I started work on my fansub projects back in 1999, when VHS was still the order of the day for most fansubbers. A lot of my earlier work was never really released because I just didn't have the means to finalize my subs back then. All I had was a 486 and a TV, and no way to get images from one to the other. So I just put the subs on one screen and the video on the other.

Then 2003 rolled around and I finally had the capability of creating fansubs. The Celeron/700 was a piece of junk then, and it's a piece of junk now, but it was up to the task. I churned out a few test subs in VCD format, and eventually released one of them, the first version of my Sailor Moon R 67.

Later, I decided to make use of what I had learned over these many years, when a group released a sub of the new live-action Sailor Moon that had a few questionable lines inserted into it. I started my work on it, and soon, another group came out with a "clean" sub of their own.

When the parody sub source dried up, after the third episode, I said I had intentions to continue my project, and that I would use whatever source I had available to guide me along that path, and I specifically mentioned this group that was still subbing. They got mad; I backed off. A friend of mine supplied me with a translation of his own and I edited and released that instead. However, to this day, the other fansub group still rants and raves, claiming I stole their scripts. That other group is TV-Nihon.

My question is, when did subbing stop being about providing a service for the fans, and start being a popularity contest, or - worse - a turf war? When did it stop being normal and accepted for one fansubber to correct another's flaws, and release a superior product with due credit? When did fansub groups become monstrous entities run by people who couldn't care less about the FANS?

I come from the old school of fansubbing, and merely use digisubbing methods because they are more convenient and accessible to me and to my fellow fans. I don't care about being the 1337est fansubber on the block, I just want to please the fans. And most of them are quite easy to please. Really, the only exceptions are those who seem to be mind-controlled by rival fansubbers. (TV-Nihon certainly seems to have a cult of personality revolving around their bossman KingRanger.)

I have gone out of the way to pacify KingRanger of TV-Nihon but he seems to want no less than my head on a platter, or at the very least, my complete departure from fansubbing, which I refuse to give him, so the war continues, and I am fighting defensively. It is a war I do not wish to fight but that I must not give up.

If you could rewrite the Star Wars prequel trilogy, how would you write it?

Lots of us hate the Star Wars prequel trilogy because, face it, it's just not Star Wars-y enough. What the hell was Lucas thinking when he put in midichlorians, bounce-off-the-walls Yoda, and Jar Jar Binks? And why does he feel the need to mess with the original movies to make them look like the crap he's putting out now? And how come they just don't fit with the storyline we know from the original movies?