College kids have a knack for obscure interests and tons of free time to enjoy them. That’s where anime got its start in the Western world. These foreign language novelties had weird letters and giant eyes and gibberish sounding language (even after translated). Throughout the 1970s and 80s, fans learned Japanese and translated anime shows and movies and including their subtitles in bootleg copies to share. Even as commercially translated anime was imported, fans contributed their own translations to less popular franchises that had little hope of localization. The internet expanded these fan translations, working on not only translating untranslated films, shows, and video games, but redoing unsatisfactory translations. It’s the only way to play the whole Earthbound series with any quality.