This Week in Anime

Crunch(y) Time

Lucas
Steve! Do you know that social media post format that goes, "me 5 years ago vs me now" that people usually do to show off how hot they've become and/or their transition? Weeeeeeeell~

Crunchyroll Originals is back with the announcement that Crunchyroll and Aniplex (both owned by Sony) have started a new production adventure together! The announcement has created plenty of discourse around what it means for the anime industry and ruminations on the old Crunchyroll Originals effort. If you're open to it, I'd love for us to share two cents on this announcement!

I very much agree (so I guess we end the column here???). It'd probably be useful to walk our readers through why Hayate's similarities have a lot of anime critics skeptical. If you'll allow me to give a short answer as well, it's because pretty much everything that aired under the Crunchyroll Originals branding was mid-to-bad, which is as weird and surprising to type out today as it was after the first slate of CR Originals rolled out a few years ago!

Steve, that is a super succinct summary of all the actual weirdness that happened with High Guardian Spice, and I deeply appreciate it, as Gamergate-style chuds have made it difficult to talk about the actual controversies surrounding the IP and CR Originals brand. The only thing I can add is that some flavor of disappointment or weirdness would be associated with just about every CR Originals release.

Tower of God is probably the most enduring and successful release to come from this initiative and, beyond me thinking it's a less inspired take on Hunter x Hunter, CR kind of poisoned that well. Thanks to them not letting the original English voice actors who worked on the anime contribute to the dub of a tie-in video game, likely because it's more common for voice acting in games to be union work, every time I hear about that series my mind immediately goes to CR's myriad of contract work controversies.

On its surface, the Crunchyroll Originals branding applied to anime that were either produced, or co-produced, by Crunchyroll. However, not all anime they co-produced fell under the label, which makes the distinction feel arbitrary. I'd love to do some investigative reporting into the methodology behind the effort, but considering Sony shuttered both the branding and the related Crunchyroll Studios a while after they took over, it'd probably be difficult to track down enough folks to piece together the full picture.

If I recall correctly, Fena: Pirate Princess had its English dub air on Toonami. This makes sense as Adult Swim co-produced the show, but it works against the core idea of getting more people to get Crunchyroll subscriptions via original programming.

Someone good at the anime economy, make this make sense!

I wonder then if Crunchyroll's more overt efforts to label itself as "the anime streaming company" were the deciding factor in Sony choosing to keep the Crunchyroll brand over their older and already owned Funimation branding in that acquisition? Regardless, I think most streaming services have found that their viewership is mostly driven by middling shows that most people watch as background noise, which tracks with Miles' isekai data reporting from the top of the year, making any prestige streaming originals a bit of a misplaced endeavor.

That would also probably explain why so many of the anime under the Crunchyroll Originals banner come from sources other than manga, such as FreakAngels, the aforementioned Tower of God, God of High School, and the Shenmue anime! God, remember the Shenmue anime? A very specific kind of former Dreamcast owner lost their shit when it was announced, only for it to be as underwhelming as the rest of the video game series has become.

I'm counting all these ridiculous corporate shenanigans, and their collective tonnage has made me a bit cynical of this upcoming Hayate endeavor. Even with what seems to be the full weight of Sony behind it, corporate owner synergy between Crunchyroll and Aniplex, and the already announced and Sony in-house produced Ghosts of Tsushima: Legends anime as the likely first release under the Hayate label, I don't have a lot of confidence in this being the immediate industry game changer that Sony's setting it up to be.

There are some business efficiencies here that are the result of the vertical integration efforts Sony has pursued for roughly the past half-decade. Thanks to their PlayStation gaming division and increased share of Kadokawa, a lot of anime-friendly IP are either co-owned or completely owned by Sony. Since they also own some anime production companies and a global anime distribution platform, they've rapidly reduced revenue-sharing considerations on their anime.

I know this kind of business analysis isn't as fun as dunking on some needlessly bad anime from five years ago, but folks need to know that the reason Sony is about to make a lot of anime is because they've muscled out or absorbed a lot of other companies so that they can maximize their income and reduce functional costs at every step of the anime creation and release process.

What do you mean? It's great for everyone that in the next few years, Sony will almost certainly try to get more blood from the Uncharted stone with a tie-in anime that nobody asked for! This time, EVERY character should be played by Mark Wahlberg!

What I'm most worried about in the face of Sony changing the operation methods of several key sections of the anime industry for the sake of maximizing profits is: what if we don't make enough money? We know that companies can make a pretty reasonable amount of money through anime, but Sony wants a ridiculous return on investment (RoI) through their anime labels. If the expectations they are setting up here are untenable, Crunchyroll and other companies could be stripped for parts and global anime distribution will functionally be rolled back 20 to 30 years.

While it's encouraging for the health of the overall anime industry to see a growing number of high-profile series released on platforms beyond Crunchyroll, even a mid-sized reduction of staff or scope would have major ripples on the global anime community. For instance, following Sony's acquisition of Right Stuf a while back, Crunchyroll is now a major retailer of anime merchandise. If Sony ever decides to divest from anime, it'll get terrifically harder for global anime fans to buy merch of their favorite characters.

I'm bracing for Hayate's track record to be similar to that of Crunchyroll Originals, but I'll welcome some Sony proprietary "prestige" anime if everything does come together! After all, if Sony won't give us another Ape Escape game, the least they can do is give us a proper Ape Escape anime!

With Elden Ring Nightreign being a Fortnite-alike, anything is possible! (Also a Bloodborne anime sounds sick as hell. If I have to live in a Capitalist dystopia I deserve some badass media as a little treat!)

Exactly! Sony has a chance to get WEIRD with some of this stuff, and I'm begging for a world where we get anime for Boku no Natsuyasumi, King's Field, and Knack, instead of just a handful of broadly marketable anime that lead into the release of a sequel game. What's even the point if they don't have at least a little fun in the projects they greenlit???

Now we're talkin'! Consider all of these pitches freebies, Sony! If you want more, we have reasonable anti-monopoly demands and will work for scale!