Sony Bets Big on Crunchyroll as Global Anime Audience Grows

Sony Pictures Entertainment is consolidating its anime businesses under the Crunchyroll banner to better compete in the growing streaming market for Japanese animation. From a report: The company is adding hundreds of hours of programming and dozens of titles, including "Cowboy Bebop," to the Crunchyroll streaming service that were previously available through its Funimation outlet, the company said Tuesday. Culver City-based Sony Pictures, the film and TV entertainment arm of Tokyo electronics giant Sony Corp., made a big bet on the anime market last year when it bought streaming service Crunchyroll from AT&T for $1.175 billion. The problem was that Sony then had two subscription streamers focused on the market for Japanese animation. Fans had to subscribe to both Crunchyroll and Funimation to get everything they wanted, in addition to Netflix and other services, said Colin Decker, who runs Sony's anime businesses.

Dub/sub split

[bhcompy]

So are they moving away from focusing on dubs vs subs on the separate services? It's really damn annoying, since some dubs are good, and some dubs are junk

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[DarkRookie2]

From the way the article read, they are just moving all anime under the Crunchyroll brand. It didn't say anything about more or less dubbing.

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[t0qer]

Personally prefer dubs. I have no problem keeping up with subs, but with my eyes focused on the bottom of the screen I find I miss a lot of the action. That being said, hopefully Crunchyroll isn't going to waste time with the Cowboy Bebop live action remake.

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[Catvid-22]

The problem with dubs is that there are fewer English language voice actors when compared to the voice actors that did the Japanese originals. So you keep hearing the same voices over and over. Japan has an animation industry able to churn out weekly shows. Most US animation is geared toward the occasional big budget CGI movie and the use of highly paid celebrities more for their star attraction than their voice talents. There are notable exceptions like the Simpsons and South Park, which manage to fit unde

More choices forever!

[AndyKron]

Thank God for all that. The tens thousands new pieces of bullshit coming out each year is just not enough!

Re:More choices forever!

[jacks smirking reven]

This is quite true in a way, there is a lot of anime and while there are some easy to spot standouts every few years for the normies to catch like Attack on Titan it remains a perplexing and intimidating genre to dig into. There's an overwhelming amount of content to distinguish between

As of Tuesday, Crunchyroll has more than 40,000 episodes...

Sometimes feels like half of those are One Piece....

Re:More choices forever!

[93 Escort Wagon]

Sometimes feels like half of those are One Piece....

Don’t exaggerate. It’s barely 25%.

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[AmiMoJo]

The longest running series in Japan are hardly known in the West. Doraemon, Detective Conan.

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[alvinrod]

It's true of everything in a way. Sturgeon's law and all.

Some people like a particular sort of crap though. I've read a lot of bad science fiction over the years, but I don't mind because I like the genre and sometimes you have to sift through a bit of crap to find a diamond.

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[DarkRookie2]

Its not a genre, its an art style.
I have seen animes across multiple genres

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[Catvid-22]

Its not a genre, its an art style. I have seen animes across multiple genres

There's no single anime art style, unless the only anime you watch is DBZ and Gundam. For example, not all anime is done in the "trademark" Betty Boop big eyes style.

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[DarkRookie2]

No simple style to pull from yes, but anime has its owe aesthetic. Like Disney movies and cartoons and the CN stuff.

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[Catvid-22]

I'm not sure now what you mean by aesthetic. I was replying to your original comment about "art style". There's definitely no simple anime art style. I'm not sure of the exact word for it (maybe "sensibility"?) but whatever makes anime different from Disney and CN has more to to with story than style. In many anime, for example, there's no clear distinction between villain and hero. The villain might have a good motive but is using evil or harmful methods to achieve his goals. Many heros, even in kiddie ani

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[DarkRookie2]

That is story genre and a lot of animes that make it over do have a clear Good vs Bad. DBZ being one of them. In High School DxD, you can clearly tell who the bad guy is.
MHA has clear good vs bad.
Doug had a sympathetic villain character in it.

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[Dadoo]

remains a perplexing and intimidating genre to dig into

In my experience, that's true of all media. For every "Mash", there are 100 "2 Broke Girls". Anime is no different.

Phew

[Excelcia]

The tens thousands new pieces of bullshit coming out each year is just not enough!

Thank-you for that. I was beginning to wonder if it was me.

When I was a kid, we called it Japanimation, or just "Jap Crap". And even as a fairly young kid, I'd wonder why they were so angtsy and had to beat the viewer in the face with whatever the character was feeling. I mean, I know "cry me a river" is a saying, but do they actually have to depict a character filling a room with tears when a guy calls her to cancel a date? I did actually enjoy Battle of the Planets as a kid, but as I read up on it now [wikipedia.org]

exsiting subs may be screwed

[Cyberglich]

What they have been radio silent on it what about people who have 1 year subs with months left on them

Combining two competing services into one

[93 Escort Wagon]

Theyre doing this to benefit the consumers, they say. So they’re not raising the price on the combined service - right?

Right?

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[Entrope]

"Raising the price" compared to what? The two services combined? They still have to pay for production or licensing of all their content, so if they add much material to the larger library, the price will probably be a bit higher than the current price for that service.

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[Catvid-22]

We're in the golden age of consumer tracking. Surely higher fees are paid for content that gets binge-watched. So if Sony have a gigaton of content only watched by bored Gen-X'rs trying to relive their Voltron days (may that Frankenstein-imation rest in pieces), they'll pay less.

official subs always suck

[DrunkenTerror]

down with localization

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[Chibi Merrow]

The quote you're responding to literally says *want*. It made the distinction. To get everything they *wanted* they had to subscribe to both services.

You were in such a rush to shit on other people you didn't even read your own quote.

Mmmmm

[dohzer]

I've never thought of Crunchies as 'rolls'. They're more of a bar. But now I'm hungry for one.
Also, this article is very confusing to me.

Improve the service itself

[McLoud]

I for one would like them to fix their damn app, their buffering is almost useless when the connection is flaky, it's hard to go to an episode and back to the anime series, it keeps duplicating seasons across languages (like if you finish season 1 in US it goes to the german one) and they bundle animes and ova/movies all in the same tracklist (If you finish the last Kimetsu no Yaba episode it keeps going to the Mugen Train movie)