Forum - View topicNEWS: Crunchyroll Purchases Anime Retailer Right Stuf
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matt78
Posts: 249 |
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This part here seems a little unfair without knowing Shawne's reason for selling. |
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Greed1914
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Agreed. Is it possible that CR (Sony) approached with an offer that was too good to refuse? I suppose so, but it's also quite possible that an independent retailer operating with niche products in an industry known for operating on thin margins wasn't doing so hot and maybe needed it to keep going. Maybe once the deal is done, we'll hear about it. Then again, once it is done, whether Shawne can talk about it might not be up to him anymore. |
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louis6578
 Posts: 1861 |
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You know what's kinda funny? If there was ever a rivalry between English localization companies behind anime, Viz Media is the only one from the 2000s still around as its own independent form. Am I the only one a little saddened by that?
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Nom De Plume De Fanboy
 SubscriberExempt from Grammar Rules Posts: 611 Location: inland US west, pretty rural |
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Just noticed, RightStuf has a blog with a FAQs entry for the deal. Basically, except for the 18+ stuff, it says nothing will change soon, and the important stuff won't change at all. The blog marker is way down at the bottom of their front page.
For an example of (imho) unimportant stuff that might change someday, gift cards for RightStuf and Crunchy sites won't be interchangable anytime soon. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2544 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Viz has never been "independent". It was founded back in 1986 with the help of Shogakukan & eventually Shueisha became co-owner in order to start up Shonen Jump in North America. Meanwhile, if you want English localization companies from the 00s that ARE actually independently owned & still operating, then look at AnimEigo & Media Blasters. |
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KarateCowboy
Posts: 35 |
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Apart from the adult stuff going is there a tangible reason this hurts? Or is it just "me no like subsidiaries"?
Last edited by KarateCowboy on Sat Aug 13, 2022 9:42 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2544 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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In the immediate short term? Yeah, it's mostly the instant removal of the hentai. In the long term, though? This is Sony literally buying the #1 retailer for anime, manga, & related merchandise in all of the US & (to some extent) Canada, as the closest direct competitor (i.e. not a general storefront, like Amazon) being something like Robert's Anime Corner Store, and even then it's not even all that close. While Sony/Crunchyroll is promising to continue selling other company's products, they really don't have any obligation to do so. After a year or two, Sony could literally just decide to have Right Stuf stop selling anime released by Sentai, Discotek, Media Blasters, AnimEigo, GKids, etc., and there'd really be little to nothing that the companies could do to stop it; Sony could literally decide "Why should we continue to sell the competition's titles?". Sure, those companies would still have other options to sell their products through, but Right Stuf is that just large & iconic of a store, so it potentially becoming closed off, while not a guarantee, is more than likely something that these companies now have to take into consideration as a possibility. People could try to argue "monopoly" again, but the FTC already approved the FUNimation/Crunchyroll merger because it determined that anime was just a small part of the larger entertainment market & doesn't constitute being capable of being monopolized, so the same logic would apply to Right Stuf, i.e. "it's just one storefront, and there are other options out there". Also, Nozomi Entertainment was purchased through this as, as well, which means that yet another anime localization company is now under Sony's ownership. While I'm sure that Sony will allow Nozomi to continue working on & releasing the titles it currently is working on (Dirty Pair BDs, Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei Season 2-on, Macross 7, Frontier, & Delta, future Gundam releases), who knows if Nozomi will ever license anything else now, and there's a decent chance that Sony might just shutter the Nozomi label entirely & simply release all of its future titles under the Crunchyroll name, just like what happened to FUNimation. While I certainly can't fault Shawne Kleckner for deciding to sell Right Stuf & Nozomi, as I'm sure he had his reasons that make complete sense, it will be something that I'm sure we'll be feeling in the next couple of years. |
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zrdb
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Kleckner tucked his tail between his legs and ran like the scared dog he is-scared of trying to please anime fans after all these years. I think RACs is going to be getting a lot more business with many RS customers jumping ship-not that I blame them one bit. I don't give a shit about hentai because I know where to get it and that certainly isn't RS.
Last edited by zrdb on Tue Aug 16, 2022 11:07 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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KarateCowboy
Posts: 35 |
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Gotcha. So, there's a possibility Sony might only sell entertainment it produces, kind of like Amazon Prime Video and Netflix might decide to only stream stuff they produce. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18182 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Quite unfair statement. As a few other, more sensible posters have mentioned, this was likely a decision driven by economic necessity. Kleckner has been a hard-core fan himself for ages, and has made many business decisions on acquisitions over the years which seemed much more aimed at catering to fans rather than pure profit, so I can't imagine anything less than that leading to this. I've never been a heavy shopper at RS, but I have steadily used them at least a couple of times a year over the last couple of decades (largely because they do sometimes have titles you can't get elsewhere) so I'm in favor of them doing whatever is necessary to stay in business, even is Kleckner can no longer claim to be the true Overlord. That the ero stuff was split off without that being set up first is a little concerning (though I haven't done it in a while, there was a time when I also threw in the occasional cheap adult title to get an order up to free shipping level), but at least there is a plan in the works. |
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zrdb
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Not true-there is quite a bit of truth to my statement. By way of personal experience-about 80% of my physical anime collection collection purchased over a period of 15-18 years came from RS, I stopped buying from them about 3 years ago because of their crappy policies in regards to honoring sales prices, random cancellations with no notices, shitty customer service-I could go on and on. The gist of it is that over the last 5 or 6 years the company has gone straight down the shitter.
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C-radica
Posts: 9 |
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Well the Interspecies Reviewers manga is still on their it's rated rated M (the equivalent to NC-17 where it's more than R but also not porn. For TV that'd just be the higher end of TV-MA). Now Interestingly enough Interspecies Reviewers is rated 16 (equivalent to a hard TV-14 or regular TV-MA) in Germany. With the expectation of the 3rd episode being 18 and all of Redo of Healer was 18 in Germany. However their 18 would still probably be more in vain with TV-MA since 18 can be used for violent titles as well (such as Elfen Lied or the Walking Dead). Also German 18 can appear on normal streaming sites like Netflix (whereas the Netflix in the US only goes up to TV-MA, but it does go up to NC-17 for movies!) |
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C-radica
Posts: 9 |
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Well the Interspecies Reviewers manga is still on their it's rated rated M (the equivalent to NC-17 where it's more than R but also not porn. For TV that'd just be the higher end of TV-MA). Now Interestingly enough Interspecies Reviewers is rated 16 (equivalent to a hard TV-14 or regular TV-MA) in Germany. With the expectation of the 3rd episode being 18 and all of Redo of Healer was 18 in Germany. However their 18 would still probably be more in vain with TV-MA since 18 can be used for violent titles as well (such as Elfen Lied or the Walking Dead). Also German 18 can appear on normal streaming sites like Netflix (whereas the Netflix in the US only goes up to TV-MA, but it does go up to NC-17 for movies!) |
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C-radica
Posts: 9 |
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Funny enough the even the "adult" version Titan's Bride was listed as 18+ but it's actually rated TV-MA (which is 17+ though I'm pretty sure that's because whoever created the rating thought you were an adult as 17, someone should REALLY fix that!). On Amazon Prime both versions are rated 18+ (but just that fact that it's on Amazon Prime kind of proves it's not hentai) |
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C-radica
Posts: 9 |
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well interestingly enough TV-MA is technically 17+. So Interspecies Reviewers (anime) was 17+ for the first 3 episodes on Funimation. |
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