RIP Funimation
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- Опубліковано 4 бер 2022
- Took me a bit to process this, but here we go, let's start the speculation train on what this might mean for the industry going forward.
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#Anime #Discussion #Funimation #Crunchyroll #Analysis #GlassReflection - Фільми й анімація
Kids in the future will never experience the "Funimation you should be watching" whisper
This comment makes me so sad.
True you should be watching got to love Funimation I grew up washing anime thanks to FUNimation and Toonami growing up as kid in the 90s and early 2000s it it sucks it's like a piece of my childhood is gone forever again
Wrong funimation is the physical brand, funimation now is gone
@@sparklesparklesparkle6318 Damn only 8 boosters? You have a really optimistic view of the future haha
I guess all this change means is We SHOULD'VE been watching
The reason I wrote when I cancelled my Funimation account was "I'm not paying Sony twice". Guess they took that feedback to heart.
I did the same thing with Rooster Teeth First when VRV first launched.
That's why the complaints about "lack of competition" ring hollow, that ship sailed years ago. When Sony bought Funimation no one even batted an eye. The Crunchyroll acquisition was just the final nail in the coffin.
They actually want you guys to cancel your Funimation account.
Lol, it's funny because it's so true.
@@mrcookins After they announced the funimation merger - they are offering 60 day free crunchyroll for people that want to move. If you have an active subscription check your email.
The different languages separated in to different seasons is easily one of the worst UX decisions I’ve ever seen. On longer titles it often makes it impossible to find the right version.
If your simulcasting it jump to the next language once you're done with the episode
BUT you get embedded, easy to read subtitles instead of crappy digital ones that often go out of sync with the action or drop off in the middle of an episode.
@@zbillster true. Though, I don't know why, maybe just placebo, but I prefer the audio from funimation
Ye it's confusing, and frequently leads to disappointment.
Cool sounding show, 48 episodes whoaa--- just 12 ep eng sub, and 3 diff dubs. So depressing.
Bet it wastes server space for them too
It would be better if they put the (Eng Sub) or whatever at the front of the title instead of the end.
This is quite surprising/worrying, considering Funimation has just absorbed AnimeLab for Aus and NZ watchers, to the frustration of many watchers, including myself. AnimeLab was fantastic…
And many shows aren't even watchable on Crunchryroll when you're from Aus..
AnimeLab had a better Lay out than Funimation, had more shows/titles. Everything was better about it.
animelab was better than funimation and funimation is better than crunchyroll .. things can only go downhill from here .
@@andrewrose8148 Crunchyroll is better than Funimation
AnimeLab's website was so good, that they should hire the team behind it to fix MyGov.
Another issue with Crunchyroll is that they don't seem to bother with updating streams. Most of their catalog is just the original simulcast versions instead of updating to uncut/home-video materials like Funimation does. In fact, a lot of the shows that have transferred over are simulcast streams. (MHA dub is the simuldub version, how?!)
Plus, no closed captions on Crunchyroll either...
This!!
Those two are the biggest for me in terms of service problems. Closed Captions are damn essential for some viewers, so much so they are *legally mandated* by the law. If your show is on a streaming service, it needs captions. The fact Crunchyroll still doesn't have any could be cause for major concern later down the line, as they will have to deal with it eventually and potentially lose *way* more money than they would doing it early.
The lack of home-video materials is really gonna sting. Granted, not *all* of their transfers have been simulcast versions (MHA S5 isn't out on BD until later this month), if the BD version was on their service at the time, they did transfer it, shows like Akudama Drive (which had a recut ending n the BD version) indicate that much, but there is basically no guarantee that any of the content will be updated with BD versions later down the line from now on. We're gonna be stuck with the TV version of AoT S4 forever, despite the fact it's already been updated on Funi's website. That kinda sucks. And certainly doesn't bode well if you wanna avoid piracy whenever possible, as in that case, a torrent giving you access to the BD version is a pretty tangible improvement from a quality standpoint.
This is a big issue - overall as a service I’ve always preferred cruchyroll but it does frustrate me that once a simulcast is over they just pretend the thing is gone.
If they have the rights to the BD versions of these shows they should be updating them.
With the merger everything seems a bit rushed so far to me. MHA for example has been transferred over but it only works on the app and website currently does not work on the Apple TV app they now also have two versions of MHA in there database I’m hoping that all this is temporary and they have most of this stuff coming down the line.
That is that same problem I have. And some of the show on that service aren’t even given an English dub.
@@haydenbrewer787 quite a lot of them aren’t, Crunchyroll has always been a sub first service. Only recently they’ve started offering a few dubs
I have a feeling funimation will be primarily rebranded as a label for physical media releases and English dubs going forward while Crunchyroll will be the name of streaming service and the brand itself. But time will tell if that comes to pass.
tbh I think this is the best course of action they could take. Crunchyroll could handle the streaming aspect (with, ideally, those improvements from the Funi video player) and Funimation could be the physical release side. I don't know anyone who wants physical releases to go away completely tbh. Even owning digital copies isn't enough imo.
I hope this happen if things do change
Funimation would go back to its roots, just being a DVD and Blu-Ray Distributor without Streaming at ALL
I am worried how the employees are going to be treated. Downsizing is definitely going to happen, but what about wages? Funimation is already taking advantage of their employees and underpays them, but CrunchyRoll supremely underpays their employees. The translators are paid basically pennies.
@owo グーチmoshi :) This. Fuck 'em (barring a SELECT few who are genuinely good/nice people).
I hope this resentment isn't over the whole Vic Mignogna situation.
@owo グーチmoshi :) what did I miss ?
One of the reasons why I refuse to pay for crunchyroll
@@KayleLang Why do you hope that? The scandal exposed how immature and unnecessarily aggressive these "professionals" can be and are. And in turn, the Fandoms showed just as much as their natural toxicity, so the resentment is not new.
