Forum - View topicNEWS: Nikkei: Sony 'Nears Acquisition' of Crunchyroll
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Zeino
Posts: 1098 |
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Sony's total monopoly of anime in the western world, here we come...
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Ryuji-Dono
 Posts: 1208 |
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So, FUNimation and Crunchyroll will be together once more.
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4366 Location: New York |
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That is not a good thing, at all. Especially if Sony gets censorship happy. The battle lines will be drawn between Sony and Netflix, which for all its myriad of issues, has no problem with letting its content creators do what they want. |
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Ryuji-Dono
Posts: 1208 |
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You're talking like if Sony is the one that decides which titles may go to FUNimation? |
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Weird Guy
 Posts: 139 |
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well RIP good dubs from Crunchroll. Sony will very likely to do the same thing as they are doing with funimation dubs in my country...
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88NickC
Posts: 5 |
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This is Sony Pictures Entertainment that's attempting to acquire Crunchyroll, not Sony Interactive Entertainment. |
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CastMember1991
 Posts: 858 |
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I have a feeling Disney will join in the anime wars too. I see them buying Sentai or Viz. |
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Beatdigga
Posts: 4366 Location: New York |
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Disney doesn’t need anime. They have more than enough original material and the medium doesn’t fit their image. At most you’ll see Hulu tighten up its offerings.
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Lord Vaultman
Posts: 810 |
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Yeah not sure how I feel about this now. I don't think sony is going to get its return on investment if they spend that kind of money. Plus this just stinks of monopoly. I also fear for VRV and what may be lost there with roosterteeth, HIDIVE, etc. I love the idea of more funimation dubs but I feel like sony and funimation already had gotten to a good place.
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FlowerAiko
 Posts: 218 |
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So this leaves:
- Netflix, who just announced a huuuge partnership with a bunch of studios (I wonder if these two events are related?) - Viz, who picks up very few, mainstream shows and focuses on manga - Eleven Arts for films and GKIDS for films and NGE, apparently - Whatever energy Sentai's dying body has left And this is only in NA. I know Sony has a huge presence in other markets worldwide but am unfamiliar with intl markets on the whole. This is really, really bad. People defended the Funi buyout back in the day because "these companies can pay top dollar during bidding wars, that's good for studios!" and now we have a near monopoly. I doubt Sony will be keen on "paying top dollar" if they're pretty much the only route available for NA anime distribution. Funi's streaming service is already abysmal with the slow loading times, terrible console apps, and a website video player that STILL does not disappear when you enter full screen. I'm not a huge fan of Crunchyroll either but their website is at least functional. I wonder if Sony plans to merge the two or will keep them separate to wring out more subscriber money ala Disney +/Hulu/ESPN+. |
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hooliganj
 Posts: 113 Location: Longhorn Central |
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I'm less worried about censorship than about what this means for the already fragile financial state of the industry. Netflix is increasingly focused on self-produced titles. Hulu and Sentai/HiDive both have existing business relationships with Funimation and Crunchyroll, respectively. If Sony acquires Crunchyroll, it effectively puts every major outlet for TV anime in the west under (or at least adjacent to) one corporate umbrella, which gives them incredibly huge leverage when it comes to negotiating the all-important licensing fees. For the last decade these fees have been a reliable and important part of the income for many anime studios, and if Sony creates an effective monopoly and causes the price to drop... Back in the 90s there was a bubble in the western anime market, which popped when 2 of the 3 top competitors went under, leaving 1 company responsible for importing the majority of anime (and there was also a spot of economic trouble in Japan that maybe had a little bit of impact on the anime industry as a whole). At the time, Funimation came out on top, but was still a fan-owned and fan-targeting company, so they did what they could to keep the releases coming and to grow the fandom. Sony is not the same kind of company - if/when the bubble bursts their focus will be on protecting their revenue and cutting dead weight from the corporation. To avoid this, or at least mitigate the damage, there needs to be some competition. Personally I would like to see an anime-centered company like Sentai step up their game, but having been built on the bones of ADV before them, I don't know if the business acumen is there to compete on the level of the giant corporations that now dominate the field of anime licensing. Netflix could improve their licensing rate, but their marketing is always going to focus on their own "originals". Hulu and Amazon still license and carry shows, but both seem to have given up on using anime as a primary revenue stream. Maybe Disney+ can make a bid to fill their vacuous lack of catalog by cutting an exclusive deal with some studio - Bones would be a likely target, with their high output of relatively high-quality, family-friendly fare. But still, none of these seem particularly likely, which just leaves Sony, owning all the outlets, collecting all the sub fees, and slashing all the licensing fees. If this sale goes through, combined with the hit all studios have taken from COVID, I would predict that after about a year we'll start seeing all these cool, new, independent and creative studios shutting down, and the animators will be working harder for less than ever, no matter how many dormitories get sponsored by the fans. |
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invalidname
 Contributor Posts: 2442 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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If Sony can afford a billion dollars to buy Crunchyroll, then surely they can pay translators more than $80 an episode once the deal closes, right?
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Ermat_46
Posts: 725 Location: Philippines |
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Assuming that they won't just overwork employed Funimation translators. Also, Crunchyroll won't get a penny from the deal since Sony is paying AT&T, not Crunchyroll. |
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Jonny Mendes
 Posts: 997 Location: Europe |
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I can see Sony using Funimation for North American market and Crunchyroll for the rest of the world.
That's one way to avoid competition between the two services. Netflix anime is more aimed at American older teens and adult anime audiences and fans that are new to anime with all that CG animation. Viz is more aimed at mainstream younger shonen audience. Last edited by Jonny Mendes on Fri Oct 30, 2020 11:06 am; edited 3 times in total |
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Ryuji-Dono
Posts: 1208 |
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Does that mean different dubs in other English speaking countries? |
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