The End of Funimation - Cucked to Death by Crunchyroll

[HighwayStar]

I'm really glad to see other people who are nostalgic for ADV. They were my favorite for the longest time. I've got a real sorta nostalgia for their releases. And their dubs. People rightfully shit on a lotta dubs, but I really liked most of what ADV put out. Their Cromartie High dub is still a blast.

It's weird to see Funimation going away and Crunchyroll staying. I mean, it's hard to believe how quickly they went from a site that hosted pirated anime to a legitimate business. I know it's been over a decade, but it still feels like it was way more recent.

What makes it doubly funny is that various Funimation voice actors like Alex Moore were whining about piracy sites like they were the weapons of Satan, yet this company is about dissolve with entity that was formerly a piracy site.

Let's be honest of all the companies from the DVD era of the 2000s, Funimation was effectively the only one that was able to survive that which was what made them the biggest company in the western industry at that point to begin with. In hindsight that wasn't really a guarantee they were gonna be around for very long even though it felt that way. If anything it marked their downfall in all honesty.

It's just so surreal that after 30 years, Funimation will cease to exist as a brand. We knew imminent things were coming for Funimation, especially after the KickVic fiasco, but I never thought it would happen so soon and so abruptly. If you were to tell me before 2019 that in three years, Funimation, formerly the biggest anime distribution company of all time, would be involved in a lawsuit with a former voice actor whom they betrayed and then become a part of a company that once pirated anime, I wouldn't believe you.

 

[TheClappening]

What makes it doubly funny is that various Funimation voice actors like Alex Moore were whining about piracy sites like they were the weapons of Satan, yet this company is about dissolve with entity that was formerly a piracy site.


It's just so surreal that after 30 years, Funimation will cease to exist as a brand. We knew imminent things were coming for Funimation, especially after the KickVic fiasco, but I never thought it would happen so soon and so abruptly. If you were to tell me before 2019 that in three years, Funimation, formerly the biggest anime distribution company of all time, would be involved in a lawsuit with a former voice actor whom they betrayed and then become a part of a company that once pirated anime, I wouldn't believe you.

The icing on the cake is if some asshole IRS boy looks at the contractor/employee thing they're hiding behind and audits them.

 

[Mr.PiggyOinkOinkOinkOink]

It doesn't matter if all the people are still there

I mean it kinda does matter when people are dancing on the grave because they didn’t like the people that worked there and wanted them to be fired.

Like my post obviously wasn’t directed towards people just mocking the brand dying. But saying shit like they cut the companies life support or vic won is obviously goofy if nothing really changes to the people they felt tarnished the brand or wronged Vic.

Like I’m sure vic is ecstatic the largest anime streaming service got bought by a company that already didn’t take his side in an internal investigation…

 

[Dom Cruise]

It really is sad to witness an era passing into history, not only has the 2000s anime scene passed into history but even a lot of the early 2010s.

I'm really glad to see other people who are nostalgic for ADV. They were my favorite for the longest time. I've got a real sorta nostalgia for their releases. And their dubs. People rightfully shit on a lotta dubs, but I really liked most of what ADV put out. Their Cromartie High dub is still a blast.

It's weird to see Funimation going away and Crunchyroll staying. I mean, it's hard to believe how quickly they went from a site that hosted pirated anime to a legitimate business. I know it's been over a decade, but it still feels like it was way more recent.

There really was a particular charm to ADV, they had the strongest identity of all these companies, part of that was the familiarity of the voice actors, who yes it could be repetitive hearing Andy Mcavin voice an "old man" character the 9000th time, but the actors really gave it all their all and their passion about the medium came out in their performances, ADV didn't produce the best dubs I heard, other companies reached higher highs, but ADV was the most consistently solid.

They also had an identity by the common themes the animes they would release often had, they were usually either chasing the next Evangelion or publishing wacky comedies of which Cromartie High School is a perfect example, they also liked anything with a steampunk sort of vibe like Sakura War's or Chrono Crusade.

And they were the nerd's nerd anime publisher, coming off as a little more authentic than others.

Check out Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi if you haven't seen it, it's a perfect example of ADV at their best.

