No Name Losers - The Dark Side That Was
Posted Oct 7, 07:16 AM by GipFace
As you may know, my fansub group, No Name Losers, retired as of September 28th. The sendoff on the actual site [http://nnl1.com] is about as nice as you can get from me and my friend Reikoku, the two people who kept the group afloat for over five years.
However, it wasn’t all fun and games. There were dark moments as well. 75% of our releases came within the first half of NNL’s lifespan. What made this group fall apart in the latter half? Simply put, it was the project which split the team apart: Wind TV. Some of this story is told in Wind TV 4’s info page. Now you’ll hear the complete fairy tale… of the two.
madgat was the third “real” member of NNL. He joined the team in August 2002, when the group was in its infancy. He would provide newsgroup distro and raws. Landcaster then joined the team as the encoder in December 2002. For three years, those two people, along with Reikoku and me, were four-man team that was NNL. We pumped out a bishoujo game opening at a rate of about one a month. It was nice because there was no long-term commitment for any of us. That changed when we signed on for the Wind game project, then Wind TV.
I truly believed we had something special going with Wind TV. I put my heart and soul into making them some of the best fansubs that anyone could ever lay their hands on. Reikoku translated all sixteen episodes without flinching, assuming that the rest of the group would pull through.
In Reikoku’s final statement, he was grateful that I was the one who pushed him to do the things he did. That is the difference between him and madgat/Landcaster. In the end, those two ignored my repeated pleas to get the project going, first in mid-2005, then in early 2006. If they didn’t want to work on the project anymore, they could have simply said it up front. But they didn’t. They left the project hanging and were more than content to waste time in the staff channel talking about other things. They could not continue the project in a timely manner, so I wanted to transfer our work to another fansub group. madgat refused, and the TV project reached an impasse. I was too busy trying to get the game project completed on time.
I made a drastic choice in my life in September 2005. I decided to put off school for the game project. The project meant that much to me, and my decision was justified on the basis that I would be improving my Japanese knowledge to another level. For the next couple of months, it predominated my life.
Could I feel the same way about the game project as the other two did about the TV project? I couldn’t bring myself to that selfish conclusion. I knew that people were counting on me to finish the patch, and that people had entrusted their work in my hands. I did not want either project to die, but after sacrificing so much, I had to make a decision. The plug was pulled on Wind TV and the KSS OVA. I left the NNL staff channel, and unceremoniously removed madgat and Landcaster from the staff listing on the About page. They had betrayed my trust, and I did not want to work with them ever again. NNL was back to two people.
Reikoku was filled with bitterness after I told them that his translations were going to the sin bin. It had already happened once with Kakyuusei ELF OVA, but that time, at least both of us agreed to can it. He understood after I told him my side of the story, and accepted the fact that the game project was a higher priority. Patch week, and everything that went with it (including the Supah Hamonika Test) was orchestrated by myself. It was a very unnerving time for me, and the NNL fallout only exacerbated the situation. I had to leave IRC.
After coming back in January 07, tai and Web (two people that were in the NNL staff channel) invited Reikoku and I along with another #nnl person named lavalyn to Winterlicious 07. Winterlicious is an annual event held in early February each year, in which many upscale restaurants set special menus at reduced prices.
I felt out of place during the gathering. Neither tai, Web, nor lavalyn were interested in the future of NNL. If NNL was what brought us together, why couldn’t they see it through to the end? I was angry at the fact that I was carrying the entire load on my shoulders. I desperately wanted help, but no one had the time. No one had the passion I coveted.
After the dinner, I asked tai about his plans for ANorth 07. He said he wasn’t going to it. I accepted his response as verisimilitude. Then he and Web kept bringing up a question that irritated me: Why wasn’t I coming back to the NNL staff channel?
The original purpose of the NNL staff channel was to distribute the Wind TV/KSS OVA raws in private. Since both Wind projects were over, I told them the channel no longer had a purpose. I hinted my anger at tai, but he didn’t get my tacit responses. madgat and Landcaster could have released Wind TV 5 on behalf of NNL, but they didn’t. They had nearly a year to redeem themselves and they didn’t. The bridges were burned and neither side was going to rebuild them.
I was unable to make any hotel plans with any of the three people for ANorth. They simply did not want to commit the money. I found that inexplicable; they were willing to spend $70 on one meal but not for two days in a hotel room. Their failure to bunk with me was a catalyst in my being robbed of over $200 at ANorth 07, but that is another story for another day.
At ANorth 07, Reikoku and I went to the people’s flea market (Nominoichi) to meet someone else. Not only did we meet this person, we met tai. Why was he there? He lied to me, and I had to stop myself from erupting in anger. I certainly did not want to break down in front of Reikoku.
After ANorth 07, tai has never appeared in #nnl since. Most likely, he decided that Landcaster/madgat were better friends than me. Perhaps it was for the best. After all, I don’t want to be friends with a liar. As for the others, I don’t plan on meeting any of them in real-life ever again. It seemed that everyone in the NNL staff channel had betrayed me in some way. I have no desire to relive that experience.
As I reveal the final secrets of the rancor that was within NNL, my heart is filled with nothing but effervescence. This article may be nothing but a besmirching of a few people who were close to me, but by admitting my resentment, I feel that I can finally close this chapter in my life and never look back. A person who runs a “cesspool of elitism” has feelings, too. I was hoping that Reikoku would call them out within his final statement, but he’s too nice of a person for that. That’s what led me to write this epitaph.
I look back at my experience as one of disappointment and regret. People will forever remember us as “the people who did Wind”… but we could have been so much more. If only we had a better supporting cast…
Comment posting for this article is disabled because there are always immature people at every corner. Good night.
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