Like all service strategies, it's about lowering the quality to the consumer while cornering the market. I still remember a quote I heard from a stockmarket asshole I once saw on CNBC when he was "giving advice" on the future of services and consumer products.
"It's not about giving the people what they want, it's about teaching the people what to want. If you gradually cut down the quality the consumer will just get used to it over time, but if you maintain or increase the quality you give them they'll continue to expect that quality. There is no profit by providing the masses quality. All you need to do is focus on limiting and reducing quality while increasing the quantity. That's how you make money."
Well regulated capitalism protects consumers from oligopolies and monopolies, whose natural instinct is to corner the market and lower quality to maximize profits, no matter how far they go. Unbridled capitalism gives them free reign to do this as anti-trust laws are just symbolic. Welcome to late stage capitalism.
So long as Crunchyroll remains the *only* legal option for the vast majority of new releases, they have no obligation to really make substantial improvements, unless there is very significant pushback. That's my main concern.
Most anime fans (myself included) will just pirate anime anyway so I don't see it as a big deal breaker. My only concern is that many torrents these days just use the Crunchyroll subs, and they have a horrible practice of not subbing the OP and ED.
@@pandaman2234 just watch the OP and ED in youtube then. Or learn Japanese.
They haven't in ages, their apps are awful, their streams often have issues and are slow.
Frankly speaking, Crunchyroll has been ignoring requests for improvement for a long time now. Their comment system for instance has had problems for years now, and more currently people are pissed about the rollout of the new UI. Crunchy just does not seem to care.
@@darkprinc979 Crunchyrolls new UI is a major improvement.
As opposed to funi that has virtually never changed and barely worked.
I’ve also would like to see the Crunchyroll media player merge with some of the features of the Funimation media player having the different audio options Japanese English as a audio option instead of a separate video entirely. And I also suspect that the Crunchyroll store will eventually start selling a lot of Funimation products and physical media DVDs and Blu-ray.
ua-cam.com/video/pnVWhnnWSiE/v-deo.html
*Exactly* YeS
I doubt they're going to merge the videos; currently, most (if not all) dubs on CR are locked behind a premium account with no date for free release, even when the subbed version is available for free (e.g. all of Slime Tensei subbed can be watched for free, but you need a premium account for dub), and this can be leveraged as a feature of the premium account. After all, redubbing costs more money, so how could they possibly offer it for free? It's a revenue stream for them.
Doesn't mean I wouldn't *like* it if they had it like how it was on Funi's player, but you know how corporate types are like...
Omg yes!
I hope they scratch that cheap outdated buggy player entirely and build something that's actually halfway decent at the least to begin with..... Actually do it for their whole garbage website
We all know that ain't gonna happen
To add onto 6:06 Funimation has a history of buying rights and doing literally nothing with the properties, thus blocking anyone else from touching the entities. They were insane bullies in various instances with this and I'm sure it'll happen even more-so now, since it'll be one large company instead of two separate competing entities.
Hopefully they won't weaponize it too much in the future.
The later point about the Japanese perspective is one I never thought of. It brings to mind the fiasco with the final Evangelion Rebuild release and the redubbings of those which were just a disaster with Studio Khara flipping the bird to their previous relationship with Funimation and bypassing the majority of the professional western anime community to go to Amazon instead. Japanese companies don't always know or care to do things right by western audiences which is why a diverse set of intermediaries are so useful.
You'd actually think they'd care more about the international version, as they make more money than domestic simply due to like 1 billion + people can speak english around the world, not just from the expected US/Can/Aus/UK etc... english speaking countries.
In regards to dubbing I think it makes the most sense from a business perspective to keep the in-house Funimation cast. This way they don't have to outsource dubs to other groups and is cheaper on the whole and companies LOVE to cut corners where they can.
I honestly think they could afford to rethink some of their dub strategy a bit. Maybe hire in some new directors with better skills & experience. Funimation dubs have long been criticized for being subpar to most of the VA industry in America and I think this would be a great opportunity to switch it up a bit and maybe bring some new life to dubs.
The in house funimation cast is so scummy
ua-cam.com/video/pnVWhnnWSiE/v-deo.html
*what just happened*
@@MatthewCJoy You referring to the asshats who lied on and tried to cancel Vic Mignogna
i do think some english VA should been fire off funi years ago and replaced because of allegation and stuff and a lot toxicity that anime shouldn't have in the first place
Im predicting Funimatiom will be the dvd distribution and their facilities will be the dubbing.
Makes sense
I fucking hope so.
Funimation*
Am hoping
@@weeebie L
This seems rife for more and more worker abuse. The fewer options there are for people to work in this medium, the more abused and exploited they are. We're absolutely gonna see layoffs and horror stories in the near future
For me, as someone living in Australia, AnimeLab had the best functionality in terms of their apps (I mostly view my streaming via game consoles or my phone). They might not have had an amazing extended library, but they had content I enjoyed and could actually access, unlike Crunchyroll which doesn’t license some content outside of the US. Plus when I first started subscribing to AnimeLab, their library had older, classic anime which I couldn’t watch without having to buy a physical set-and being a dirt poor uni student during the time when pirating content was becoming less and less of an option, that was a big plus. Then when AnimeLab merged with Funimation some months ago and all AUS/NZ users had to move it was admittedly a bit of a downgrade, but their accessibility/app navigation and all-round presentation is still much better than Crunchyroll’s-at least in my opinion. The only plus I’ll say for Crunchyroll is that they have a) a manga section to read for when you subscribe to their service and b) have a free/non-subscription option which a lot of streaming services don’t have, however, in saying that, it is frustrating with the amount of ads they play before and during episodes. I know it’s an easy fix with AdBlock and the like for PCs, but if you’re using the apps, you’re forced to watch them, and I have been forever scarred by the time there was-and I’m not exaggerating-a 15min long ad that didn’t have a skip option. I don’t know how it was possible, and maybe it was a fluke or some bad luck, but the amount of times I had to close and reopen the app in hopes of avoiding that ad to watch only one episode still haunts me all these years later 🥲
TL;DR - I miss AnimeLab… 🥲
Could always go to the 9anime darkside lol - just be sure to use an adblocker and buy merch if you want to support the creators; they make more $$ from merch buys than streaming sites like CR anyways.