 

[Dread First]

I mean it kinda does matter when people are dancing on the grave because they didn’t like the people that worked there and wanted them to be fired.

Like my post obviously wasn’t directed towards people just mocking the brand dying. But saying shit like they cut the companies life support or vic won is obviously goofy if nothing really changes to the people they felt tarnished the brand or wronged Vic.

Like I’m sure vic is ecstatic the largest anime streaming service got bought by a company that already didn’t take his side in an internal investigation…

Here's the rub: Sony owns Funimation, Crunchyroll, and Aniplex of America. There's a shitload of problems with the way their current anime distribution operations are handled now that all three companies are under the same umbrella. For example:

• Aniplex of America outsourced their dubbing to Bang Zoom most of the time. Why should Aniplex continue outsourcing their dubbing to Bang Zoom when they have the entire Funimation roster at their disposal?
• Crunchyroll has the streaming rights to the overwhelming majority of Aniplex of America's library, but Funimation has the streaming rights to all the Aniplex shows that they dubbed before Aniplex of America absorbed them back in 2016 (i.e. Fullmetal Alchemist, Black Butler, etc). Why bother maintaining a distinction between Funimation and Crunchyroll streaming rights if all three companies are owned by the same conglomerate?
• Crunchyroll and Funimation offer competing streaming services that are roughly around the same price tier (i.e. 7-8 USD monthly). Now that Sony owns both, why even bother retaining separate libraries?
• Crunchyroll's physical merchandise offerings have been laughably poor for a decade and change. Not to mention that they've tried and failed numerous times with distributing physical media (Their attempt at distributing 5 Centimetres Per Second immediately comes to mind). Funimation on the other hand has well over 30 years of experience with physical anime distribution. Why bother keeping Funimation brand alive to sell physical copies of anime when you can just slap the Crunchyroll logo over it?
• Finally: Funimation has done a shitload of reputation damage to itself over the years. Let's see... what is objectively worse: funding a shitty western cartoon or funding Chris Sabat's casting couch shenanigans? It's impossible to fully memoryhole Funimation because they've been around for 25-30 years, but still: dissociating yourself from a toxic brand might be a good idea in the long run, especially when all of the logistics matches up.

 

[NoonmanR]

Do we even know if Sony is going to keep Sabat and friends on as full time employees? Like yeah they do alot of the VA, but afaik that is a separate company they can just contract out to, there's no reason for any of them to actually be on the corporate payroll, right?

 

[Marissa Moira]

Do we even know if Sony is going to keep Sabat and friends on as full time employees? Like yeah they do alot of the VA, but afaik that is a separate company they can just contract out to, there's no reason for any of them to actually be on the corporate payroll, right?

You're assuming they're just going to stick with North Americans and won't bother bringing VAs over from other countries.

A lot of these VA diversity pushes seem to benefit bilingual/Multilingual people because in markets like China there's also demand for similar series and not only that China helps with the animation work of the anime itself. So having the same actor or actress who can speak two different languages for the same role may wind up becoming the norm for greater global consistency.

 

[FatMebius]

It really is sad to witness an era passing into history, not only has the 2000s anime scene passed into history but even a lot of the early 2010s.



There really was a particular charm to ADV, they had the strongest identity of all these companies, part of that was the familiarity of the voice actors, who yes it could be repetitive hearing Andy Mcavin voice an "old man" character the 9000th time, but the actors really gave it all their all and their passion about the medium came out in their performances, ADV didn't produce the best dubs I heard, other companies reached higher highs, but ADV was the most consistently solid.

They also had an identity by the common themes the animes they would release often had, they were usually either chasing the next Evangelion or publishing wacky comedies of which Cromartie High School is a perfect example, they also liked anything with a steampunk sort of vibe like Sakura War's or Chrono Crusade.

And they were the nerd's nerd anime publisher, coming off as a little more authentic than others.

Check out Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi if you haven't seen it, it's a perfect example of ADV at their best.

I really like their Abenobashi dub. I think most of their dubs are pretty good. I was a big fan of theirs when they existed. The only real misfire there was their dub of Getter Robo Armageddon. Which has a ton of problems (Like not being able to tell Getter-2 and 3 apart a lot of the time) and is just has a lotta really odd voice work. Their Nadesico dub is a particular favorite of mine. I'm glad a lot of their stable of actors have managed to find work at other studios though. God bless Tiffany Grant's crazy ass.

