The end of an era, or the beginning of an even more awesome era.

Most of you know me as an idiot, occasionally as a niche fansubber. I've been at it since 2019, or rather, since 2022, when I actually started taking it seriously. Now it's four years later, and if my spreadsheet is to be believed, I've worked on the equivalent of 1,200 episodes (or 500 hours) of anime, as a timer, translator, typesetter, or QC, across 230 titles. When I look back at all those projects, I think I feel something like a father's pride. I've always believed in the "friends we make along the way" school of thought, and what a journey it has been.

Like most things, this started half as a joke. 2022 was a pretty depressing year for everybody for obvious reasons, so with nothing better to do with my time, I fought back against the depression with subbing. I believed, or rather, convinced myself, that I was doing something worthwhile, something useful to humanity, something that could be called "Beautiful, Helpful, and Good", in the Buddhist sense. Something that might be remembered - a meme in the strict, Richard Dawkins sense of that word.

It worked remarkably well for me. Making subtitles became the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle, filling the emptiness in my soul almost perfectly for a very long time. But all good things must come to an end.

This isn't burnout. I could probably keep going at my current pace for years to come. I just don't feel like it anymore. I've come to realize that my current lifestyle isn't sustainable. As hard as it is to face, sooner or later I'll have to pay the piper and move on to doing some actual work. There is more to life than old, mediocre anime.

Fansubbing has never been profitable, and never will be. It would be silly to expect otherwise, since being a genuinely fan-driven activity is at the very core of what it is. That said, I don't want to spend the rest of my life living on subsistence.

We all know Collectr of Orphan fansubs, who's been doing this for twenty years at this point. He's in his grey years, has had a fulfilling and interesting life, and has crossed most of the items off his bucket list. At least, I hope he has. I can't say the same about myself. I've probably got at least another 30 years of this horsing around ahead of me, and I'm not getting any younger.

Some recent events have reminded me that I once had ambitions and dreams of my own. That I'm the creative director of my own film, not a background character. Not someone forever stuck begrudgingly translating the second-rate works of others just to prolong the illusion of self-fulfillment. There are other walks of life I've always been interested in, but kept holding my horses and never actually brought myself to try. Fansubbing gave me a way to silence those urges instead. But you know what? There's no time like the present.

Will I fail miserably? Most certainly! But I'd take regretting a failure over hating myself for never trying at all, any day of the week. What have I got to lose? I'm not doing this for the money or success at all, but simply to get it out of my system, just like when I picked up fansubbing.

As much as my instincts tell me to open Aegisub again, load the next episode, keep calm, and trot on, because that's the only thing I know how to do and have been doing for years, I realize that I can't keep hiding in my NEET comfort zone forever. I have to break this mold while I can, before circumstances do it for me, but in emergency mode. As things stand, fansubbing takes up too much of my time to combine it with any other pursuit. Therefore, I have to cut this Gordian knot altogether and put Aegisub on the shelf. I can either fansub, or devote myself to what I'm actually interested in doing. There is no middle ground. Believe me, I tried. After all, a compromise is when both sides are unhappy with the outcome.

I apologize to anyone who was counting on me to keep up my current momentum, translate more obscure never-before-subbed titles, or help with their projects. But this had to be done. I intend to pursue this new path for at least a year, depending on how miserable I feel. This doesn't mean I'm going to disappear from the internet or anything, but you'll be seeing significantly less of me.

As they say in Japan, there comes a time in every man's life when he must set out on a journey and ride into the sunset.

I'll still be putting out some releases later. There are projects currently in QC or at other stages that aren't dependent on me, and I'll see those through. But there will be no new projects.

Admittedly, there were quite a few more shows I intended to work on before retiring:

• Taruruuto-kun v2
• Animentary Ketsudan v2
• Flanders no Inu, both versions
• The rest of Manga Nihon Keizai Nyuumon
• Shibai Taroka v2
• Futari no Lotte v2
• Honoo no Alpenrose
• Wingman
• Manga Edo Erobanashi
• Kero Kero Chime
• Visitor
• Pelican Road v2

But c'est la vie. If I keep putting this decision off, as I've done before, there may come a point when it is too late to make the choice myself. So this is me choosing now. 

Thank you for the journey. Goodbye.