Forum - View topicNEWS: Sentai Filmworks Licenses Princess Principal for Summer Simulcast
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dragonrider_cody
Posts: 2541 |
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Of course, that was before AoA came on the scene and Aniplex of Japan mostly stopped licensing out shows. Plus, they didn't get the new Saiyuki, despite having the older series and picking up the OVa's. |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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I have never railed at Aniplex over their pricing, but I'm NOT a Prime member at Amazon. Even if you took all my Amazon purchases and charged me for shipping on all of them (including the ones where I got "free shipping"), I wouldn't have spent enough on shipping to justify the +$10/month, and none of the other "benefits" make up the difference. This means watching anything on Amazon is at least $15/month for me. If a show runs 3 months, it would be cheaper to buy on disc than to watch streaming online, the only issue being the lag time. This puts Amazon titles in the same bin as Netflix for me, which is DOA. Meaning I either don't watch at all (I was a HUGE fan of Little Witch Academia, I backed the kickstarter pretty decently, I haven't watched a single SECOND of the TV series since its on Netflix), or "at best" its a really late view which makes the critical view higher AND the odds of finishing much lower. I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna pay for 4+ disparate services just so I can stay current on 8-10 shows a year. That's NOT good economics. I was happy because CrunchyRoll seemed to be consolidating a lot of shows, but I guess Sentai didn't like their alliance with FUNi and so now we're basically BACK to FUNi on one site and Sentai on another (or two) AND the second one is more expensive than the previous was. (If you don't have Prime, AStrike is more expensive than FUNi channel) The splintering is NOT good for the market and (IMO) is going to cause a new bubble burst in the not too distant future. |
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MavenRaven
 Posts: 30 Location: USA |
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Princess Principal was on my "this looks kinda interesting, I'll check it out when I have free time" list, but it being on Anime Strike just struck it off. I'm down to 4 series now (normally 10+) so I'll have much more time for my backlog now. Maybe I'll even start watching live shows on TV again!
So, thanks Anime Strike, I guess? |
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Thorfinn
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[quote="HeeroTX"]
Of course Sentai weren't happy about it, as soon as the partnership happened, they could barely license any anime from new seasons, and if they did, they would get the literal scraps that no one wanted. Amazon just came in and basically saved Sentai from a guaranteed slow death. The whole new bubble burst thing was the main discussion people had when Funimation and CR were fiercely competing with each other, rising the prices for purchasing rights for anime. Of course that, as soon as the CR x Funi partnership happened, people were all happy that they could watch everything they wanted on what was basically a monopoly on the market. |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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I don't see why that would be an issue. FUNi kept their dubs for themselves, they were only showing SUBS on CrunchyRoll. They had an agreement, but they weren't/aren't a single conglomerate. (AFAIK) I see no reason Sentai couldn't license shows for streaming and still put the streams on CR, as they have done. The only reason being they want more of the revenue, which is understandable, but is NOT a viable model for the anime market because you have multiple companies and fans are NOT gonna pay each one $5-10/month to try to catch a couple of shows each season. Some are going to just stop watching, the rest will probably go back to pirate sites. I mean, hasn't this been the American market argument for a while now? (re: why Aniplex is "wrong") It's better to get a little money from a LOT of people (one consolidated site) than to try to get more money from a smaller group of people (individual services).
