Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Did Crunchyroll and Funimation Divorce?
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JustStopPlz
Posts: 48 |
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So for seasonal anime we'll now have Netflix, Amazon, Sony(Funimation), AT&T(Crunchyroll), and Sentai fight for shows. No prizes for pointing out which of these is not like the others. Sure, Netflix only goes for maybe 1 or 2 shows each season. Same with Amazon nowadays. But that still leaves 3 companies left to fight over the majority left, and one of them doesn't have a huge corporation backing them. It's a given that licensing costs are going to go back up now. Funimation and Crunchyroll should be able to afford it, but what about Sentai? Is HIDIVE/VRV partnership going to be able to give Sentai enough money to allow them to get good shows each season? Or are they going to left with the crap no one else wanted? They have a decent back catalog, but i'd be willing to bet that most people that are subscribed to HIDIVE care about the seasonal anime they get more than anything else.
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Chichiryuutei
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Competitors can't be friends. Funimation was losing with this partnership.
Been in a large corporation, I know a merger/restructuring is going to happen within the year. Aniplex & Funimation will be separate for another 6 months to 2 years but then they'll reorg into one product line for efficiency. Moving forward all LE/CE are going to be handle by whoever is left from Aniplex and the Funimation staff will continue work on the regular BDs, dubs, etc. Best case scenario, Funimation becomes an even bigger juggernaut with the chance to move to Spanish/Portuguese/French/German dubs a la Netflix. CE/LE will be lower than Aniplex prices but higher than Funimation. Worse case scenario, prices go up across, Sony pushes back on dubbing work because Japanese "sounds" better and Funimation loses market share. Anime has gone mainstream. This is great news. Fans now have more access, more say on what getsgets dubbed, the industry will have more money and the production quality will continue to improve. I'm excited. |
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dragonrider_cody
Posts: 2541 |
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For now, it appears that CR and Sentai are once again working together. Though I imagine there is some friction behind the scenes, especially as CR dumped them for a somewhat short lived partnership with Funimation. I imagine that will help more than HiDive being on VRV. I wouldn’t be the least surprised if Sentai ended up in the Warner-AT&T family sometime in the future. They already have ties to CR and VRV, and have worked with Warner Brothers several times in the past. Of course, the relationship between Sentai, Section 23, HiDive, Anime Network VOD, and Matt Greenfield’s companies might make any deals more complicated. It wouldn’t be one simple acquisition, but a series of deals to acquire each entity they were interested in. |
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Ermat_46
Posts: 731 Location: Philippines |
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Was it really CR who dumped Sentai, or was it the other way around. Do note that CR/FUNi partnership started on Summer 2016. Even beforehand, there are signs that CR / Sentai ""partnership"" isn't going well (i.e.: Rakudai, Bahamut, etc.) |
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mc55
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I think this will hurt those those who can't afford necessarily more than one service. And as the fracturing continues across both anime and other genres, it will only get worse. I hear the whole cut the cord argument, but for some fans who are lower-class on the economic spectrum, this will still not be the easy solution. I'm happy that anime has gone mainstream and am looking forward to better things, but this is not a happy side-effect. I don't want to see a day where anime and such is something only those of a certain income are able to enjoy much of. It shouldn't be primarily for middle class or above.
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6874 Location: Kazune City |
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Getting CR + Funimation + HiDive before the separation: $15 a month ($10 for VRV + $5 for HiDive) Getting CR + Funimation + HiDive after the separation: $16 a month ($10 for VRV + $6 for Funimation) What a terribly onerous increase. Considering that legal anime once routinely cost $30 for a DVD with 4 episodes on it, the current state of affairs is a massive bargain. Anime used to be far more of a high-cost medium than it is now. But ultimately, we're still dealing with niche imported goods here. It's always going to be more expensive than domestic content. In the words of the operator of AnimeonDVD -> Mania.com's anime section -> Fandompost:
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Inverti Herikawa
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No thanks. I'd much rather Funimation focus on English dubs only. If other countries want their dubs, they could do it themselves. Funimation shouldn't shell out the cash to make foreign language dubs that their primary consumers can't enjoy. Also, I wouldn't worry about censorship. Funimation has been anti-censorship for the longest, and have been making uncut dubs for nearly 2 decades. That isn't gonna change now, or in the future. Funimation KNOWS that censorship will piss off their fans; it wouldn't do them any favors. |
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CatSword
 Posts: 1489 |
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Ehh...they're anti-censorship until they think they can get away with it. There was the attempted censorship of Dance in the Vampire Bund, and the made-it-to-Blu-Ray censorship of Haganai Next and Tsugumomo. God knows what's going on with Masou Gakuen HxH, but that's another one I could see Funimation trying to quietly cut into a little bit. |
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Mr. sickVisionz
 Posts: 2173 |
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When CR first went legit, Funimation had some pretty scathing words for them. I was surprised they ever partnered up. I'm not shocked it's over quickly. Funi changes their streaming stuff like every year. They've rebranded like a billion times. They're in it to survive as a company for the long haul, but I don't think any project of theirs is something they consider "for the long haul" and they'll drop it without hesitation with a quickness.
