Remember when fansubbed episodes came on VHS tapes?

I was digging through some old boxes and found a fan-subbed VHS of Evangelion from 1997 with a handwritten label. The quality was terrible, half the subs were misspelled, and someone's friend had taped over the last 10 minutes with a wrestling match. Has anyone else noticed how the whole experience of discovering anime has shifted from physical trades to just clicking 'next episode' instantly?

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3 Comments

brooke_jones3mo ago

Setting a timer for the VCR to record the late-night broadcast was the real gamble, one wrong number and you'd have 2 hours of static instead of Gundam Wing. Best trick was always recording onto a fresh tape at SP speed to avoid the tracking issues that came from taping over a worn-out movie. Maybe it's just me but the instant streaming killed that whole feeling of community since you can't lend a friend a scratched tape and talk about it the next day.

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wendy_henderson213mo ago

Nah, streaming is BETTER because I don't have to hunt down someone's cousin just to borrow their scratched copy of a show.

3

davis.olivia3mo ago

Wait hold up @brooke_jones you're telling me you actually SUCCESSFULLY set the timer on those old VCRs? I swear I tried that twice and both times I got a blank screen and the microwave clock was blinking 12:00 for a week. That's some kind of dark magic right there.

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