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Answerman - Why Is Crunchyroll On So Many Production Committees?


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Aca Vuksa



Joined: 22 Mar 2018
Posts: 643
Location: Nis, Serbia
PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 12:30 pm Reply with quote
I am really impressed how Crunchyroll are investing a lot of money to make more anime available to the international audience. There is a one problems is that there are some anime that haven't been licensed yet that includes Jewelpet, Inazuma Eleven, Battle Spirits and more.

I hope these investment will allow an more refined and child-oriented anime to be made, since i have a lot of cousin girls who would appreciate of magical girl they particularly like.

The investment could lead to be potetionally to be an crunchyroll an all streaming anime worldwide and illegal streaming websites to be nearly shut down too.

NOTE: I don't have an crunchyroll account and i prefer watching anime on illegal streaming sites.
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TravellinMatt77



Joined: 26 Dec 2016
Posts: 85
Location: Durham, NC
PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 12:41 pm Reply with quote
In Funimation's case, I wonder whether or not they'll mostly co-produce anime in genres that have brought them the most financial success--shonen action, ecchi comedy, and slice-of-life comedy. I'd like to see them take more risks--go "off-brand", so to speak. Then again, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, I suppose.
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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4410
PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 12:49 pm Reply with quote
It's kind of crazy to think we've reached a point where chipping in as a member of a production committee stands to be cheaper than licensing.

Aside from the sheer cost of licensing, that long lead time on production might help explain why Funimation agreed to be almost entirely purchased by Sony. Funimation has done a bit of co-production here and there, but it would take years to build up a more meaningful catalogue that way, all while trying to keep up with seasonal titles. Joining up with a company that already has a place on different committees stands to be a decent shortcut.
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Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
Posts: 5407
Location: Iscandar
PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 1:55 pm Reply with quote
Greed1914 wrote:
It's kind of crazy to think we've reached a point where chipping in as a member of a production committee stands to be cheaper than licensing.

I want to believe that this is true only with big deal stuff like My Hero Academia. Still, I think it is a smart idea to get into production committees, especially if the anime is successful.
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Thespacemaster



Joined: 03 Mar 2012
Posts: 1095
PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 1:57 pm Reply with quote
What is also great about Crunchyroll being on the production committe is that now if they co-produced part of a show and they received some revenue from that show from the western audience such as increase streaming and subscriptions, the western audience can play a role in influencing any popular show to get more of it produced.

It is far more complicated and the japanese audience are still the majority that influence but the contribution and influence is there.
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AkumaChef



Joined: 10 Jan 2019
Posts: 821
PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 3:11 pm Reply with quote
Thespacemaster wrote:
What is also great about Crunchyroll being on the production committe is that now if they co-produced part of a show and they received some revenue from that show from the western audience such as increase streaming and subscriptions, the western audience can play a role in influencing any popular show to get more of it produced.


That's a pretty interesting angle.

The only thing that worries me is when we talk of "western influence" we often end up un-doing many of the things that we like so much about anime. I can't speak for everyone, but I think that most fans look down upon a lot of the editing which has been done to "westernize" anime over the years. And I don't just mean censorship either. Consider the edits to Cardcaptors, for example. Or how a lot of content was scrubbed from Sailor Moon. Or even how major changes are made to the audio of many dubbed shows (see animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2018-11-05/.139057, for example)
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BlackPoint.



Joined: 23 Oct 2015
Posts: 708
PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 3:40 pm Reply with quote
Thespacemaster wrote:
What is also great about Crunchyroll being on the production committe is that now if they co-produced part of a show and they received some revenue from that show from the western audience such as increase streaming and subscriptions, the western audience can play a role in influencing any popular show to get more of it produced.

It is far more complicated and the japanese audience are still the majority that influence but the contribution and influence is there.


Exactly i also believe that this will be the biggest benefit of having CR on a committe because some shows fail at jpn but are huge success at US etc and this might give us outsiders some chance to perhaps be able to push for some more seasons of our favourite shows.
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Zendervai



Joined: 06 Apr 2012
Posts: 197
PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 4:15 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Production Committees are a hard party to get an invitation to. Production committees make decisions by consensus, and are therefore assembled only from trusted members of a very small clique of executives at known companies. There's a pecking order to them -- there are committees made from very successful "cool kid" investors, and ones made up of lesser producers and companies. While the recent boom in streaming anime both in the West and in China has made Japanese producers open up these committees to foreigners, it's been a very slow process, and it's taken a very long time for both Funimation and Crunchyroll to earn enough respect to sit at the "cool kids' table."


This is probably why Crunchyroll first started popping up as a committee member on a bunch of short anime. They used to never get licensed with Hetalia being a really obvious exception, but Crunchyroll signing up to help produce these small, cheap series and give them a larger market probably helped them build a better working relationship with the usual production committee members. It's pretty smart, even if most of the short series get forgotten super fast. Low investment, low outcome, opens doors for bigger things in the future.

