DB Celebrates Four Years of Subbing
2008/07/19
July marks the 4th anniversary of the Dattebayo Fansubs team’s first release.
The group currently known as Dattebayo Fansubs began in July of 2004 as a team subbing Naruto for the now defunct group Anime-Heaven. Since then, DB has become the world’s most downloaded fansub, picked up several new projects, spawned a Livejournal group, a Nationstate, and a CafePress store. The group has also created significant controversy in the communty with its continual release of fakesubs and constant trolling. During their four years of subbing, DB has inspired a number of groups who thought they could sub better and faster than DB, almost all of which have ceased operations after releasing only a few episodes.
When asked to comment on DB's 4th anniversary, longtime fan Naet from Kearns, Utah said, "I've been downloading from DB for over two years now and in that amount of time I have not seen anything of quality as good or anywhere close to the work that DB offers." A fan known as djSavvy from Portland added, "I suffered through countless RAW episodes for months before I started downloading from Dattebayo. Dattebayo is the best thing that's ever happened to me."
DB staff plans to celebrate the anniversary as they do all notable events, with delicious cake. Further events are planned for the official anniversary of Dattebayo itself in October. These events will involve more cake.
The following is a listing of DB staff members, their roles, and their approximate dates of participation in the group over the last four years. These are the people that make it all happen! The current staff would like to thank everyone who has worked with us and helped make our success possible.
DB Staff
timecop: founding member (raws, encoding, occasional translation checks if we ask really nicely, trolls)
interacti: founding member (timing, typesetting, karoke effects, random facts and figures, communication with other fansub groups)
gxseries: founding member (translation, vodka, communist ideas)
Moiraine: founding member (editing, timing, consistency, treasurership)
Zarharva: founding member (editing, timing, typesetting, superior fakesubs, special messages)
lafnear: founding member (editing, timing, press releases, manager in charge of failed projects)
Meri: founding member (editing, effects, boring, time consuming things that inty doesn't want to do)
Fate: founding member (editing, timing, MMORPG playing)
Yukizora: Nov 2004-July 2005 (translation)
royal_ken: Jan 2005-March 2005 (translation)
rhole: February 2005-present (translation & raws)
Rika: March 2005-December 2006 (translation)
chichiri: August 2005-present (translation & raws)
yumemiko: September 2005-January 2007 (translation)
Hiro: November 2005 (translation)
Alteran: Dec 2005-Oct 2006 (translation)
Rubidium: May 2006-November 2006 (translation)
Dace_K: June 2006-Dec 2006 (translation)
shigeruhiko: May 2006-present (raws)
el: Sept 2006-present (timing & karaoke)
AijinKidd: Sept 2006-Feb 2007 (translation)
Hana & Emi: Oct 2006-Jun 2007 (translation)
mud: Nov 2006-present (programming)
RibsMaster: Jan 2007-present (translation)
FatMouse: Jan 2007 (translation)
HisshouBuraiKen: Feb 2007-present (translation)
tlynnec: June 2007-present (typesetting & editing)
Yanagi: July 2007-present (editing)
buckybean: September 2007-December 2007 (translation)
Fiercewind: June 2008-present (translation)
To celebrate our fourth anniversary, DB has put together the following timeline of notable events from our history.
History of DB
July 2004: Original team starts subbing Naruto for A-H.
August 26, 2004: The team begins including “special messages” in the episodes, a practice that continues to this day.
October 6, 2004: The team releases their first fakesub, “Not Naruto 104”. Despite the fact that the name clearly states the show is NOT Naruto104, thousands of people are fooled. The BitTorrent tracker at a.scarywater.net is flooded with messages, thoroughly annoying its owner, mxs.
October 20, 2004: The team quits A-H and starts Dattebayo Fansubs.
October 21, 2004: DB releases its first episode, Naruto 105. It is the first of only a handful of episodes that DB has ever taken more than 24 hours to release.
