such a list should include non-English websites as well, taking in account that there are regional restriction for content distribution in some countries (e.g. outside US Crunchyroll shows less than half of the series). It could be difficult to keep up to date.
    – chirale
    Aug 11, 2012 at 0:55
  • @chirale Not all of the resources on the page I linked are English only, so I'm not sure why the "but" is needed :)
    – atlantiza
    Aug 15, 2012 at 20:31
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As Truth mentioned, unless there's a legal site. I know Funimation shows at least a few episodes of stuff they've licensed, if not the whole series in the case of some older items.

I vote that it should be a topic that's carefully watched, but not entirely disallowed because of sites like Funimation. Legal companies are fine, fansubs and downloads are not.

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This kind of issue is usually resolved during the beta period, preferably based on questions actually asked on the site (naturally or as a test).

Here, signs point to no:

  • Asking where to find a specific work is a “shopping question”, which is generally held to be uninteresting on Stack Exchange.
  • If you're asking where to find illegally-copied content, Stack Exchange is not the right place. While SE does not actively police every link that someone shares, outright asking for illegal sources won't fly.

I'm not familiar with Anime and Manga communities, so I don't know how different they are, but I've been participating in Science Fiction & Fantasy since the private beta, and this issue was never prominent. We had a couple of “where do I find X” questions, which were about legal sources, and which were closed, and the issue of illegal content didn't come up in a big way. The only relevant meta thread I can find is Subtitles/Translations On or Off topic?

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    I think this would be a much bigger (potential) issue for Anime/Manga communities. If someone wants to watch a SciFi or Fantasy show, they can probably just turn on the TV and find something. While some anime does air on TV, there is a great demand to watch new anime shows shortly after they air in Japan. A large part of that demand comes from people who aren't fluent in Japanese, so those people also require subtitles. A few years ago, there were no legal ways to do this. There are now, but the illegal methods are still extremely popular.
    – atlantiza
    Jan 14, 2012 at 19:41

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