(Also it seems to have gone better for Crunchyroll than Funimation thus far. Funimation's really big and heavily advertised production committee presence for Dimension W...didn't exactly work out for them)
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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 5887
PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 5:00 pm Reply with quote
AkumaChef wrote:


That's a pretty interesting angle.

The only thing that worries me is when we talk of "western influence" we often end up un-doing many of the things that we like so much about anime. I can't speak for everyone, but I think that most fans look down upon a lot of the editing which has been done to "westernize" anime over the years. And I don't just mean censorship either. Consider the edits to Cardcaptors, for example. Or how a lot of content was scrubbed from Sailor Moon. Or even how major changes are made to the audio of many dubbed shows (see animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2018-11-05/.139057, for example)


None of this really applies to anime shown on Crunchyroll (as far as I know) though bar say Yu-Gi-Oh which for whatever reason uses the English names of certain monsters.
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sputn1k



Joined: 29 Sep 2016
Posts: 52
PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 6:04 pm Reply with quote
AkumaChef wrote:
Thespacemaster wrote:
What is also great about Crunchyroll being on the production committe is that now if they co-produced part of a show and they received some revenue from that show from the western audience such as increase streaming and subscriptions, the western audience can play a role in influencing any popular show to get more of it produced.


That's a pretty interesting angle.

The only thing that worries me is when we talk of "western influence" we often end up un-doing many of the things that we like so much about anime. I can't speak for everyone, but I think that most fans look down upon a lot of the editing which has been done to "westernize" anime over the years. And I don't just mean censorship either. Consider the edits to Cardcaptors, for example. Or how a lot of content was scrubbed from Sailor Moon. Or even how major changes are made to the audio of many dubbed shows (see animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2018-11-05/.139057, for example)


"Western influence" is likely not present in shows co-produced via the production committee model. As Justin has pointed out, it is a consensus model, in which the involved parties find a solution that is acceptable for everyone involved. That sort of rules out a full-on westernization of a property. The larger part of parties on the committee should still be Japanese and trying to put out a product that will work in their own domestic market.
Foreign investors will likely also only invest into shows that they think will at least break even in the Western market or set off the investment by having large sales numbers in a different area.
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5296
PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 6:15 pm Reply with quote
Thespacemaster wrote:
What is also great about Crunchyroll being on the production committe is that now if they co-produced part of a show and they received some revenue from that show from the western audience such as increase streaming and subscriptions, the western audience can play a role in influencing any popular show to get more of it produced.

It is far more complicated and the japanese audience are still the majority that influence but the contribution and influence is there.
I feel that in more recent times American tastes(because that's really what they mean by western) are more inline with the Japanese than 10+ years ago due to getting the shows at the same time.
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AkumaChef



Joined: 10 Jan 2019
Posts: 821
PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 6:26 pm Reply with quote
BadNewsBlues wrote:

None of this really applies to anime shown on Crunchyroll (as far as I know) though bar say Yu-Gi-Oh which for whatever reason uses the English names of certain monsters.


For the time being, yes. I'm urging caution as to what might happen the future. I think doing things like asking for more seasons of things we love is a great idea. But I also think that some kinds of "westernization" end up being counterproductive. I know one of the things that was so appealing about Anime to me when I first got introduced to it was how different it was from western animation. If you strive to make everything the same you take away the nuances of what make different kinds of media different.
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nobahn
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Joined: 14 Dec 2006
Posts: 5120
PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 7:25 pm Reply with quote
Aca Vuksa wrote:

The investment could lead to be potetionally to be an crunchyroll an all streaming anime worldwide and illegal streaming websites to be nearly shut down too.

NOTE: I don't have an crunchyroll account and i prefer watching anime on illegal streaming sites.

I admire your honesty.
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Ermat_46



Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 721
Location: Philippines
PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 10:51 pm Reply with quote
Are people still being afraid of Crunchyroll's "westernization" agenda? Just look at CR's seasonal Top anime posted by Miles. It is being dominated by shows like Goblin Slayer. Not to mention, if you look at the shows being co-produced by CR (Girly Air Force, Kemono Friends, Shield Hero, Senran Kagura, etc.), everyone can see that there's literally no "westernization" happening on the shows they're funding. They might occassionally co-produce westernized shows (e.g. upcoming "Blade Runner" TV anime), but those are just occassional and aren't the norm for CR.
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TheAncientOne



Joined: 06 Oct 2010
Posts: 1868
Location: USA (mid-south)
PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 11:01 pm Reply with quote
One other important difference between licensing and being part of the production committee is no more worries about a licensing expiring when a company is part of the production committee.
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