January 13, 2005: timecop quits DB after having an argument with lafnear in DB’s public IRC channel. DB is flooded with offers from people who feel they are qualified to take his place. Of all the trolls DB has pulled, this one provides the best ratio of time spent planning (approximately 5 minutes) to lols obtained (nearly infinite).
February 19, 2005: Naruto is licensed. After much internal debate, DB decides to continue subbing the series until it receives a C&D letter from the licensee. This has yet to happen. DB is forced to move its episodes off a.scarywater.net, and DB’s website is born.
April 2, 2005: DB releases its most epic fakesub ever, the Prince of Tennis Final Episode.
April 2005: DB begins releasing Tsubasa Chronicle as a joint project with the group Live-Evil. DB becomes slightly more respectable, Live-Evil slightly less so.
August 4, 2005: DB partners with GNAA to release GNFOS as [YHBT] Naruto 146. The release is accompanied by a press release on GNAA’s website.
September 2005: Encouraged by fan requests at Otakon, DB begins to sub Bleach.
December 10, 2005: Rumors circulate on the internet that timecop has died in a car accident. Even DB staff is trolled.
April 1, 2006: DB announces that it has been acquired by FUNimation Entertainment. The website changes over to its current style.
April 19, 2006: DB picks up Pythagoras Switch, a Japanese children’s show.
June 4, 2006: DB moves its operations from the Rizon IRC network to AnimeNFO.
June 18, 2006: DB officially drops Tsubasa Chronicle.
November 24, 2006: DB announces that it will drop Naruto to sub Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. The announcement is accompanied by the release of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl 9 and a change on their website from DB’s logo to a new logo featuring Pikachu. Despite their best intentions to actually sub the show, the project stalls once everyone realizes how annoying Pokemon truly is.
January 18, 2007: DB is forced to hold a donation drive in order to replace the server that hosts its tracker. The drive raises over $9000 in 19 hours.
March 2007: DB donates the excess money from its donation drive, nearly $6400, to Doctors Without Borders.
April 1, 2007: Users that attempt to access DB’s site are greeted with a Department of Justice notice that the group has been shut down. Narutards everywhere panic.
April 16, 2007: DB releases its first statement regarding the distribution of its fansubs via YouTube and other streaming sites. The statement causes so much controversy it is pulled from the site shortly after release.
April 19, 2007: DB apologizes to its fans for an unintentionally offensive message about the VTech massacre that appeared in one of its episodes. In true corporate fashion, DB scapegoats and fires timecop, letting the actual author of the message off the hook.
May 2007: DB decides to pick up a new project, Denno Coil. It will be over a year before the first episode is released.
July 19, 2007: DB moves its website from yhbt.mine.nu to dattebayo.com.
July 20-23, 2007: Staff member Fate masterminds the “Dattebayo Staff Arrested at Otakon” troll. Otakorp is not amused.
July 27, 2007: DB opens a store at cafepress.com.
October 11, 2007: DB picks up a new project, Genshiken 2.
December 27, 2007: DB releases a second statement regarding the distribution of its fansubs on streaming websites. Fans rally in support. Shortly thereafter, a staff member is given the power to directly remove DB’s videos from YouTube.
April 17, 2008: DB announces that it will alter its fansubbing process to be less efficient. As part of this change, timecop is once again fired.
May 20, 2008: Gawker.com reports that Dattebayo Fansubs, LLC, is #5 in the Top 50 Web Video Censors, determined by number of videos removed from YouTube.
June 27, 2008: DB finally releases the first episode of Denno Coil.
July 9, 2008: DB moves IRC networks once again, from AnimeNFO to their new personal network, irc.dattebayo.com.
July 18, 2008: Due to continued noncompliance with requests that their work not be uploading to streaming sites, DB once again drops Naruto Shippuuden, this time permanently and for real.
The staff at Dattebayo Fanubs would like to thank everyone who has supported us over the last four years by downloading, sending us entertaining comments, or defending us on random anime forums. Although you don't really make it all possible, subbing would definitely be a lot less amusing without you.