Our Mission

Wasabi Anime was formed in 1996 with the intention of bringing quality anime to the United States, specifically to San Diego.  Even nowadays, when you turn on the TV, walk into a Blockbuster, wherever you see anime, you're likely to see crap like DBZ, Akira, Pokémon, and Ninja Scroll.  So, determined to bring the public "the good stuff" that most people do not get to see here in the States, we continue to sponsor local anime clubs, but do not produce fansubs.

We Do Not Fansub!  We Do Not Digisub!  We Do Not Do Illegal Distribution.  Do Not Ask!

Once upon a time, there were a meager handful of fansubbers.  These fanatical, dedicated few spent an inordinate amount of time and effort in helping raise the American public's awareness of the Japanese art form commonly known as anime.  Anime was much harder to come by, and the fans were a niche community.  These fans supported one another's mutual addiction by subtitling shows and trading tapes (remember those?) to spread awareness of their favorite titles.  The fans would (in theory) purchase the series when it would become domestically available and destroy the nth generation fansub in their possession.

Idyllic, yes, but that was the philosophy.  To some, the thinking was that the relatively low quality of a VHS (or even SVHS) tape should serve as an incentive to buy the original LD of the show you liked.  These days, anime is everywhere.  With all of the domestically licensed anime you can see on your local Cartoon Network, in your local video store, or for sale at your local distributor(s), there's little point in publicly fansubbing.
In the past, translations and scripts that were produced by fans within our own club have been put to tape and even video captured and spread throughout the Internet as asf files.  We do not approve of this practice, we do not participate in this practice, by every account, we stand opposed to this practice. Do not bother asking us for subtitles, it's not what we do and we simply don't dabble in that realm.
So, where can you see our subs, then?  Simply put, many of our past translation efforts have been made publicly available (we own no copyright on shows that are not licensed by our group, of course) and can be found scattered around the web.

The Club Keeps Growing!

While we do not actively participate in the whole scene of fansubbing and distribution, we do encourage those who take a genuine interest in learning more about anime, the Japanese culture, the Japanese language, JPop, etc.  To this end, we still have monthly meetings to gather and view fan efforts in translating, but do not, nor have we ever, share tapes.  Any tapes we receive for a private viewing are used simply for that alone.  While going strong for years with our core members, Gamera, Axia and Prehnite, we have always welcomed new talent to our group.  With the recent addition of Miki-chan, HP-, XStylus, vile1SoC, Squidy, Hinoto, Keitaro and Uzuki to our ranks, we have worked to translate a large number of shows.  This is exciting for those interested in furthering their knowledge of Japanese, and perhaps one day working to professionally translate such as a number of our members have moved on to do.

What's Going on in 2002?

As our club grows, we discover new talent everywhere!  If you think you have a gift, strength, or just good ol' determination, and would like to get involved, drop us a line, or visit us on the bulletin board.