Funimation Being Phased Out, Rolled into Crunchyroll

TEAnubis

https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/crunchyroll-adds-funimation-anime-sony-1235192876/

I'd predicted a while back that Sony wouldn't keep both CR and Funi around as brands, but I figured it be in the opposite direction. Makes sense, though. If Sony's strategy is streaming, Crunchyroll has always been the bigger streaming brand.

kaloo

I'm glad it looks like they'll actually use Crunchyroll's technical infrastructure, as the Funimation site and apps are awful.

Kind of surprised they aren't keeping the Funi brand for the home releases though.

cornbreadman

I wonder if this will effects Funimation home videos/blu-rays?

Grey-forrester

sighs deeply Over the course of half a year I've been herded from Australia's Anime Lab service, which was fine, to Funimation's (which left me conflicted), and now to what I consider the worst of the anime streaming services. I genuinely, deeply hate this.

Niwa

Grey-forrester

I'll be honest, at this point, I don't bother with streaming services outside of HiDive. They all seem to have problems. It's funny, Western companies will complain about piracy and then make their services so shit that piracy is preferable most of the time.

celfhelp

Niwa there's a very good reason why fansubs were a big part of growing the western anime 'sphere', and it wasn't just because they were free

Shinden9

Question is, will Funimation be kept for dubbing while Crunchyroll will be kept for streaming? Will there be a restructure where Funimation's licensing will be merged with Crunchyroll's?

Does it even matter? It's all the same people anyways, so it's not as if the crony network that dominates anime licensing will be changed in any way shape or form. All the same people are going to keep their positions, just in different companies.

TEAnubis

Funi will probably be kept around for dubbing and physical releases, I reckon. Where every streaming license they get will be under CR while Funi gets the home video license and produces the dub.

If anyone gets cut out, besides legitimate redundancies, it'll probably be the devs of Funi's streaming product, but even then, they might be able to find work for them in CR, so there's really no telling, but guaranteed any and all people who are responsible for Funi's customer-facing problems will stick around.

TEAnubis

It looks like CR will eventually be handling home video releases as well. So I guess outside of a few countries, Funimation will basically cease to exist as a brand.

https://archive.ph/B0kjI

nihi

I wonder if stuff like CR originals will continue.
Regardless of the questionable branding "Originals", and the ones already in production, i wonder doing stuff like that makes sense.

TEAnubis

nihi I personally don't expect them to do something like High Guardian Spice again, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if they decided to keep that branding around for shows they help fund, as opposed to ones they actually produce.

nihi

TEAnubis
I see. it makes sense that they would do that.