Forum - View topicNEWS: Sony's Funimation Global Group to Acquire Crunchyroll for US$1.175 Billion in Cash
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curtisd88
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On one hand, as an anime collector, this COULD be a good thing as it may give anime that CR had licenses to a better chance at home releases like their previous partnership which to me would be music to my ears.
On the other hand, as an anime streamer, I'm left wondering how is streaming going to be handled from here on out between CR and FunimationNow, and will prices rise. Or will they merge completely into one super-streaming service? I'm not worried about a possible monopoly as there are still other competing services out there such as HiDive, Netflix and Prime Video. |
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Covnam
 Posts: 3666 |
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Hmm, I wonder if there's any significance that it was Funi GG that bought Crunchy and not Sony Pictures?
While we'll have to wait and see whether this ends up being a positive or negative effect, I hope that more Crunchy shows that haven't gotten a physical release, now will through Funi. (though really since Discotek got Konosuba I can't think of any of the top of my head I'm waiting on  )
Huh, hadn't thought about that, but you're probably right. It's not like I use it for that, but I'm sure some people do.
They're both pretty big, I could see them remaining independent and just linking to the other site for anything relevant. I wonder how the online stores might change though... |
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lossthief
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 1397 |
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Honestly I think the opposite is more likely. Funimation *has* been licensing more niche shows the past year or so, in order to bolster the number of shows compared to Crunchyroll. And back during the "Strategic partnership" days, Sentai was still struggling to get many shows, especially for the 3 seasons they streamed exclusively on Amazon Prime/Anime Strike. If anything, with Funi/CR all under one umbrella again and no longer bidding against eachother for shows, I could see Sentai struggling to get much of anything besides continuations of stuff they already license. Oh, and I guess this means the CR/Sentai home video partnership is going to be gone within a year of starting too. woof. |
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ErikaD.D
Posts: 659 |
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And RIP Europe (except UK and Ireland), including the Baltics. |
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Cardcaptor Takato
 Posts: 4849 |
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While there's reason to be concerned, people concerned about international streaming seem to forget that the whole reason the initial FuniRoll split up was because Funimation wanted to expand their global streaming yet it was Crunchyroll who was blocking them from expanding.
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matt78
Posts: 250 |
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Do you really think Sony paid $1billion just to shut Crunchyroll down? This was done to speed up the process of expanding Funimation internationally while also having the benefit of buying their main competitor. Unless Sony in completely inept this should be a good thing for you and everyone else in territories not covered by FunimationNow. |
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v1cious
 Posts: 6203 Location: Houston, TX |
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I'm still impressed! I thought they would go down with Mangafox. I wonder what this means for all Crunchyroll's original content. Is that Toonami pirate show still gonna happen? |
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omoikane
Posts: 494 |
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Please say this louder for everyone. |
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KitKat1721
 Posts: 953 |
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That would require the FTC to recognize anime-specific streaming as a separate entity from all other media streaming companies. Which I do not see happening. And even if they did, there's a million ways to get through that approval process pretty easily (like splitting the services' priorities). I don't want to go around and make too many predictions about what's going to happen. We don't even know how these companies will look at the end of all this, or what their objectives will be (either under one name, or with each one focusing on separate jobs). A lot of people will likely lose their jobs depending on how much of a merger this buyout ends up being, which is the most unfortunate thing. I'm sure its a really nerve-racking time. I also can't imagine JPN companies are very excited about this at all. Long-term implications are definitely a bigger gray area than short term right now, and while I don't want to completely doom-post like almost everyone else I've seen, I do get it. I just don't think Sony would pay this much to completely kill CR and have a complete merger. As far as any hopes I have, I don't care so much if prices increase or whatever, but I do want rates/benefits to improve for translators, or at least follow Funimation's model more so than CR's. I really hope streaming services actually feel the need to improve and don't just completely stagnate. Funimation's service/app is not the best, and neither is CR's actual video player, so uhh I guess we'll see on that...? On a purely personal note: I would like CR to actually releases some titles on blu-ray instead of treating those partnerships like one-night stands with nothing to show for it, and I would like to get more mixed dub casting with TX and LA actors. Although Funimation has been outsourcing/partnering with several other ADR studios in the past few years for simuldubs as they've been licensing more and more shows, so I'm actually weirdly hopeful on that front. Especially considering the huge influx of shows about to be under one umbrella. |
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5426 Location: Iscandar |
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As a huge fan of Sentai this is a bummer because it will probably make it harder for them to license new shows. But as a fan of anime this could mean more streaming titles and more disc releases. Hopefully the reorganization benefits anime fans around the world. I am wondering if Funimation handling the English markets (including North America) exclusively and Crunchyroll handling the rest of the markets is a good idea.
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SilverTalon01
Posts: 2403 |
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I feel like it would be better to roll Funi into Crunchy. Crunchy seems like it has been super hot the last few years, and Funimation seemed like it was limping. Although my only real concern is that they don't put everything into Funi's app because that thing is garbage.
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Cardcaptor Takato
Posts: 4849 |
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8461 Location: Penguinopolis |
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I'm not a fan of monopolies, but I'll wait to see how this plays out before condemning it. Maybe it'll motivate Funimation to fix its streaming platform, or roll it into Crunchyroll's. HiDive is probably looking pretty nervous now, though.
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lostrune
 Posts: 313 |
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Never been a fan of Funimation either, but aren't all their controversies about censorship and political stuff only in the dub? Feel free to enlighten me if they've changed a bunch of subtitle translations as well, but all the big ones I ever heard about were dub writers going wild rather than the actual translators. The only subs I ever hear complaints about are weird, non-political choices like "big brudder" in Higurashi from a week or two ago, and of course copyright issues like JoJo's stand names. Not that a monopoly is ever really a good thing, but I suspect that will be who is most affected by this: English dub watchers, especially if Sony throws out all the Crunchyroll's dub producers and LA voice actors and uses strictly Funimation/Texas talent.
And even in a worst case scenario where a monthly subscription is 50 dollars a month, everything is censored, and streaming quality is garbage, well, it's not like people haven't been finding alternate ways to watch anime for free already. |
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Sketchor
Posts: 74 |
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Netflix primarily uses LA studios so I wouldn't worry about Texas taking all the new English dub jobs. Aniplex had some new shows dubbed in LA recently and Viz and some other companies will throw some work at LA studios as well. But at the very least I do expect a larger portion of dubs will be done in Texas.
Yes. Fena: Pirate Princess along with Uzumaki, Blade Runner: Black Lotus and Shenmue the Animation will still be allowed to air on Adult Swim's Toonami block. |
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