To be fair anime lab's existence is what was prevent cruchie roll having those licenses as madman had exclusive distribution rights on alot of anime with oceania.
Funimation was just awful it turned 15 year old anime into subscribe exclusive anime for no particuarly reason when ate anime lab.
Man I have had those 15 minute unskippable ads on other services and they're the woorrrsssttt. Do companies really think that's the way to advertise to people?? That said, on Funimation, I would get a 5-minute series of the same ads over and over 4 to 5 times per episode when using the free version. And even then, half the time, the actual episode wouldn't play correctly and would freeze part way through, requiring an entire app reboot. It would also insist that more than one person in my household was accessing the account at the same time when it's not even installed on any other device. It would freeze the app mid-episode with a pop up telling me to log out on one of the devices, which meant it was entirely unusable. Maybe it was a regional thing, I don't know, but I just gave up on Funimation after all of that. Crunchyroll never gave me any issues with that, just repetitive ads that lasted a minute tops.
Honestly I still find it hilarious how far Crunchyroll has come, given how it started. *looks pointedly at her pre-legal CR account*
I really hope to see a new wave of voice talent get taken in. As good as many of the Funi VAs were, I'm hoping to hear new voices too. It just felt like the same folks were the VAs for a majority of projects.
Yea, they are good. But definitely turned into a private club where you never see new people. You just get the same voices over and over.
Sadly I don’t see that changing from many glass door reviews and statements from workers it’s a very buddy buddy clique-ish type of company. So there is lots of favoritism and instead of picking the best voice actor for the role. And so if you watch more than 5 animes you’ll hear the same 5-6 people over and over again not cause they’re talented but cause there’s nepotism
I still miss AnimeLab. The website, web player, and apps far exceeded Funimation and Crunchyroll
Eh here in the US we have our own animelab it's called Rightstuf because they saved Interspecies Reviewers
@@cradica that's awesome, what a great anime. So gay how funimation cancelled it.
Is the app you use any good?
I hope that uncut blu-ray releases still exist, because damn the one thing crunchyroll seems to request from studios is to have a completely edited versions of some anime made just for the crunchyroll streaming platform. What concerns me is since Funimation is getting merged into crunchyroll does that mean in long term we are going to get home releases of anime that are edited, all the while Crunchyroll will spew bullshit like "That was the version Japan gave us" when we know that's a load of bullshit and instead Crunchroll makes the request first. Yea for short term we probably don't need to worry, but what happens 5 years down the road? That's my largest concern.
Funimation does that too you know
I hope that doesn't doesn't happen
That some bullsh**
I completely agree with everything you said! When I first heard the news, I was hit by DREAD because I immediately thought of all the problems with another streaming monopoly, but I hadn't even considered the home release issues. I've started collecting anime dvds since there have already been so many cases where certain animes aren't available on the services, like Tsuritama especially Crunchyroll has an archived listing of it but no videos available. It's already hard enough to get older dvds as they are phased out, but if future series become even more scarce in home releases it will be terrible because then only the major series will probably be permanent on the services and anything underrated will be phased out or almost impossible to find.
If that happens then i hope that Discotek Media will release Blu-rays for those series they recently released Ms. vampire who lives in my neighborhood. and that made me very happy because i thought i would never be able to own it on Blu-ray
Crunchyroll Dubs were a breath of fresh air for me. Lots of voice actors I either have never heard before or not heard in a long time. I hope they keep the split of voice actors. Surely they will either have to keep things as they are or drastically expand their in house dubbing. They could also not dub lesser known shows to make room for the heavy hitters like Jujutsu kaisen that they will be incharge of now, althought that would be a shame :(
Yes, man it's tiring hearing the same 10 people dub every show. Merge the studios and go nuts pls.
Agreed. I love a lot of Funi's VAs but Crunchy's dubs are again such a refreshing change of pace and talent compared to the same people who've been so prolific for the past decade or so.
Agreed I fear Cronyism in voice casting using only with main dubbing studio in Coppell 😒😖😣😩texas voice actors for their main hit shows producing average quality cheap dub....!!!
Voice over industry in Los Angeles California would be most likely get affected
I don't know how to tell you this, but Funimation already outsources a fair bit of their dubs. And they've also long shifted internally to using a wider talent pool thanks to Source-Connect. Things have already been changing internally for the better in terms of talent pool. Just look at their in-house this season, Dress-Up Darling, Sabikui Bisco and Sasaki & Miyano have both featured relatively newer/less local talent and they've been killing it. Look back on their previous dubs from last year and you'll see a similar trend.
@@fey2450 they outsource their dubs only on their Underrated | non popular | niche shows
Which only have 12 episodes
After first Sony buy out since 2017 Have you seen them outsourcing their main hit shows to non texas voice actors as a main character | non texas studios
They have monopoly over Anime voice over industry in North America
Man!!! hate when their popular shows got
Average quality cheap dub treatment..
And one Thing you should know that
It's mentioned by several voice actors
That the voice over industry in texas is cheap are non union / and using a biased so called modern localisation in English dubbing]
I've never had access to Funimation (geolocked) so I'm hopeful that I will actually have access to more Anime in the long term. Licensing is a complete mess here. A great example is being able to watch seasons 1 and 2 of My Hero on Netflix but only season 4 on Crunchyroll, leaving me stuck because I can't watch 3 anywhere. Maybe the larger combined entity will be more willing to invest in non-English markets.
Edit: Fruits Basket available, My Hero season 3 still unavailable. Who the hell has the license for season 3 then?