They're also kinda scummy in their business practices. How many times have they messed up said and said kind words... then the legal team does a press release that's basically, "Yeah we messed up but it's not like illegally messed up so I guess the fans have to hold the L on this one." If they do that o their customers and fans, they'd probaly do it to anyone.
If the basis for your argument is look at how Sony is mishandling the PS4... which has sold better than the competetion and is on pace to be Sony's best selling console ever. If their manage meant of that product is what you're pointing to as an example of how bad they are at managing stuff. |
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Jonny Mendes
 Posts: 997 Location: Europe |
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From a sub-only fan point of view i'm interested to see what this lead to.
Will Funi fight for stream rights of sub anime for other territories outside of English speaking countries or will Cruchy be able to get the rights for those countries if Funi don't get them. Maybe what happened this season with Index3 maybe is a symptom of what will happen. Crunchy started streaming the season outside of the US weeks before. Maybe they were fighting for the US streaming rights. About censorship, somewhat worried. Sony have a bad reputation. Making changes because they are afraid of offend American "political correctness" sensibilities of mainstream public will drive way anime fans. So far there are not been a wide spread attack on anime. Only very few. instances of very small changes and very few idiotic changed dub dialogs on ecchi shows. But with anime been more available to mainstream public that don't understand what anime is about, there will be more chance that American PC culture will infect American anime companies and change the way in how and what anime is streamed. Well there is always be buys BD's from Japan, but even that is at risk because of dropping sales. Last edited by Jonny Mendes on Tue Nov 20, 2018 10:15 am; edited 1 time in total |
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dragonrider_cody
Posts: 2541 |
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None of them have spoke about it publicly and I doubt they ever will. There was an Answerman article a while back that seemed to imply that CR ended the relationship, and quite a few industry insiders have hinted at the same. The Funimation partnership was far more beneficial to them than when they worked with Sentai. Funimation was willing to give them greater control over titles and even maintain home video rights, where Sentai insisted on having those rights themselves for everything. Funimation was also willing to give them all the subtitled shows, where Sentai insisted on sharing them. Funimation also worked with them on the vast majority of their acquisitions, where as Sentai always had a handful of shows every season that they didn’t share with them. As for the shows they sent to Hulu, their relationship was CR was already cooling off and they knew CR was in talks with Funimation. Not to mention, they would have been stupid to turn down the cash from Hulu. They don’t pay the same cash they once did, when everybody got a cut of ad revenue, but it’s still considerably larger than what smaller sites pay. Even CR has streamed several of its simulcasts on Hulu now. CR and Sentai worked together on a lot of shows, but it was never an exclusive deal. I also doubt it was ever as formalized as their partnership with Funimation was. |
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Inverti Herikawa
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Except Funimation can't get away with it. And some smarter fans will try to circumvent that problem by muxing the English audio into the JP BDs, which will work because the video is uncut. There's no point in blurring out the titties with fog or strong rays of light in an ecchi show, because pervs want dem uncensored titties, ya dig? I believe Funimation knows what to do if they don't want their consumers to run away and go for an illegal, free alternative. |
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CANimeFan88
Posts: 346 |
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I never really fully understood this partnership in full detail. So before the partnership was even announced, Crunchyroll was already tied to AT&T through Otter Media in 2014 (and then later created Ellation August 2015) but it wasn't until August of this year that they decided to make a full 100% purchase of CR after the AT&T/Time Warner merger in June. AT&T could have prevented the partnership from taking place in September 2016 but they didn't.
Was AT&T waiting until they were a bigger company before they decided they could make more money through CR and their anime library? Were they especially waiting until Funimation found a suitable parent company to compete with them before ending the Funi/CR marriage? Why didn't Funimation CEO Gen Fukunaga think Time Warner was a suitable parent than Sony? Was it cause Warner seemed less Japanese than Sony? Anyway, we don't have VRV in Canada. We unfortunately have to subscribe to individual streaming services at the same time (assuming these services don't like their subscribers sharing their accounts with other people who can't afford it). If Sony does invoke censorship on Funimation's Ecchi/Fanservice Anime titles, then it will be their fault that I go towards fansubs, not me.
Is that the reason why Aniplex overprices their anime on home media format? In order to pay the required amount for their LA voice talent? And since Crunchyroll is located in the Bay Area of California, are they gonna have to pay just as much to produce their own English dubs of their anime using talent in SF or LA or whatever? |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5997 |
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Considering Japan already edits shows when they air in Japan?
Yeah terribly just like they often times do.
If their primary consumers some of whom are bilingual or multilingual how can they "not" enjoy it? By this logic Funi shouldn't have the original japanese dubs on their DVD releases eventhough a substantial number of their audience only speaks english. |
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CelestialEmpress
 Posts: 113 |
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They're trying to expand that consumer base. That's like saying McDonald's shouldn't sell chicken nuggets because most people are just there for the Big Mac. 
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