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NEWS: Funimation, bilibili Establish Partnership for Joint Anime Licensing

So many wild takes. I don't think Crunchyroll is done as a result of this. The thing I am actually worried about is censorship because Funimation is dealing with a company from China.

It was obvious that it was CR who took bigger hit from the CR-FUNi fallout given that they lost FUNi's catalog. Not to mention, during the CR-FUNi deal, FUNi is just dealing with English dubs while CR deals with subs, which won't really eat CR's subscribers if they allowed FUNi to expand regions.

Also, I'd expect CR's acquisition to take a huge dip starting Summer 2019 moving forward, since I assume that most of the acquisitions for Spring 2019 are already done (as shown by the effects of the fallout not manifesting this season).

Even if most of the acquisitions for this season were already done, why wouldn't you expect the hit for Spring? Even if every title were acquired as early as late November, that would still have been after the partnership ended and CR and Funimation would be competing for titles.

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 referring to the dip due to bilibili, FUNimation, Hulu partnership. The Spring acquisitions would be due to FUNi-Hulu partnership which I think would not drastically decrease CR's acquisitions that much.

Yeah this bodes EXREMELY POORLY for the north American anime scene. If this is indeed true and they get 70-80% of the shows, then we can pretty much guarantee the dark ages and another NA anime crash. Funimation has the worst apps, the worst player, and the worst service of any NA anime publisher. Hopefully with Sentai and CR joining forces, they can combat most the acquisitions, otherwise welcome to the boom of piracy.

It’s a huge jump from saying that this might hurt CR, to automatically assuming it will drive them out of business. As I pointed out, Crunchy also has a huge parent company that has the cash and resources to complete. AT&T has also been pushing VRV, which includes Crunchyroll, as one of the free streaming services on their unlimited data plans. That’s how I actually access their library, and the fact that AT&T promotes it in their commercials shows they have faith in the service and want it to succeed.

No one is claiming that this won’t make it more costly and difficult for CR to acquire titles. However, Netflix and Amazon jumping into the market did for a time as well, and CR is still here. We should at lest wait a couple seasons before trying to body bag them.

It doesn't seem like a big deal and worse, because of Chinese censorship or approval, that means their selection will be more limited than what Funimation normally can get to choose from. Even some of Funimation's own licenses are part of the Chinese banned anime list and no, it's not just risque fanservice. Apparently, aside from hyper violence, any rebellious-against-government themes is banned which is why Terror in Resonance is also banned.

With how funimation has been doing business lately, and with how they're behaving, I honestly no longer care if they do great or poorly (in terms of business performance).

I guess this is good news for consumers since we'll get a lot of shows licensed. So at least we can enjoy that until Funimation changes ownership or sinks entirely.

Ermat_46 wrote:

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.

given that Latin American fans actually hate Funi because most anime they license get cockblocked there,this is really bad for them...