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Australia, New Zealand Anime Streaming Service AnimeLab Rebrands as Funimation
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
Funimation announced on Wednesday that Australian and New Zealand streaming service AnimeLab will rebrand into Funimation beginning on June 17. The service will retain the AnimeLab team, but transition its branding to Funimation across all services and social media. Users will be able to log into FunimationNow using their AnimeLab account information.
The AnimeLab social media team will remain as the branding transitions over the following months, but the AnimeLab blog will be retired, as all future posts move into the Funimation blog.
FunimationNow was previously available in Australia and New Zealand, but Funimation moved its content to AnimeLab in March 2020, following Sony Pictures Television and Aniplex's decision to consolidate three Sony-owned anime acquisition and distribution companies — Funimation based in the United States, Wakanim based in France, and Madman Anime Group based in Australia — into one joint venture. Madman Anime Group previously operated the AnimeLab service.
Sony Pictures Television Networks acquired a majority stake in North American distributor Funimation for US$143 million in 2017. Funimation ended its content-sharing partnership with Crunchyroll in November 2018.
Madman Media Group sold the anime division of its business to Aniplex in an AU$35 million (about US$25 million) deal in 2019, after Aniplex invested in Madman Entertainment in February 2018.
Sony's Funimation Global Group announced in December last year that it will acquire Crunchyroll for a purchase price of US$1.175 billion.
Update: Funimation announced on November 3 that the rebranding will take place on December 9. Source: Funimation
Source: Funimation
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