It's REALLY sad for us Dub lovers. CR's language dubs are a mess. Funimations client was streamlined recently to make it much easier for us. I wont be going to CR until I can easilly search what it is I want to watch, in the language I want to watch it.
Ahaha, you don't need to go back they don't need your viewership
They have ads they aren't tied to the churn of subscribers
@@PaendaTube i don't think you understand how ad's work
As an Australian who literally can't watch subs due to my eyes (a single hour of anime would cripple me with a massive headache), I'm used to getting the short end of the stick. IT SUCKS.
I miss AnimeLab, it got bought out by Funi and it's been a major downgrade, Crunchyroll is a slight upgrade but is still inferior (Crunchyroll at least doesn't have the buffering issues that Funi has)
Totally agree. I really miss Animelab.
@@sum1rllyspecial Eh here in America we have our own Animelab. It's called Righstuf because they saved Interspecies Reviewers.
I also think we’ll get a official announcement of how everything is gonna shake out around August 1 through the sixth. Because at that time Crunchyroll is having a convention in San Jose California around that time call Crunchyroll Expo or CRX.
Wait really? Seriously right after I move from that place I learn of this lol
@@j.s.2281 yes
But also we could get another convention of CRX in Dallas since that’s where the headquarters of Funimation is and they tried to do a convention during the pandemic but they had to make it virtual it was called Funimation con.
You raise questions I have wondered about since this announcement as well. I know Crunchyroll has some dubs (I watched Madoka Magica dubbed on there a few years ago), but I associate them more with sibtited anime, and I actually prefer dubbed (especially when there are actors I'm already familiar with). I hope that this new acquisition will maintain Funimation's relationships with actors and unions so that dubs still get to happen.
I was so scared that Funimation was the one site to rule them all when they killed animelab. Crunchyroll’s subs are best in the business. It is a shame that Animelabs innovations were not rolled into Crunchyroll/Funimation. For example, skip intros, better search and categories, better front page.
Same, and now CR is taking everything and CR doesn't even have a smart TV app either, why would I buy a console when Animelab and funimation have smart TV apps. now I dont have a choice but to buy a console just to stream to my state of the art TV because CR refused to make a new app for Web OS TV's due to not having enough of a market for it to be worth it, Now they have the whole market they need to pull there finger out because I'm done with there BS.
In an era of streaming services growing constantly more divided (Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Paramount+) having Funimation consolidate into Crunchyroll and having nearly all my anime in one place is extremely welcomed.
It being under Crunchyroll concerns me though
@@LordVader1094 they used to work close together until Funimation got bought. Now they're both under the same banner so they just consolidated their stuff
I mean, I think most expected Funimation to handle the physical merchandise and Crunchyroll to handle the digital. That would have made the most sense since that is what both companies specialized in anyways.
@@LordVader1094 it shouldn't
I specifically used funimation because crunchyrolls app on ps4 is ass and the player always lags out. Ive literally have had no issues at all with anything
This seems strange given Funimation only recently rebranded MangaUK to Funimation UK. Also, it's annoying to me because Crunchyroll costs more than Funimation and I only had a premium Funimation account and watched Crunchyroll with ads, because I'm not going to pay for a service that doesn't work for me. Funimation may have it's issues, but the service has always worked better for me than Crunchyroll. If I tried to watch Crunchyroll on the app it would always crash, and if I watched on a PC, I would have issues with the sound on the videos being crackly. I'm also seeing a lot of voice actors on twitter being concerned about this, and talking about issues voice actors have had with Funimation and if these issues will now be present with Crunchyroll.
As someone in one of the many places in the world where Funimation's "offering" is the meme screenshot of "Sorry but this content is not available in your country", I'm glad it happened this way and not the other way around. Crunchyroll has many faults, but at least they acknowledge anime watchers in places like Africa exist, even if it's not a big market.
Never happened to me sorry.
Agreed! Same issue here.
"places like Africa"? It was like that almost everywhere, even western Europe. Funimation didn't give a shit about anyone except a handful of countries.
@@elifia it's cuz Africa's more of a shithole than Europe with less stable markets and less money to be made. There's also closer cultural proximity to europe to consider to. Currently not much of an incentive to expand into africa
@@thfkmnIII yeah, that was kinda my point. Western Europe should be a way more appealing market for Funimation, but they didn't provide their service there either. So if they didn't even give a shit about western Europe then of course they weren't going to cater to Africa either.
Aussie here
This came out of no where, what immediately came to mind was how Australia regulates the purchasing and sale of companies. One of the biggest factors in the Australian governments regulate buyouts and sales is that if sale results in a monopoly then the sale isn't legally allowed (from what I know, go get a salt shaker) but with Animelab being bought by Funimation only several months ago, and now to have Crunchyroll buy Funimation sends up red flags for me
I miss Animelab, best catalogue (which included movies, not just series) and by far the best player (I'm sorry for all the northern hemisphere that never got to see a good example imo)
With this accisition something like 5-6 companies are now under the Crunchyroll Unbrella and it very well could be a monopoly but with the way disney is allowed to just buy everything US Congress chit the bed on monopoly a long time ago.
They have similar rules here in the US but it's just much harder to convince courts what constitutes a monopoly. Everytime I've been made aware of it, the monopolies are broken up long after the companies merge as more and more people build evidence against them.
I'm a bit concerned about what this Merger will do for the few "VRV originals" out there. Specifically stuff like "HarmonQuest", which while it's animated it's not exactly an Anime. So given that it was said VRV would also merge into crunchyroll really scares me because I really enjoyed that show in particular.
Seems like my crunchyroll premium linked to vrv and now I don't need to be on vrvs subsciption to watch this stuff. I am more concerned because the VRV webplayer has been so much better than crunchyroll. Simple things like remove fully watched shows from continue watching aren't even present on the crunchyroll beta player. I also cannot just import my VRV watchlist into crunchroll, even though crunchyroll has owned both for most of the last 10 years.
