If I agreed to the title some fans have given Funimation, then I wouldn’t have said the same could be said of all anime companies. Sentai and Media Blasters are just as guilty of picking up “ecchi” titles. Remember the saying: “Boobs sell!” I have plenty of reasons to knock Funimation. I don’t need fanservice to do so…lol I think it’s just more notable at Funimation as they release very few new titles each month, as opposed to Sentai who releases four or five each solicitation.
But hey, even if you don’t like ecchi, if it sells well and creates cash flow to acquire other titles, I say “what the hell?” An ecchi title may sell enough to free up some cash to acquire something like Space Brothers. After all, High School of the Dead had HUGE sales and the revenue from that is funding a lot of Sentai’s acquisitions.
Now back on topic once again:
It’s true that being licensed by CR may increase a show’s chances of being licensed by Sentai, but it’s getting harder and harder to predict which series those are. If CR’s streams are limited to North America, or at least to just English speaking territories, then it seems to be much more likely that Sentai already has the show. Since Space Brothers is streaming just about everywhere, it seems unlikely that it’s been picked up already.
Now Sentai could pick up the show later, but I doubt it’s very likely unless the show pulls some big streaming numbers. More realistic sci-fi series have a pretty poor track record in North America. Moonlight Mile bombed so badly that Funi never reprinted it. Planetes did very poorly for Bandai and the singles had to be liquidated. The chances of SB being picked up are fairly slim. It’s chances of getting a dub are probably next to none. Even if Sentai, or someone else, were to acquire it, it would most likely be a sub-only release. The synopsis actually makes it sound almost exactly like Moonlight Mile.
It’s sort of a shame that shows like this don’t do well. I haven’t watched Planetes, but I’ve always heard great things about it. I also though Moonlight Mile was a pretty good show and I really enjoyed the dub. It’s sad that we will likely never see the second season here.
I’m not sure if anyone noticed this but CR the last few times had been listing Sentai as the publisher. This was spoiling Sentai’s big announcements of the titles also kind of giving the thought Sentai was making more deals with CR then their own video service here. Sentai may have asked that the Japanese publisher be put on the shows page instead. I also don’t know if anyone noticed but when CR was saying Sentai we’d get these obviously rushed out PR’s from Sentai. So Sentai might once again be working with CR but this time around got CR to leave their name off until they are ready to announce titles.
Funimation lately seems to be going around getting the scraps left over. Not that some of them aren’t good shows it’s just they are not the highest shows of the seasons. Sentai seems to be going for more of a diverse range of shows which kind of leaves Funimation with mostly a ecchi mess left to license. Course Funimation still has a ton of Geneon and other titles they’ve not been able to release yet. So they may just not be trying to get as many titles. Bad thing about Funimation simcast is they don’t mean license from them so some of the shows they get for simcast might not even get a home video release from them.
CR actually took down Sentai as a publisher last season. All the shows were moved to the Japanese publishers list.
I think the fact that Sentai is willing to promise a physical release, even if subonly, and is willing to work with CR has given them a major legs up on Funimation. They can do so because they are willing to release subonly discs and TAN isn’t solely dependent on its online player for digital revenue. Unlike the Funi Channel, which has been a flop so far, TAN has been able to grow into a fairly successful VOD channel. The last couple seasons Sentai has nabbed what most would consider the “major” shows, even if some of those turned out less than great. The only big show Funico really landed was Fate Zero, but that didn’t include home video rights and it wasn’t exclusive.
What’s even more interesting is, with the new redesign of the CR site, they completely did away with the section that allowed you to sort shows by Publisher.
What’s even more interesting is, with the new redesign of the CR site, they completely did away with the section that allowed you to sort shows by Publisher.[/quote]
Yeah, I noticed they were taking that section part slowly, but I didn’t know if it was gone entirely yet. Last time I checked, half the companies were still there.
I’d like to see the .hack// series, 07 Ghosts, Wolf’s Rain, Ah! my Goddess, Angel Heart, Angel Tales, Interstella 5555, Black Cat, Basilisk, Vampire hunter D, Vampire Princess Miyu, Black Jack, Blue Dragon, Cased Closed, Casshan, Casshern Sins, claymore, Cowboy Bebop, D. Grey-man, D.N. Angel, Darker Than Black, Digimon, Dragon Quest, Fairy Tail, Fist of the blue sky, Mushi-shi, Gantz… In truth I could go on forever. So I’ll stop there, I’m not sure if you can get rights to any of these and some I have already watched but would love for others to know about and watch themselves.