 

[The Token Ethnic]

I'm really glad to see other people who are nostalgic for ADV. They were my favorite for the longest time. I've got a real sorta nostalgia for their releases. And their dubs. People rightfully shit on a lotta dubs, but I really liked most of what ADV put out. Their Cromartie High dub is still a blast.

And they were the nerd's nerd anime publisher, coming off as a little more authentic than others.

I loved AD Vision and their clamshell cases. I first found out about them when I rented Burn Up and Demon Hunter Yohko and those were definitely not for kids. I worked my ass off one summer to buy a tape from them. It was the first volume of the Nuku Nuku OVA series and I remember that it cost me around $40 for a 60 minute VHS tape. AD Vision released a lot of wild stuff. They even had an adult anime division named 'Soft Cel Pictures' and tried releasing manga in comic book format (like Viz) by releasing a few titles under the name Graphic Visions, but failed.


Funimation has the worst customer service I've ever encountered. I know they used to care about pleasing fans, but those days are long gone. I purchased a factory sealed copy of the Claymore blu-ray, but it was missing the 100 page booklet. Dealing with customer service was slow and it took them over a month to respond and agree to send me a booklet after sending my proof of purchase. At the last minute, they changed their mind and told me that the receipt I gave them was from a record store, not from FYE or Amazon. They didn't have a problem with it when I originally submitted it to them, but Funi somehow used it as an excuse to save on postage. That was the last time I ever purchased anything from them.

 

[Mr.PiggyOinkOinkOinkOink]

Here's the rub: Sony owns Funimation, Crunchyroll, and Aniplex of America. There's a shitload of problems with the way their current anime distribution operations are handled now that all three companies are under the same umbrella. For example:

• Aniplex of America outsourced their dubbing to Bang Zoom most of the time. Why should Aniplex continue outsourcing their dubbing to Bang Zoom when they have the entire Funimation roster at their disposal?
• Crunchyroll has the streaming rights to the overwhelming majority of Aniplex of America's library, but Funimation has the streaming rights to all the Aniplex shows that they dubbed before Aniplex of America absorbed them back in 2016 (i.e. Fullmetal Alchemist, Black Butler, etc). Why bother maintaining a distinction between Funimation and Crunchyroll streaming rights if all three companies are owned by the same conglomerate?
• Crunchyroll and Funimation offer competing streaming services that are roughly around the same price tier (i.e. 7-8 USD monthly). Now that Sony owns both, why even bother retaining separate libraries?
• Crunchyroll's physical merchandise offerings have been laughably poor for a decade and change. Not to mention that they've tried and failed numerous times with distributing physical media (Their attempt at distributing 5 Centimetres Per Second immediately comes to mind). Funimation on the other hand has well over 30 years of experience with physical anime distribution. Why bother keeping Funimation brand alive to sell physical copies of anime when you can just slap the Crunchyroll logo over it?
• Finally: Funimation has done a shitload of reputation damage to itself over the years. Let's see... what is objectively worse: funding a shitty western cartoon or funding Chris Sabat's casting couch shenanigans? It's impossible to fully memoryhole Funimation because they've been around for 25-30 years, but still: dissociating yourself from a toxic brand might be a good idea in the long run, especially when all of the logistics matches up.

I think you’re overhyping the brand damage from funimation personally, I doubt causal anime fans have any idea about the casting couch stuff for example.

This kinda talk really just comes off like the Pokémon fans upset with modem Pokémon and thinking they have really traction, only to find out every release the overwhelming majority don’t care about the little and just continue to consume the product

Do we even know if Sony is going to keep Sabat and friends on as full time employees? Like yeah they do alot of the VA, but afaik that is a separate company they can just contract out to, there's no reason for any of them to actually be on the corporate payroll, right?

This has been true for years though, they could’ve always been contracting out stuff, so my question to you is why you think now that Sony just took out a huge competitor for licensing you think it would be smart to get rid of employees? Sony just gained access to even more IPs in terms of anime, and will gain more easy now that they are down what competitor, gutting the Texas talent directly under them would mean less being produced considering funimation was by far one of the biggest dubbing studios on the whole.