@@leetvolk about that, just because your crunchyroll premium membership linked to VRV doesn't mean you won't pay for both. You see, in the past, if you didn't cancel your crunchyroll premium account when linked to VRV and payed specifically for VRV, you would be charged for both VRV and Crunchyroll.
Just thought I'd give you a fair warning.
@@EpicGamerWinXD69 I really wish I could send you a picture man. They sent out an email and I got free 60 days of crunchyroll premium. Because my account is linked to vrv it transfered. I have no payment method in vrv so don't foresee that issue. I do remember that being a problem though. Definitely happened to me in 2018. Seems to be better now though, but will have to see in 60 days. Who nows if the VRV player will still be accessible by then
@@leetvolk I did also receive that email, but I don't know if I'll bother with the free trial. The only advantages I would get is more simultaneous steams (which considering I only use the account for myself doesn't matter), and downloading crunchyroll exclusive titles offline. Not worth the risk if you ask me.
I just cancelled my VRV. They keep claiming that it will be absorbed into Crunchyroll the main thing. And I only had VRV because they had so many extra channels, and now it's only 2. So not worth it. I'm just going to pay Crunchyroll 7.99 and slowly wait for the Funimation stuff to get there.
Just bring back AnimeLab to replace them both! Hard to believe a small team in Aus managed to get so much so right, only to be gobbled up by Funimation and essentially downgraded into Funimation.
I was about to post this exact thing. Want best things from both Funimation and Crunchroll? It exists and was bought by Funimation, the AnimeLab app
I'm still so angry about that. We had the perfect streaming service and Funimation/Sony just destroyed it for their own selfish gain. Not that I feel it's done them much good, as the general consensus seems to be that most people cancelled their subscription.
Absolutely, I think the only streaming service I've used that is better than animelab from a functionality point is netflix, both web and app were flawless, easy to navigate and visually smooth.
Eh we have a new animelab in the US it's called Rightstuf(It's just an online video store though)
they could bring the same site, but it simply wouldn't work to keep animelab as a brand...
It's tough on creators too.
Anyone in the western hemisphere looking to pitch and create an IP has just lost 2 additional resources to pitch to....and CR's "Anime Original" library has historically been "iffy" at best.
Damn man. Love the jazz in the background lol relaxing.
I’m hoping that they’ll get more anime🙏
Need Grand Blue & the entire season of Monogatari!!
I'm assuming they're getting a new licensing agreement for the BluRay streaming rights
Grand Blue would be a Blu-Ray release, as Amazon own the streaming rights to that show.
Really hope that they keep the Funimation Dub team and the web crew to help overhaul their site. I had a subscription to Funimation for years and not Crunchyroll explicitly for those two reasons
I hope the dub team gets fired and we all get to laugh at them. They’re all ego driven assholes
hope? they must, i just cant do sub
With these types of things there’s always a trade off between the efficiency gains and convenience of consolidation and the service improvements and innovation of competition. Hopefully they can come up with away to get the advantages of both, could have the funimation and Crunchyroll teams work as separate divisions for providing the service but with access to the same anime catalog. Will just have to wait and see what happens.
It's been a long time since I've seen glass reflection. It's good to see that your still kicking after all these years
I hope the dubbing aspect of Funimation stays the same because recently they have been killing it with the dubs!
(Though I personally doubt it will be changed)
I’m legit curious how this will work out Dub wise, especially since Crunchyroll mostly uses LA based VAs and Funimation uses mostly Texas based VAs
@@therock238360, Well, I hope they do both, but there a lot of famous Texan voice actors and actresses like Monica Rial, Luci Christian, Colleen Clicking Beard, and more. These people are way to famous and good for them not to be hired. They are basically in huge chunk of anime.
For me that's also why I hate funimation, they're the reason I ever had to hear that trash Rurouni Kenshin dub.
@@Yogripper, are you talking about anime or the movies because I liked the dub of the anime. I haven’t seen the films yet.
@@joshcasticshow I blame funimation for the 4kids dub being on some streaming service. It's like why you can only find certain anime that happen to be owned by funimation subbed on certain apps. And yeah the show, not the movies which you should stop procrastinating with lol.
Man I really wish Arkada would make his own anime streaming service someday he really knows the insides and outs of these kinds of operations and what the consumer really wants.
There seems to be some confusion. Funimation, who owns Crunchyroll, have rebranded themselves as Crunchyroll. They have also closed down their streaming service Funimation Now. Aside from that Funimation is still around and as far as we know are still doing in-house dubbing, which will be put on Crunchyroll and their home releases.
This might change in the future, but it doesn't make sense why it would. It's cheaper to make dubs in Texas, thought they still use studios elsewhere to handle some other titles, and Funimation is a long established publisher of Anime on home video, just now with a different logo on the box.
One more thing, Funimation doesn't own Crunchyroll. Sony owns Funimation and Crunchyroll.
@@LUNITUNZBackup If you want to get down to brass tacks. Sony owns Aniplex, Aniplex owns Funimation and Funimation owns Crunchyroll.
Yeah it's pretty much what happened when Premier bought Six Flags in the 90s, and Premier adopted the Six Flags name. We call it Six Flags to this day, but it really is Premier Parks wearing a mask.
Even though I prefer having my anime in one place, I do wish that the licensing part of it was separate from the distribution. In other words, a company can't do both. There should be one major entity that licenses anime for that country and then multiple companies like Crunchyroll can pay a fee to distribute it on their platforms. No one company will be blocked from having any one anime due to license as long as they do business in that country. Probably not the best solution and we're far to down this rabbit hole to do that now without being forced by a major legal move.
If this leads to a good chunk of funimation's Library being free on Crunchyroll I will be very happy. If I never have to pay a monthly ransom to watch a show that I like again and can just watch it for free with advertisements that would be incredible
ua-cam.com/video/pnVWhnnWSiE/v-deo.html
*Exactly* YeS
"Ransom"?
