Anime Junkies

A prolific and widely-known early-2000s fansub group whose 2003 conflict with Urban Vision became one of the fansub scene's most discussed ethics controversies. Urban Vision held the license to Ninja Scroll TV, which it had co-produced and pitched to Madhouse directly, and when it asked Anime Junkies to stop distributing the show, a group member responded with open hostility rather than compliance. Anime News Network editor Christopher Macdonald wrote a widely-read June 2003 editorial condemning the group and asking fans not to support them, then published a follow-up eleven days later specifically because of how much reaction the first piece generated, by his own account he'd never heard of the group before writing it, and was stunned by how large and divided the response was. The group did not last much past 2004, but the attitude it became known for lingered in scene discourse for a while afterward. Also completed a full 26-episode TV run plus all 4 Wolf's Rain OVA episodes by February 29, 2004, within days of the OVAs' own Japanese release.