I figured as much. A lot of the anime I mentioned when on tv were showed by Funimation so that doesn’t surprise me. I figure why not have a contract with them surely they can benefit from having more of their anime shown else where. I find that if they get profits from the commercials the profit the Anime Network would make would be from more people willing to subscribe to watch these anime…just a thought though.
an earlier post by dragonrider_cody mentioned Funimation having a lot of “boobs” in their anime, i must admit i have to agree with him, there is a lot of nudity in some of their animes (just watch Girls Bravo once and you will get my meaning lol)
sorry back on topic, have you guys heard of an anime called Vampire Knight? is it possible to get this anime/movie on VoD? or is this one owned by some other company that you can’t show for copyright reasons? thanks in advance.
Problem is the Anime Network is associated with their competition whom Funimation is more less suing . The Anime Network has done other companies before like Nozomi and Geneon . So them teaming with another company is not out of the question I just have very very strong doubts it will ever be Funimation.
I’d personally love them to make a deal with Toei or Discotek.
… D.N. Angel has already been shown by TAN. It’s no longer available.
-Joe[/quote]
…and now discotek owns it. No more adv extras, no more Japanese extras, no more streaming. Sounds to me like everyone lost. An improper license rescue is worse than no rescue IMO.
The transient, undependable nature of streams is frustrating. Also frustrating are Japanese streaming licensing nonsense and Sentai’s acting as though streaming, vod, and physical media are all in a competition where there can only be one winner.
How about we get princess resurrection on here dubbed? Sentai is showing it on vod and has been for weeks if not longer now.
Well the last two ADV releases did not have them either. Course I think this one may be more the Japanese side to blame then Discotek as they are pretty good at getting extra’s for things if they are available.
ok thanks for the heads up cody. there are so many to ask about but not sure who owns who etc. is there any chance for Modern Magic Made Simple or Maid- Sama getting a release with an english dub? don’t get me wrong, i don’t mind the subbed version, but was just curious if there is a dubbed version available.
is there any chance for Modern Magic Made Simple or Maid- Sama getting a release with an english dub? don’t get me wrong, i don’t mind the subbed version, but was just curious if there is a dubbed version available.[/quote]
As with any show that gets a subbbed release it’s possible if the streaming and subbed set numbers were good.
I’ve personally not heard anything mentioned about either. Occasionally they mention what is selling decent during Conventions panels.
ah i see. so psychopuppet, would you happen to know which companies TAN deals with on what they air on demand, etc? i want to suggest something but noit sure which companies they can or cannot use, know what i mean?
… D.N. Angel has already been shown by TAN. It’s no longer available.
-Joe
…and now discotek owns it. No more adv extras, no more Japanese extras, no more streaming. Sounds to me like everyone lost. An improper license rescue is worse than no rescue IMO.
Well the last two ADV releases did not have them either. Course I think this one may be more the Japanese side to blame then Discotek as they are pretty good at getting extra’s for things if they are available.[/quote]
Even funimation managed to get many of the adv extras on their rescue releases. Discotek is giving us a halfhearted release.
Tony Oliver once told me some crock about how the Japanese have to approve every byte that gets burned on r1 anime DVDs. I don’t buy into that.
Adv/Sentai might not have given us the extras, but at least they could have. They could also be streaming the show.
So why couldn’t discotek have left DNAngel in limbo until Sentai got enough steam back to recover it, as they just did with parasite dolls?
I was told once before if something is let go long enough to be rescued by another company then the original company felt it’s sales for them had dried up to much to justify renewal or for the cost the Japanese were asking for said renewal. I’m thinking in the DNAngel case it was the sales for the last set was to low to justify renewal.
I’ve also heard from several people the Japanese are very much involved in the R1 process to a almost a hemorrhoid degree. I actually remember someone I can’t name saying the wording hemorrhoid when talking about the Japanese side. I do know the Japanese won’t always send old extra’s if there is a problem with them or if they feel they may release the series over there soon. I know it’s gotten worse with Blu-ray since we are the same region.
@Animefan34: I’m not to sure to tell the truth. I’m pretty sure they could work a deal with Rightstuf/Nozomi again with out to much of a hassle. Problem is I’m not sure they have the extra person to spare to work on deals as they once did.