I'm mainly happy about this because I use the android apps for streaming shows and the funimation app was terrible.
From being impossible to find new seasonal simulcasts, never remembering preferences, cutting out in the middle of a show and not being able to load that 1 episode for the next few weeks or displaying multiple sub languages at the same time.
It was just a mess.
No lie, I actually really like that piano track you had in the background. What's that from?
After losing AnimeLab (the perfect streaming service) and now this, I'm very glad I bought all my favourite animes on DVD when I could.
I got Interspecies Reviewers on blu-ray from Rightstuf after Animelab shut down. Rightstuf is even located in my home state.
piracy exists, and usually have the best sub and video quality available, people spend thousands of hours enconding anime trying to make every scene the truest to its original.
or you could buy from dynit, it's the usually the best you can get buying...
@@cradica well I live in Australia and we don't have that
@@Gadottinho yes I am aware of piracy and I do that if I don't have a choice but I would much prefer to be able to support the anime industry and get legal content. Also I prefer to watch on my tv through my Xbox.
@@sims2lovealot They ship world wide
Now I need to go buy some kind of Funimation merch just so I can remind myself that FUNimation once existed
I don't see how this is a monopoly with Netflix emerging as a legit competitor buying a ton of exclusives. My concern is what happens to HIDIVE's anime. They're going to left in the dust even more now.
While not technically a monopoly in the sense that it's not one corporation that owns everything, it's still an issue of two corporations owning everything while pushing their own, similar agendas despite being competitors, and having no interest in competing, only pushing their own propaganda while removing all alternatives.
its an oligopoly
where there is multiple "competitors" but most users double up on services meaning theres no real competition, like most people who have crunchroll probably already have a netflix subscription, or how a lot of people who have netflix have hulu or amazon services. the streaming service platform isnt the selling point, having exclusive rights to shows is. companies dont compete against each other by better improving their service or implementing nuanced features, rather, they just buy out franchises knowing people will give them money all because they have Squid Game rights and "rival" companies dont care because people have voted with their wallet that they will shell out $15 a month to others because they have The Grand Tour on their platform
theres arguments that can be made to say oligopolies are more insidious than monopolies
Sentai just got bought out by AMC.
I wonder what the dubbing of Moriarty The Patriot will be in the future. Another thing is Crunchyroll currently does not have certain anime like Seraph of the End and many others. Damnit. This is why I'm more invested in gaming and manga at this point.
Funny thing about funimation, the company building was literally 5 minutes away from my house in North Texas where it was located in Flower Mound until they moved out.
I freaking hate 3rd party exclusivity in any medium; It lets platform holders avoid competing on the merits of the service itself.
Instead they strongarm people into using their service to enjoy the content they own the rights to and then use that self-created issue as an excuse to form a monopoly.
It has mild benefits like more solid funding for individual projects but that is so drastically outweighed.
The convience of this news is nice but it almost certainly will be awful in the long run
That’s why you pirate anime lol
As long as this merger doesn't negatively affect dubs than Im not losing sleep over this like everyone is apparently
Watch subs
@@jeremiahperez11 as long as dub is an option I will never opt for sub
@@madambutterfly1997 Yep I hate reading Subs.
@@jeremiahperez11 a lot of people like to listen and watch instead of read and miss out. I know I miss a lot when I read subs. Though I am a sub watcher I can completely see why some people would prefer dubs
@@madambutterfly1997 God Zilla says welcome to the dub zone ☣️
Crunchyroll has a redesign in progress, and I have seen in the video player there that at least some of the videos have a language selector / subtitle selector built into the player. I know that not all videos have this setup, but the functionality seems to be there at least.
Also, in general, I have found the redesign to be a pretty big improvement.
For some of the titles I like, I ended up doing a combination of WhiteRabbit and Mandarake to order BluRays directly from Japan. Getting them used saves money and some titles aren't available on streaming but for the ones that are available paying $10 a month just for an obscure title isn't worth it.
I also feel that iTunes is a contender. The available Anime library isn't huge but there are some anime that arrived to iTunes pretty quick like Vivy Flourite and Smile Down The Runway, and even for HD the series is like under $20.
I'm curious how this will impact companies that license anime from Funimation and Crunchyroll, as Tubi does.
Also, no official word on what is going to happen to Digital Copies if you purchased a Funimation BluRay release.
I'm not particularly bothered personally but, then again, I canceled my funimation account back when their voice actors were turning the Vic drama into a spectacle. I'm happy that funimation's library could be added to crunchyroll but at the same time if their video player continues to play like shit and remain in 'buffer hell" then there isn't anything keeping me from continuing to surf the high seas and watch fansubs. This merger needs to come with quality-of-life improvements to the app else it won't be enough to justify keeping when they inevitably bump up the subscription price.
You cancelled your subscription to support a sexual predator?
@@TheRealCatof No. That man had rumors following him around for years long before the incident with funimation. I canceled because I didn't like how unprofessional the voice actors behaved during the entire incident. Putting out tweet after tweet, fanning the flames between the fandom during that whole kickvic versus IstandwithVic drama. All they had to do was keep quiet and let the courts handle everything (who from what I remember sided with them). Instead they decided to milk it for all it was worth. Thus, turning it into a spectacle.
I think the most concerning issue here that basically no one in the comments is talking about is how Crunchyroll basically has a monopoly on anime streaming in the west. Sony buying up Funimation was concerning, but in the end they didn't really change much. However the outright merging between the two largest anime platforms in the west, and all of the licenses associated with it could get really scummy really fast. Plus there's the annoying Crunchyroll advertisement on the Funimation platform at the start of every episode even for premium users. I would also be genuinely shocked if Crunchyroll didn't use this acquisition to justify raising the price for their service.
Also Funimation's console app functions a lot better than Crunchyroll's. Some menus are a bit weird, but the actual player is infinitely better, at least on console.