If Sony plans on financing dubs still, cutting ties with the Texas side of the talent seems counter productive, and might be most expensive long term, I’m pretty sure it’s cheaper running everything in Texas directly as opposed to constantly outsourcing to LA

 

[Mothra1988]

Here's the rub: Sony owns Funimation, Crunchyroll, and Aniplex of America. There's a shitload of problems with the way their current anime distribution operations are handled now that all three companies are under the same umbrella. For example:

• Aniplex of America outsourced their dubbing to Bang Zoom most of the time. Why should Aniplex continue outsourcing their dubbing to Bang Zoom when they have the entire Funimation roster at their disposal?
• Crunchyroll has the streaming rights to the overwhelming majority of Aniplex of America's library, but Funimation has the streaming rights to all the Aniplex shows that they dubbed before Aniplex of America absorbed them back in 2016 (i.e. Fullmetal Alchemist, Black Butler, etc). Why bother maintaining a distinction between Funimation and Crunchyroll streaming rights if all three companies are owned by the same conglomerate?
• Crunchyroll and Funimation offer competing streaming services that are roughly around the same price tier (i.e. 7-8 USD monthly). Now that Sony owns both, why even bother retaining separate libraries?
• Crunchyroll's physical merchandise offerings have been laughably poor for a decade and change. Not to mention that they've tried and failed numerous times with distributing physical media (Their attempt at distributing 5 Centimetres Per Second immediately comes to mind). Funimation on the other hand has well over 30 years of experience with physical anime distribution. Why bother keeping Funimation brand alive to sell physical copies of anime when you can just slap the Crunchyroll logo over it?
• Finally: Funimation has done a shitload of reputation damage to itself over the years. Let's see... what is objectively worse: funding a shitty western cartoon or funding Chris Sabat's casting couch shenanigans? It's impossible to fully memoryhole Funimation because they've been around for 25-30 years, but still: dissociating yourself from a toxic brand might be a good idea in the long run, especially when all of the logistics matches up.

The only thing I see wrong with your analysis is that the home video market is overdue for a huge crash soon. So long term it may not matter if Funi is better at making blu-rays if blu-ray goes away, but for the time being I'm sure that is how they will be used. Like many things, home video will probably have a longer lifespan in Japan though.

 

[Mr.PiggyOinkOinkOinkOink]

The only thing I see wrong with your analysis is that the home video market is overdue for a huge crash soon. So long term it may not matter if Funi is better at making blu-rays if blu-ray goes away, but for the time being I'm sure that is how they will be used. Like many things, home video will probably have a longer lifespan in Japan though.

Idk, you might be underestimating fans willingness to own physical media. Anime fans love spending their money on shit, I’ve admittedly said fuck it and bought the demon slayer physical releases(more because it’ll be a relatively short series than anything) and I aggressively quit buying physical releases of television years ago

Like, anime fans pay money to get fan art signed by voice actors, if any physical media is gonna survive it’s gonna be anime

 

[Clarence Big Boss]

I might as well tell my experiences from buying blu rays through Funimation. I usually buy my anime shit from RightStuff. And it's good quality shit. However, the first time I bought an anime blu ray was from Funimations dogshit website. I bought Attack on titan season 1 part 1 and the product came 1 week late the blu ray was heavily damaged on the inside. Also, one of the discs were missing. I spent 50 bucks on this trash, I was disappointed. So I emailed Funi about it. They offered me no refund because of their policy so I just did a reverseal transaction through my bank. I then decided to just use RightStuff and ever since then I stuck with them. Not saying you should use that site to buy Blu rays of your favorite animes. Just use what site you like. As for me, that was the first and last time I order from them through their website.

With that being said, I do like some of their blu rays. I would prefer of buying an entire season of 26 episodes for 50 bucks instead of 12 episodes for the same price. As of now, the only anime blu rays I have that are from Funimation are Attack on Titan and Fire Force.

