Romaji karaoke in fansubs, were they always there?

[neko_goes_nyaaa]

Or did the fansubbing team people -PUT- them in there? I'm having a rather heated debate with my bf over this... I say the fansubbers add them, but he says that they were already there and that the Japanese put them in there, not the fansubbers. Of the few times I've watched a raw anime (unsubbed) I've never seen them, I've seen the english lyrics at the bottom underneath the japanese, but not the romaji stuff at the top. This is a rather odd and trivial thing for us to debate over, but we're both not budging... lol.

[reppy]

I've always been under the impression they were added by fansubbers.  Why would the Japanese want to read romaji lyrics? Wasn't Romaji made to facilitate the pronunciation of Japanese by English-speakers? ^_^;

[neko_goes_nyaaa]

^ That's what I keep telling my bf, but he's still throughly and unwaveringly convinced that the JAPANESE put it there. He downloaded a couple episodes of some series called Fairy Tail. The romaji karaoke subs were already there, but the dialog subtitles were an extra file. I guess that is his basis for the notion that the Japanese put them there, but I'm pretty sure that if I searched the name of whatever team specifically subbed his show, I 'd find a listing for a Karaoke Typesetter somewhere in the ranks. He says "There's no way they'd go through that much trouble, and the Japanese do it because they're trying to teach their kids english." I think he underestimates the obsessiveness of fansubbing teams and I'm pretty sure they have programs just for that purpose.

[jaybug]

a lot of fansub groups have been getting away from doing karaoke. A lot of people hate it, and it takes a lot of time. Usually it had only been done regularly by the really conscientious fansub groups, to say not the speed sub groups.

[neko_goes_nyaaa]

Can you name any anime that -wasn't- U.S. distributed that had the lyrics of its intro already subbed in romaji? I can't think of any... but even though I have showed him that Ryugan Fansubs, the people who did the subs for his Fairy Tail mkv files, list the names of their Karaoke Typesetters, he still believes that "Sometimes the Japanese add it themselves." I'll admit that I once rented some episodes of Slayers Try that were on VHS and had english lyric subs the first time and then romaji the second time the intro was played, but that was on a U.S. distributed tape by ADV. I doubt the Japanese would put romaji subs on shows when they can already read the japanese lyrics.

[jaybug]

Can you name any anime that -wasn't- U.S. distributed that had the lyrics of its intro already subbed in romaji? I can't think of any... but even though I have showed him that Ryugan Fansubs, the people who did the subs for his Fairy Tail mkv files, list the names of their Karaoke Typesetters, he still believes that "Sometimes the Japanese add it themselves." I'll admit that I once rented some episodes of Slayers Try that were on VHS and had english lyric subs the first time and then romaji the second time the intro was played, but that was on a U.S. distributed tape by ADV. I doubt the Japanese would put romaji subs on shows when they can already read the japanese lyrics.

You have a bit of a contradiction in terms there. US distributed and romanji is an oxymoron. Are you talking fansubs, or about licensed product?

BUt the first time I saw romanji karaoke was four years ago, I need to look it up.....Man, I just can't remember which groups I was watching, as I was over at Wuntvor's house to watch them.

[neko_goes_nyaaa]

Fansubs... and I already got an email back from Ryugan
(and several other fansub teams) that proved my point.