This is exactly my concern. A monopoly is only good for the company in control. Everyone else loses. Looks like it's moving more toward that point.
@@FogHazard people are too dumb to notice or care though. All people concerned about is convenience. Watch, once we all lose our freedom of choice these same people will be crying and moaning wishing it never happened
And so many anime fans wanted this monopoly to happen.
@@Dave102693Anime fans that wanted this are mainly the casuals and newer fans cause they don't know any better. The older and more veteran fans like myself never wanted this, Cause we've seen first hand over the years how companies can bastardize Anime for the sake of localization and all the other scummy things they can do while holding the license rights. For example, like Harmony gold and it's dictatorship like treatment of the Robotech/Macross license in the West over the past like 3 decades. So we know that having multiple options when it comes to localization companies is best. I guess this new generation of fans is going to have to learn this themselves when their seasonal Anime starts getting violated by CR and Sony and they'll have no where else to go for their Anime fix legally.
The main concern I have is that I'm in Australia and have been using my Animelab account to watch stuff on the Funimation website. What I want to know is if my Animelab account will work with Crunchyroll, or if I have to find some way to cancel my Animelab account and make an account with Crunchyroll. Follow on from that is I want to know if Australians can even make accounts with Crunchyroll, because before Funimation swallowed up Animelab Australians couldn't make accounts on the Funimation website.
Thanks again!
I hope we will continue to see the Funimation branding at the beginning of Anime, as I always say "fanny motion" when I see it. This means something else outside of the US.
Hopefully this merge will bring some good changes to how Crunchyroll handles things.
I just see a huge loss for anime all around. Sony now monopolizes even more of the anime market, and there's no incentive to improve services when you are THE only service available. The companies Sony and Netflix have shown that they do not care if they run a profitable market while buying up anime studios, they only care that they get rid of alternatives while pushing their political agendas, and they have the money to burn to make it happen.
@@lpsoldin3162 To be fair crunchyroll and funimation never seemed to care about improving their services either. Not to mention funimation has changed lines of dialogue to suit certain agendas before. Let's be real here in that none of these companies are perfect, nor trustworthy. Birds of a feather flock together after all. At worse more fans will just return to surfing the seven seas for fansubs.
The funny thing that happened was that before your video, I got an ad for Funimation, I'm in Australia.
Thanks for this video.
7:25 I'd rather go the crunchy roll route. One of the problems with funimation dubs is that every amine has the same 5 voices so you'll just start to hear the actors instead of the characters.
What I find intersecting is in Oceania we had Animelab (madman) which also got bought, but Animelab then spent tons of money and effort moving all its user into funimation. If crunchyroll was going to be the end point why not just move us straight there. I think the choice of which to remain was made very late into this process.
Funimation brought MangaUK a few years back which is one of the main DVD/Blu-Ray anime distributors in the UK, and only a couple months ago rebranded Manga UK to Funimation, so if Funimation is not going to exist in the near future, I don't know what was the point in the rebrand. Unless the brand name will continue as a DVD/Blu-Ray distributor and Crunchyroll will be for the streaming.
I’m really annoyed because the Animelab merger into Funimation was annoying, but they actually made it a pretty simple process. From what I’m reading, moving my account from Funimation to crunchy roll will not be simple or easy.
The meme used in the thumbnail is just the best
Awesome video man 😎!
First Funimation subsumed our (Australia/New Zealand) only local streaming service, AnimeLab, and now Funimation themselves have been absorbed. This makes me v ery anxious about legal options going forward here. Madman are generally pretty good for home media stuff, and there are two other smaller brands that have offerings, but still...
for home media here in the US we have Rightstuf. They are pretty good as well. They even saved Interspecies Reviewers after Funimation dropped it.
@@cradica I've ordered from them as well. They're great.
@@TheKazragore I got the Interspecies Reviewers Blu-ray from them. The first thing I bought from them was the Celestial Method DVD. It only costed $9. It was a cute kids show.
Funimation screwed themselves getting rid of Vic then having issues with there servers on there site having problems getting English dubs out for animes.
I love your presentation style
hi i wanted to get your make ship plushie but i guess their wasn't enough people who signed up will we get another chance at it maybe with extra warning its coming out?
funimation has always worked better for me, there’s less adds, and the players work better. on the other hand crunchyroll has a SHIT TON of adds (i cant play for subscriptions) also the players crash CONSTANTLY. i’ve tried to watch a certain movie on there 5 TIMES and the players have crashed and i still have never made it through the movie. So having to use crunchyroll only will suck.
The funimation site and app is so incredibly shit it's actually impressive
It has never worked 100%.. ever
Hey man,what are your thoughts on Kaleido Star? i want to find some hidden gems in anime, but its very hard to find true hidden gems. Would you say Kaleido Star was a hidden gem?
It's been a real pain to have to come over from animelab which was a comparatively well designed platform, only to have funamation brought out a few months later and potentially have to switch again
A blessing from the lord!
I would hope that the dubbing house splits off from Crunchyroll. I love the idea of having different dubbing houses working on different projects. Don’t get me wrong I do like Funimation’s dubbing house I just love the variety that comes from places like Bang Zoom etc etc.
I was hoping to simplify my subscriptions but now I don’t know which catalog will have my shows. I was about to kick my Crunchyroll sub because I have VRV and Funimation. Now I have to rethink my plan and wait to see.