Funimation has the worst customer service I've ever encountered. I know they used to care about pleasing fans, but those days are long gone. I purchased a factory sealed copy of the Claymore blu-ray, but it was missing the 100 page booklet. Dealing with customer service was slow and it over a month to respond and agree to send me a booklet after sending my proof of purchase. At the last minute, they changed their mind and told me that the receipt I gave them was from a record store, not from FYE or Amazon. They didn't have a problem with it when I originally submitted it to them, but Funi somehow used it as an excuse to save on postage. That was the last time I ever purchased anything from them.

I know how you feel, I really wished Funimation wasn't so shit. Don't they realize that they have low reviews on thier blu rays for a reason?

 

[5t3n0g0ph3r]

I like how in the wake of Funimation succumbing to corporate merging, Daman Mills gets hit with a sexual misconduct accusation (with better evidence, too).

 

[Mr._Blonde]

I like how in the wake of Funimation succumbing to corporate merging, Daman Mills gets hit with a sexual misconduct accusation (with better evidence, too).

As the saying goes. "Bad news comes in three." What's next I wonder.

 

[Coach Kreeton Of All That]

I like how in the wake of Funimation succumbing to corporate merging, Daman Mills gets hit with a sexual misconduct accusation (with better evidence, too).

But will he fight back the accusations, taking it to court? Or will he be protected by daddy of rape Sabat and the casting couch gang? Or will he bend the knee to cater to enough fanfic-writing, tentacle-rape porn fantasy obsessed Twatter users and an hero himself by swallowing pills like Heath Ledger? DUN DUN DUN!

 

[Uranus Pink]

AD Vision released a lot of wild stuff. They even had an adult anime division named 'Soft Cel Pictures' and tried releasing manga in comic book format (like Viz) by releasing a few titles under the name Graphic Visions, but failed.

Their Graphics Vision manga was first attempt at doing manga. Which they very quickly pull the plug on it after a few months. Few years later restarted doing manga in the unflipped tankobon format. Which ADV had been doing right to up when the company was closed.

 

[AnOminous]

Even if he wins, I don't think he'd sensibly want to go back to the den of cannibalistic rats that is Funimation.

It's looking like Funimation won't be there for him to go back to anyway.

Get a load of this dumb nigger who doesnt realize Sony is THE wealthiest music publisher in the world with their own record label, movie studios, DSLR cameras, televisions, etc. They don't care about your little video games.

But Sony Interactive Entertainment does because it's their job.

 

[Marissa Moira]

I might as well tell my experiences from buying blu rays through Funimation. I usually buy my anime shit from RightStuff. And it's good quality shit. However, the first time I bought an anime blu ray was from Funimations dogshit website. I bought Attack on titan season 1 part 1 and the product came 1 week late the blu ray was heavily damaged on the inside. Also, one of the discs were missing. I spent 50 bucks on this trash, I was disappointed. So I emailed Funi about it. They offered me no refund because of their policy so I just did a reverseal transaction through my bank. I then decided to just use RightStuff and ever since then I stuck with them. Not saying you should use that site to buy Blu rays of your favorite animes. Just use what site you like. As for me, that was the first and last time I order from them through their website.

With that being said, I do like some of their blu rays. I would prefer of buying an entire season of 26 episodes for 50 bucks instead of 12 episodes for the same price. As of now, the only anime blu rays I have that are from Funimation are Attack on Titan and Fire Force.

I know how you feel, I really wished Funimation wasn't so shit. Don't they realize that they have low reviews on thier blu rays for a reason?

All the stuff I ever bought from Funimation has been through amazon since they have a return policy. Stuff gets stocked at weird times too. Like a few of their older DVD sets turned up there and it was being sold by amazon directly. Same with their Blu-Rays and they tend to get routine discounts.

I've picked up quite a few funimation sets for around $6-$10.

 

[Uranus Pink]

It's just a shame companies like ADV couldn't have gotten ahead of it and been able to smoothly transition into streaming sooner, but the 2008 market crash certainly didn't help eieither.

ADV had experimented with streaming back in iirc 05-06. They had promoted it at Anime Expo that year otherwise I wouldn't have known they done it. But in 2007-08 nothing have been mentioned of it. Point of reference Netflix didn't start streaming until 2007.