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NEWS: Funimation, bilibili Establish Partnership for Joint Anime Licensing

Did everyone forget that Crunchyroll is owned by one of the largest companies in the world? It’s not like AT&T is just going to roll over and play dead for an anime streaming site from China that doesn’t even stream in the US. Not to mention, there is no guarantee that this deal will even last long enough to damage CR, especially as most of Funi’s streaming partnerships were relatively short lived.

I think it’s a little premature to pronounce CR dead, when we haven’t even seen how this will affect their acquisitions in the future.

Including all the hot titles such as Promised Neverland, Love is War etc, AND not to mention somehow they got some exclusive titles from Netflix and Amazon as well!

dragonrider_cody wrote:

Did everyone forget that Crunchyroll is owned by one of the largest companies in the world? It’s not like AT&T is just going to roll over and play dead for an anime streaming site from China that doesn’t even stream in the US. Not to mention, there is no guarantee that this deal will even last long enough to damage CR, especially as most of Funi’s streaming partnerships were relatively short lived. I think it’s a little premature to pronounce CR dead, when we haven’t even seen how this will affect their acquisitions in the future.

FUNi has partnership with Hulu and bilibili. I'm pretty sure that would damage CR in terms of their acquisitions, especially with bilibili since they stream almost all seasonal shows in China.

Not to mention, just look at the recent blunders CR is making: CR Originals/High Guardian Spice (which is a PR disaster regardless, and they're being mum about it), untimely raising of their subscription prices, broken partnership with FUNi, etc. CR's only saving grace in terms of their acquisitions would be Aniplex of America, their co-productions (which again they're being mum about it, and not to mention seems to be dwindling in numbers), and possibly sequels to shows they previously licensed.

EDIT: Speaking of co-productions, apparently they have a deal with NBC Universal Japan about co-productions that was announced back in 2017. Since we don't hear anything about those and it's already 2019, then I assume that the deal fell apart without them producing a single title from that deal.

I'm genuinely curious how this will shake up regional licensing... Maybe it'll force the purchase of worldwide streaming rights from licensors instead of territories being an option. I could see this creating waves for the European and Australian markets for sure, and maybe even for Latin America. We're definitely in for some turbulence, at any rate.

..., broken partnership with FUNi, ...

At least this means we may finally have a legal outlet for some of the productions bilibili was involved with that never saw a simulcast in the west.

Ermat_46 wrote:

..., broken partnership with FUNi, ...

Odd that you count that against CR, but apparently not Funimation.

As dragonrider_cody rightly pointed out, Funimation's partnerships have been of limited duration. Their partnership with CR was one of the longest I can remember, and frankly lasted longer than I originally expected (although not as long as I had hoped).


As to the ill-timed price increase, when has a price increase ever been well timed? Even if a company announces a price increase immediately after new features and/or new content, it isn't going to be well received.

Didn't Gen Fukunaga mentioned in an interview that it was due to Crunchyroll not budging with regards to FUNi's regional expansion?

Ermat_46 wrote:

Didn't Gen Fukunaga mentioned in an interview that it was due to Crunchyroll not budging with regards to FUNi's regional expansion?

Yes, and was there any mention of Funimation offering anything in exchange for that unilateral change to the agreement?

Do you believe it would have been a good move on CR's part to allow Funimation to continue with the benefits of the deal (e.g., less competition for licensing) while expanding the territories where they would later compete with CR?

Lizzie_B wrote:

So is this a good thing or bad thing?

That would mean FUNi would get about 70% of the anime every season while CR would only get around 10 shows, depending on how many shows they co-produce during the season. But seeing that the amount of their co-produced shows are dwindling, I don't see much hope for CR. I don't count Netflix shows for those since those are using an entirely different model.