Forum - View topicAnswerman - What Should We Expect from the Sony Pictures TV - Funimation Deal?
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John Thacker
Posts: 1006 |
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If Sony divisions don't talk to each other, does that mean that Sony Pictures Animation won't have much to do with this?
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GoldCrusader
Posts: 1021 |
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I really hope you are wrong about the whole Funiroll thing. The last thing we need is Funimation and Crunchyroll starting to fight each other again.
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief
 Posts: 1684 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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They wouldn't have anything to do with this because they don't work with anime. But they are under the Sony Pictures unit, so they'd be more likely to at least be on the same planet. |
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MavenRaven
 Posts: 30 Location: USA |
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RIP FunimationxCrunchyroll. It was a match made in heaven, but it was just too good to last.
Although, I do wonder what this deal means for Ellation's (Crunchyroll) fledgling VRV service. I would love to see that partnership continue, as it really is the best deal for anime fans who like both subs and dubs. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23769 |
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Thanks, Justin. It was good to read some informed speculation about this move. I worry about what this means ultimately, but we'll just have to wait and see what trasnpires. I too am bummed about the probable end of the Crunchyroll-Funi streaming partnership. Mind you, I had kept my Funi subsription regardless, so I suppose I won't really be affected much if they become fierce competitors.
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John Thacker
Posts: 1006 |
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It would be especially odd if Funimation has a tiny amount of subbed material left, but can't get the rest back for streaming until the CR deal expires. It would really leave sub watchers in an odd limbo. I suppose we'll see.
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belvadeer
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Only time will tell where this will all lead. I'm sure the largely negative opinions some people have about Sony will not be setting most folks' minds at ease here, and they're seeing this as a sign of some impending trouble for the anime industry.
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Blankslate
Posts: 425 Location: Atlanta, GA |
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I don't see why everyone is thinking that corporate higher-ups at Sony are going to be meticulously tinkering with Funimation's "formula." $143 million is a drop in the bucket for Sony, which is almost certainly less expensive than a single season of their live-action productions, and those never had the kind of cross-promotion Answerman is talking about. If we're following the logic here where massive corporations meticulously decide every action of anime licencors, CR would have never been a part of T-mobile's binge on program because it's an AT&T competitor.
If anything, I see this as nothing more than a capital investment from Sony where they saw a company on the rise and decided to get a good chunk of their profits along with it. Sure Sony will use its own resources to help accelerate that growth (worldwide distribution being the big one), but I don't see why you would think that Sony would cut off the CR deal. There's no reasoning why Gen Fukunaga would sell off a large stake of his company and agree to sever the CR partnership when he's the one who agreed to the partnership in the first place, and it has clearly been a success. |
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mgosdin
 Posts: 1302 Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA |
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The ink isn't dry yet so there are still a myriad of details to take care of, biggest are likely to be winding down the Universal distribution deal. ( BTW, our local Best Buy now has more Anime than it has ever had since it opened almost all of it Funimation titles. ) The Crunchyroll deal is bound to be a complicated "Rube Goldberg" like thing, so it may be easier to just let it run its course rather than tinker.
Of course this could all go into a cocked hat if the folks at SONY Corporate have other ideas or one of the inevitable bureaucrats gets a burr under their saddle. Interesting Times, Indeed. Mark Gosdin |
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Chrono1000
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With Amazon getting into anime I think that Funimation needed to do this since while their Simuldubs service is unique it still requires them to buy anime licenses. I do hope that in the long term that Funimation keeps running their own service since they have a good understanding of the anime market.
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SquadmemberRitsu
 Posts: 1391 |
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It's worth noting that Sony have actually teamed up with Universal in Australia to release anime titles (Mostly Funimation shows).
It's also worth noting that their releases are really bad. Which makes me really bummed out that Funi no longer want to work with Madman on new titles. The best release I've seen from them so far is My Hero Academia, but that was literally just a carbon copy of the US release. If Funi have to hand over the BD production side of things to them, God help us all. The FuniRoll partnership thing is also very, very worrying because it's been mutually beneficial for both the companies and the consumer. Even more so now that Funi have expanded overseas. I'm really hoping for the best since Gen is still CEO, but it's hard to stay optimistic. |
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Lugamo
Posts: 23 |
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I hope Sony adds the Latin American Spanish tracks to those re-releases. |
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MJKS
Posts: 102 |
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Culture/integration problems aside, when the acquisition was announced, it struck me as a natural fit. Sony has access to the production committee system, and Funimation has deep in-house dubbing expertise and capabilities. Funimation's catalog may be its single most valuable asset, strictly speaking, but those are the two ultimate ends the trans-Pacific anime pipe.
So whatever SAG/AFTRA has to say about it, surely Sony must have some kind of plan for retaining Funimation's in-house dubbing expertise and capabilities. Or I hope they do. That's my biggest concern, even more than the prospect of Sony ripping out a number of vital organs from VRV just so they can resurrect Frankenstein's Crackle. But if anybody can ruin the good thing Funimation has going in Texas, no doubt it's a bunch of LA union suits. |
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Codeanime93
Posts: 599 |
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Will this mean airings of Funimation anime on the Sony Movie Channel?
Hopefully Funimation doesn't have to pick up all those awful Marvel anime titles that Sony released. Probably will have to. |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4426 |
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At this point, the amount of unknowns is the most troublesome thing to me. I fully believe Funimation when they say that they have no plans to change. The problem is that they will no longer call the shots. Ideally, Sony decided to make the purchase because it likes what Funimation is doing, and just wants to be in on it with maybe some changes in the background, such as handling distribution and maybe some production. I expect that short-term, not much will change. Existing contracts will have to be honored, and Sony probably wouldn't make the purchase if it thought Funimation needed an immediate overhaul.
However, long-term is where I have my doubts. Sony is making efforts to get its divisions to be more cooperative and serve the whole, so eventually Sony would have to consider what to do about the differences between Funimation and Aniplex. Eventually, agreements with Crunchyroll will expire, and both partners being parts of larger corporate entities changes the dynamic between them, enough so that I could see both deciding they no longer stand to mutually gain from continuing the relationship. We can also probably expect that over time Sony will look to remove redundancies from within Funimation. We all know that most anime is lucky to turn a profit, so I have to think that money was already spread pretty thin when you consider that those profits have to be used to pay a lot of people at the office, and acquire new content, too. I can also see why people, including myself, are not excited about the entry of another major corporation into the anime market. We've already seen Amazon decide to use a double paywall, and respond to negative reactions by just buying up more shows rather than listen to customers. We've also seen that these big companies either have little interest in anything other than streaming, or they aren't willing to give physical releases the attention and effort that anime fans expect. Big companies simply don't have to consider customer complaints to the extent that small ones do. |
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