I never heard of retro crush I'm gonna check it out
I watch almost exclusively English dubs. I can count on one hand the number of anime that I've actually watched the sub for. As a result, I've been a long time Funnimation subscriber because they have more dubs, even though Crunchyroll, for me at least, works quite a bit better. My one hope is that all the dubbed anime that I love that is on Funnimation and either isn't on Crunchyroll or isn't dubbed on there gets moved over. That's what Funnimation has said is going to happen, that their current library will migrate and after this season, anything new will be over on Crunchyroll.
providing quality service is 100% the main factor in piracy. here in Aus we had MAJOR piracy issues back in the day due to our free to air TV broadcasts being absolute total shithouse garbage and our paid for services were price gouging us and were politically tied. like, even paying $100 a month or whatever for reruns of Seinfeld and Friends we still had to deal with delayed new releases compared to the rest of the world, im not talking a few days or weeks, im talking potentially 6 fucking months (this was also a thing for music due to shipping costs and our geographical location). then streaming services like netflix and spotify came around and got popular and the piracy statistics took a nose dive for ages until the streaming service oligopoly started to emerge.
sure you will still have piracy no matter what you do but case study after case study including our own history shows people are willing to pay good money if it means the product they receive is deserving of that money. we most certainly can call it a service problem and call it a day because 99% of the pirates evaporate if the service being provided met peoples expectation and was considered affordable
Yap, gaming used to have a huge piracy problem, but nowadays online stores offer everything you want at the touch of a button with zero risks.
My feelings exactly. Great video as usual.
I did not know you still made videos
I've been hoping for a long time that Sony makes Funi get its shit together
Stop letting your top name employees act like children on Twitter
Stop letting Sabbat outsource to his own company (that seems pretty scummy)
Mediate between Japan and the west when it comes to issues like copyright, simular to how Nintendo does... or tries to do
And please, please give fans a modern dbz release that isn't cropped and smoothed to hell
Bold of you to think Crunchy won't go down the same path...
@@IceQueen975 i don't think; i only dream
That also has the English Score.
@@ShadowWolfRising Are we talking about Bruce Falconer? because he went bankrupt and tried to sue funimation over losing his job.
@@Un_Popular_Opinions To be fair, didn't he do little to none of the work and just threw his name on it?
I predict more anime being dubbed.
I'm holding onto a little hope for some of funi's practices, like the home releases, to be carried over along with their shows but I do have some concerns about what this will mean for users outside the U.S. Like what would this mean, would they region lock more than they already do? Will prices go up for subscription or merchandise? What licenses will be carried over?
I feel like this has left, almost like a huge power gap between legal streaming and piracy. With Funimation now gone, potentially shows on there will no longer be available anywhere other than piracy services which could turn away many people from streaming legally and go through other avenues to watch shows.
I feel you on the home media bit, so hard. With the added bonus of being in Europe and a lot of titles released only being on BD, ha. Cracking DVD players for all regions were standard, but with BDs it's just no use.
On the outside, Crunchyroll is taking over Funimation, but on the inside, it's going the opposite direction, meaning that the original Crunchyroll team will soon be mostly replaced with the Funimation staff.
Ok that's a scary scenario...
I wish the two companies would of just combined into different roles, like Crunchyroll could stay as a streaming service where you watch all of the anime, and FUNimation could just be a retailer / dubbing company, having them both combine everything into one is just annoying
I think that is what’s going to happen. Crunchyroll is just the steaming service
Yeah just call it Aniplex.
will the site close down?
After using both and hearing this I'm pretty happy!
I'm using Crunchyroll as my prime source anyway, but I also use Hulu, Amazon and Crackle to an extent. I feel it's better due to the fact that a lot of the other "sources" get hacked, pulled off servers or you get force fed pop ups and if you want to download you get too many redirects that either lead to dead links or porn sites.
I don't have the space I used to for physical disks and VHS anymore so this isn't a loss to me.
I LOVED the days of hitting up Suncoast and other specialty shops for the old school hits.
Watching it first run in Japan back in the 90s.
But if it means a larger library with one less service to contemplate signing back up for?
I'm good!
"Do you want cause a pirate is free! You are a pirate!"
-every anime fan at one point in time.
I'm not quite ready for that....yet
I too am a physical release collector
Pray for us
Same here
I do miss Mushishi on Netflix that was fun to watch it had like all the seasons like a season 2 that I never knew existed.
This is basically how Denver & Rio Grandé Western bought Southern Pacific but then rebranded into SP instead of the opposite, and then again with Union Pacific
Big Bruh
I'm personally not affected by whatever happens with regards to the Streaming Services though I have friends and family that will be, so I've shared your great synopsis with them my friend, with a link to this vid.
I am however, going to be hugely impacted with whatever develops for the Blu/dvd market and I have a suspicion your concerns are very warranted.
Your example of "Place Further..." is a good one, as I'm also quite frustrated we have yet to receive an NA release and Japan seems to have a quite flippant attitude towards what will or will not receive (i.e. English) subs, let alone dubs.
I've been purchasing Blus (if no Blus, dvds) of all the shows that I enjoy (or suspect I will enjoy) and it's quite scary to think how many In the future I may not be able to do so.
My library is formidable but then, so is the quality of some of the latest show releases that have yet to see Blu, so my worries may be well founded.
The UK still has a well developed Anime retail service with both Anime Lmtd and Anime Online providing Blus but since a large portion of that product has also been provided by Funimation in the past, that well may dry up also. Also of note, without an All Region player, their Blus will not serve you in NA, as they are PAL.
Scary times.
Folks may wish to start buying Blus of their fave shows promptly, if they have any interest in retaining them for future watches. Having it on your shelf is the only guarantee you will ever get in this industry.
I've never even thought about the fact that anime licences can expire. I just buy DVDs because I like owning physical copies and probably also that that's normally how I watched stuff growing up as a kid if not on TV. 😁
I'm in the UK, and for a long time, any anime that isn't super popular and Twitter chow of the day just didn't get aired or released on DVD or Blu-ray here. We never got Sailor Moon Crystal, and finding Region 2 versions of the original Sailor Moon either meant trawling eBay or buying pirated copies. I'm a big fan of buying copies of media so I have them, whatever goes on with licensing and streaming.
Just when funimation became a usable site for me, years of frustration of not having a good time using their site was actually improved and now I’m worried if the library is actually going to merge or get partially cut because I use both libraries