Fansub roots
No Name Losers was originally a fansubbing group formed by a group of students in Toronto, Canada, on July 2002. After our second fansub, it became apparent that whatever we did would eventually be obsoleted and forgotten. We also didn't want to keep up the weekly grind of releasing before other groups. Thus, we switched our efforts from traditional anime episodes to visual novel/eroge openings. After fansubbing approximately 30 or so such openings, we turned our attention to an even loftier goal: fansubbing the visual novels themselves.

The minori factor
The very first visual novel opening we fansubbed was from Wind -a breath of heart-. It caught our attention due to its beautiful visuals and animation. From that day forward, we became some of the most ardent fans of minori from the western hemisphere. With the help of many people who have come and gone from No Name Losers, we were successful in fansubbing two minori visual novels: Wind -a breath of heart- and ef - a fairy tale of the two.

Shortly after ef was completed, minori contacted us about a possible partnership. After a few exchanges, minori then turned to MangaGamer for distribution, and a deal was finalized. We were the first fansub group to officially align ourselves with a commercial Japanese visual novel company. Our dreams had come true: we had become something distinct from the sea of fansub groups who had appeared and disappeared over the past decade.

No Name Losers today
The current team of No Name Losers consists of some of the original team, plus a few others from around the world who are also minori fans themselves.

As per our contract, we are obligated to discontinue all support for our previous fansubbed work. However, we will continue to serve our longtime fans with the quality they know and expect from us. We also look forward to meeting new people, seeing new faces, and providing ample encouragement, all to spread awareness of this niche medium.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us over all these years. If ef does well commercially, you may see additional work from us!

Anime North
With a portion of the team being from Toronto, we have made the exodus to Anime North every year since 2003. There are some years where people recognize us, but most of the time we remain unnoticed. For those who are interested, here's our ranking of all the cons we've been to, from best to worst:

2008: Halko Momoi = WIN. She singlehandedly brought this to #1, as anyone who attended her concert can tell you. Her concert is probably the best Anime North main event of all-time. All other events were spaced appropriately; there was never a dull moment. We also made over $500 from selling merchandise, so that's a bonus! Picked up Snow Sakura.

2006: KOTOKO = WIN. We volunteered ourselves for panels, and we also got to meet Kyle Ward of RoXoR Games and purchase a metal dance pad. Also featured Thursday night check-in events, which they've since stopped doing. First year that Hirameki International came, and we picked up Hourglass of Summer and Ever 17, and got a second copy of Tea Society of a Witch due to the 2-for-1 sale! This was the year right before the anime bubble in North America was about to burst.

Anime Boston 2011: NNL Toronto finally met up with some of the NNL USA team! Though lineups were huge, there were fun times all around, and the schedule was jam-packed with relevant panels and concerts. In the AMV contest, there were four AMVs with ef content! There was even a visual novel panel, which was the main attraction of the event!

2011: Complete con revamp by forcing all the important events into two buildings instead of three, thus saving us from much walking. One of us won the AMV contest, and you may see the entry here! There was also a visual novel panel, the first since 2003, and the Idol contest made its return! Picked up Da Capo.

2005: One of us won J-Rock Idol, and the other won a game show! Overall panel and event quality was awesome. Picked up Ishika and Honori, the worst Hirameki International title and one of the worst commercial English visual novels of all-time.

2003: First year; we only went on Saturday. To date, this has been the only Anime North with an actual visual novel panel, which is funny because it was before visual novels even hit it big! Unfortunately, it was just us and the panelist. This was also right before the anime boom exploded, so watching stuff like Chobits with an audience really kicked ass. Had the best fansub panel ever.

2004: It rained, and the Doubletree Hotel was unavailable. We also slept in a room with at least eight other men. But the Atsuko Enomoto concert made up for it!

2010: Only went for two days. Not much in the way of concerts, but one of us got to enter Anime Jeopardy, and two people recognized us! The panel programming was rather good, however. ef was namedropped in an underrated shows panel. The visual novel presence was almost nonexistent.

2009: Very boring. Nothing of note, but we won a Fullmetal Alchemist figurine for doing well in Anime Question Countdown! The Puyo Puyo tournament was canceled; what a shame.

2007: The start of the North American anime depression. Wow, did this one suck. We honestly can't recall anything from this one, other than this one event where someone was sketching suggestive poses of cosplayers. Second and final year that Hirameki International showed up before they declared bankruptcy. Picked up Piece of Wonder and Yume Miru Kusuri.

Fan Expo 2003: This is the other anime convention in Toronto, but it's a hybrid sci-fi/gaming/anime convention. And it sucked. Don't go to this con.

Contact
This web site is graciously hosted by visual-novels.net. Keeping our roots of remaining simple and low-key, we don't use any social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, or Wordpress. In addition, we don't have a message board or public IRC channel. If you would like to discuss No Name Losers and its works, try the MangaGamer forum.

We keep a modest YouTube channel, and our contact e-mail is enenel <at> gmail.com. Feel free to contact us using either of these two methods.