But it wasn't a monopoly any more than a mall is a monopoly of stores. It is a single place to find multiple things, but they're provided by multiple sources. And our previous bubble was because all the licensers were bidding each other up for the top titles until it was unsustainable. Do you really think that won't be the case with players like Amazon and Netflix in the game? Amazon is like Walmart (was), which is to say it is large enough to get what it wants IF they want to fight over something. If Amazon gets out of the anime licensing game early, then changes will be minimal, but if they hang around, you could easily see some players (even "big" ones like FUNi) who are unable to swim in that pool. A bunch of retail companies that had a LOT more money and history than ANY anime company have already been killed (or all but) by Amazon. Amazon could be a de facto "media" monopoly in a decade or so. |
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Thorfinn
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^
Lol, what do you mean you can't see an issue with how the CR x Funi partnership was affecting Sentai? Sentai would've gone bust by not getting any relevant titles from newer anime seasons because Funi and CR would take almost everything. Or they would've shrunk to a smaller company like Discotek. The issue was clear for Sentai and they took advantage of what Amazon had to offer. And about the monopoly, I guess we view things differently, in my eyes it was a complete monopoly. If you really want to look at someone that really caused the licensing prices to rise, then it's CR and Funimation. Amazon and Netflix saw that there was a big market that they wanted to be a part of and they aren't afraid to use their endless pockets. Even if a burst happens, anime will continue to be made. But that won't be the case because Netflix and Amazon will be there with however much they need to pay. |
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lossthief
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 1402 |
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It's worth noting Amazon is only 1 of several streaming sites listed for that series. With Made In Abyss, Amazon was the exclusive streaming platform for the show in Japan. So it's entirely possible for Crunchyroll to have International or US rights for Symphogear, or for the series to end up on both like Eromanga-sensei and Granblue Fantasy. As for this title, while the premise and aesthetic interested me, the creative staff left me pretty cold. I can't remember the last thing Okouchi wrote that didn't either fall apart half-way through or start out in the dumpster and just kept digging. 3Hz and Actas have both helmed some interesting (if not, IMO, worthwhile) originals before though, so I'll keep my hopes up for a surprise. |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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Please explain your view on this. Because either Amazon is spending money on streaming (which means AMAZON has the rights to it, not Sentai) or else Sentai is just moving to Amazon as a platform. (if Sentai is "sub-licensing" to Amazon, how long before Amazon just cuts out the middle man? They already started licensing on their own anyway) If we assume that Sentai is just using Amazon as the platform, why is that a better deal than CR? Fact: Crunchyroll was streaming Sentai titles previously Fact: Crunchyroll licenses their own titles (unrelated to FUNi's licensing) So EITHER Crunchyroll has ALWAYS been a competitor to Sentai (and thus nothing has materially changed to "benefit" Sentai) or they're simply a platform for distribution (in which case Sentai loses little by continuing to utilize them). One can ARGUE that they're "helping" their competitor by driving traffic to their site with Sentai's content, but THE EXACT SAME THING would be true with Amazon. The ONLY reason to go with Amazon is if Amazon is "subsidizing" their content, and if that is so, I again say, WHY would Amazon do that long term? If Crunchyroll is bad for Sentai long term, then SO IS AMAZON. The only "option" that is good in that model is Sentai having their OWN platform, which is unsustainable as proven by FUNi partnering with CR and other attempts (like Neon Alley and TAN) crashing.
This assumes that Amazon at Netflix will continue to see the value in this market. When it was a crash where FUNi (and to a lesser extent Sentai) "won" over Bandai and others, then yes, you had anime companies beating other anime companies. But if mega-corps like Netflix and Amazon are in play, then you risk having anime companies get beat by companies that see value NOW but may not in the future. Heck, even Cartoon Network gave up on anime for a while, hell, there are times where they've even given up on ANIMATION. I wouldn't be surprised if 10 years from now Amazon decided China is a better market and wants more Chinese animation like "King's Avatar" rather than anime. And if they push out FUNi and Sentai in the interim, then that will be a big problem for anime producers. (especially if it IS a market like China, because then China won't be paying them either) |
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Tuor_of_Gondolin
 Posts: 3524 Location: Bellevue, WA |
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The way I look at it: CR and Funi have both done a lot for the Anime industry here in the US. They kept going even when things were looking bad; they've been a mainstay and I respect them for that. What has Amazon or Netflix done in comparison? In the past, not much of anything. And who knows how committed they'll be in the future. They can drop all their investment in the Anime industry and it would make barely a ripple on their bottom line (this is especially true of Amazon). Funimation and CR are both heavily invested in the Anime industry, so they'll work hard to keep it going, especially when times get tough. I want them to stay around.
I don't have a problem if the big boys get involved, but if they distort the market to the point that guys like CR and Funimation are put out of business, then that would be a Bad Thing, and would make me wonder about the long term health of the industry. |
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Thorfinn
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The way it seems, Sentai and Amazon have some sort of a partnership going on. We don't know any details because they haven't been made public. It seems that Amazon might be using Sentai to get the US streaming rights instead of international streaming rights for Anime Strike. Sentai get to keep home video rights, who knows, as I pointed out, there are no details on this partnership. Amazon probably don't want international rights for most shows, so they use Sentai Filmworks as a way to get the US rights only without having to worry about other territories and Sentai gets to distribute the shows physically as an added bonus. Amazon seems to have the full rights for the anime they stream globally on Amazon Video in general (Welcome to the Ballroom, Bahamut S2, etc). Another reason why Amazon might want to stay in good relations with Sentai is because Sentai have a massive backlog of anime that Amazon want to stream on their service and Amazon might've been interested in getting shows from Funimation for example, but the Cr x Funi deal is getting in the way(there are a few Funi shows on Strike though). Even if Amazon ditch Sentai, it's a risk worth taking for Sentai as it can help their company survive and stay relevant for longer than it would've been possible after Cr x Funimation + the other competition left them with nothing to grab. Before Amazon came into the discussion, every single promising title was getting picked up by Funimation and CR after Funi x CR. As soon as Amazon and Sentai started their partnership in spring, Sentai were suddenly getting the rights for 9 anime, instead of 2-3-5 and they were getting shows that were anticipated or hyped up. CR has always been a competitor for Sentai in a way, especially after CR started to distribute anime on disc. Sentai were just using CR as a platform to stream their shows, as it was the most popular one. Things went south after CR started distributing anime on disc themselves, Sentai was already putting shows exclusively on Hulu, but Hulu kind of ditched anime and Sentai had nowhere to go again, except CR. CR even got the master license for Haikyu s3 in Fall 2016, which is a pretty ugly move from them and it showed their dominance and cockiness after the Funi x CR deal. |
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13577 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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I was hoping Funi would get it so they could do a simuldub with British accents. Now, if they scrapped the Anime Strike paywall, I would be probably be enjoying this more.
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Richmyster84
 Posts: 176 |
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if only they'd do simu-dubs like Funimation -_-
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dragonrider_cody
Posts: 2541 |
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You could also say all of this for Sentai as well. If you include ADV, Ledford and company have been working in the industry for even longer than Funimation. The biggest difference is that Funi was able to get a few key big shows, especially DBZ, that kept them going when the whole industry went south. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, there is little to no danger of Amazon putting CR out of business, and probably even less of a risk for Funimation. Both companies are very dominant in their markets, and Funimation has most of the biggest anime titles in North America. All that's happening is that the market is becoming a bit more balanced again, and the big seasonal titles are once again being split between Funimation/CR and Sentai. The risk of Funi and CR becoming a monopoly has basically been negated for now. Amazon may have big pockets, but I can't see them pouring millions and millions into a business to drive CR out, when they already have a subscriber base that is over 100 times the size of CR's in just the US alone. Even if every single CR subscriber switched to Prime and Strike, it would only add one million subscribers. That's not much when you already have 100 million plus subscribers in one market, not including any of the international ones. I think the only thing that will change is that Funimation and CR will be back to focusing more on big tent pole titles like My Hero Academia, Attack on Titan, etc, rather than duking it out over every single title. Bidding wars aren't necessarily a bad thing, but not every title warrants one. |
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TheAncientOne
 Posts: 1874 Location: USA (mid-south) |
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Funimation's rights to the first Symphogear series had expired before the partnership was forged, so it has no bearing. |
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Finny-chan
 Posts: 448 Location: West Virginia, U.S.A |
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Well Netflix has one I wanted to watch and the others on Anime Strike. Welp looks like it will be a fansubbed season for me. At least if I like what I watch I can buy it when Sentai releases the Bluray that is pretty much the only pro I can give from this whole Sentai x Anime Strike thing almost half the current anime being available physically.
Anime Strike can go die in a ditch its horrible the double pay wall the horribly timed subs. Anime Strike is a mistake. Fansubs and Crunchyroll has more quality than they do 
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