The End of Funimation - Cucked to Death by Crunchyroll

[Volmsaiyan]

Been a good seven years as a pirate. Still need a bigger hard drive though.

I pirate some,but

Ah that sucks, and after looking back at VRV I see that they stopped offering hidive through its service. I would've been interested in resubbing if it offered that along with everything that'll be on crunchyroll, but now there's no point for me. Wouldn't be surprised if they sack VRV at this rate with how they're clearly restructuring with this deal

When I subbed to VRV they had hidive,CR and the app was alot better than CR. I think my year sub is up in june/July at which point I'll be sailing the seas.

 

[Marissa Moira]

Geneon's anime is still streamed on TUBI BTW.

Yeah their library got bought out by a few companies.

 

[Himedall All-seeing Waifu]

If everyone's recording at home the quality of dubs is gonna tank. From people just phoning it in to not being able to have directors and staff able to ask for lines redone in the moment...shit is gonna slip. It's one thing for only one or two people to be at home because it's easier to help them, but the amount of oversight needed for a remote staff is a lot higher than one would expect.

I fully anticipate this to be the beginning of the end for people who can't keep up with the changes. Being able to record at home isn't going to save them unless they're someone who understands how to work at home.

Monica and Co seem like the kind that need more hand holding whereas Sabat comes off as being a know it all and believing that he can be the judge of his own quality.

Home recording can be great. Hugh Jackman did ADR for Wolverine over the telephone because he would stop to talk with fans on the way to the studio. Tech has gotten good enough to do this in real-time and good quality.

Tbh I'm just glad they died as a lesson even if in theory everyone involved is still alive. They could have kept winning with Vic bringing in maybe the biggest anime dub in history and made millions but they decided it was more fun to be fucked up cunts and nuke their own company out of existence.

It's really impossible for me to believe this and Vic have nothing to do with each other, even though it appears Funi was too fucked-up and dysfunctional for even a shithole like Soyny to bother fixing up. I hope they get rid of some dead weight when they fold whatever is left of Funi into CR. And by that I mean get rid of a couple of fat fucks. Like Monica and Jamie.

They can claim that all they like I won't believe it until a year or so has passed and everyone is still there. Why would they want to start a panicked exodus before they even decide who they want to keep?

Explains why a bunch of people have moved on from the HR and Executive Dept... I think this was in the works, and they saw the writing on the wall... So Caitlin might be right that this was going on for a while, but not quite right about her own job prognosis...

 

[Mothra1988]

Literally what are you talking about lmao.

What possible connection could there be to Vic and crunchyroll? Last I checked the dude hasn’t been involved with them since 2019 either. Sony took funimations side, and the dude in charge is from the funimation side of the merger.

Like I can’t tell if this is really good satire or not, but vic being black listed did not tank the company, he was a good actor but acting like he was some messiah that would’ve catapulted funimation further and further is absurd.

And while it’s possible they might let go a bunch of the Texas cast…buying crunchyroll wouldn’t affect that decision. Crunchyroll outsources pretty much everything, they didn’t gain new direct talent from the acquisition. If they wanted to let go of people they could’ve done it at any time, buying a huge competitor for anime rights means Sony is gonna have access to way more series, if anything the Texas studio will get more work since their biggest competitor works with them.

Sometimes with Japanese companies, you don't know you pissed them off until much further down the line. It's sort of part of save face culture. Seeing as Sonic is referenced in your avatar, a good example is how Sega ended up pulling the plug on Sonic appearing in Archie Comics most likely because of the Penders lawsuit. As far as I know, Sega didn't make a peep when the lawsuit happened. However, when it was time to renew contracts on Sonic, Archie Comics was up shit's creek.

Of course, it's debatable how Japanse the current iteration of Sony in control of these things really is at this point. If Americans called most of the shots on this merger, it might be a completely moot point. However, I think more than a few fans rightfully had very negative perceptions of Funi's brand and made everyone know about it.

 

[Dom Cruise]

ADV is Sentai filmworks
Bandai is still around
4 Kids is under a different name and is part of Konami

Stuff like Central Park Media and Geneon/Pioneer went legitimately bankrupt. the mid to late 2000's marked a big trend in anime churning out crap so that's what killed them.

I know about Sentai, which is why I clarified "brand", ADV as a brand was retired, their headquarters changed, imo it's more like the founders of ADV simply started a new company than ADV just changed names.

Bandai still exists but they longer publish anime, Bandai USA was the name of that brand it went defunct.

I think Viz is the only one left.

I would have maybe felt this way if it was still 2008 or something, but the incestuous nature of this niche industry really started getting on my nerves after that. Barely anyone daring to stand up for Vic even outside of Funimation kind of really reinforced the negative perceptions I had developed about a lot of these people.

Kind of feel like the only thing that matters at this point is the Japanese properties, and the NA industry should start over somehow with less input from gaijin retards out to get attention and asspats on Twitter and dumb clique-related websites for things they should get no credit for like if someone republished Moby Dick and thought they should be congratulated for getting paid for someone's else's finished brain child.

The huge possible bad side of the corporate take-over of course is huge corporations are soulless and will just chase profit margins and could be influenced by the whims of pseudo-moralists ala what Sony did to Playstation's Japanese games and mass marketed entertainment slop like MCU. Hopefully though, more of these self-important idiots working dubs and subs are put on a leash with NDAs and told to stfu, but I'm probably hoping for too much. I'd rather never hear from these morons at all or even know what their names are much like you don't know who installed the steering wheel on your Honda.

I hope something happens for Vic though because I still feel incredibly bad for him. In the future, someone should try to do some kind of crowd funded cartoon for him or something on a rightwing friendly platform so it can't get canceled by idiots.

I lost a lot of interest after 2008 as well but that was because my two favorite publishers, ADV and Geneon, were both gone by 2009.

One big difference between now versus then is that when there were more publishers, they each could have more of a brand identity and specialization, ADV specialized in mecha and wacky comedy, Geneon published a lot of drama, action adventure and mind bending thrillers, Funimation were the shonen people and Bandai USA specialized in whatever Sunrise was producing.

Funimation would try to have stuff that appealed more to the mainstream like DBZ, ADV was more authentically nerdy and also tried to chase the South Park crowd back in the days when edgy animated comedy was still shocking to people.

But when things shifted to 90% of it being Sentai and Funimation both companies' identity became "publishes anime" with no real preferences either way for any specific genres or studios and things became a lot more bland, though Funimation did try to have some distinctive marketing around a decade ago, but we all know how things out turned out with them in the long run.

I simply liked the vibe companies like ADV had, I liked anime to be translated into something that worked better in the context of US culture, I liked dubs, I liked the pseudo celebrity of dub actors (before so many of them revealed themselves to be shitheads), I liked how the fandom used to be.

Now I can understand people who simply want to cut out the middle man with all that and just watch fansubs, but I'm just saying for me my main interest wasn't just anime itself, it was anime specifically in the context of US culture, ie Toonami, Adult Swim, ADV etc, some may find that odd, but that's just the way it is for me.

Certainly now is the time to cut out middle men though as "making anime work better in the context of US culture" means adding Woke shit and fuck all that.

 

[Mr.PiggyOinkOinkOinkOink]

No a bunch of other shit did. This was just another turd in the pile.

Yes tanking company…that’s why they just build a whole new studio within the last few years

No a bunch of other shit did. This was just another turd in the pile.

At the time all this dumb bullshit started, he had just starred in the literal (at the time) third biggest money making American anime dub in history. It's just a fact he brought in a lot of income. That's why they were making him a director. And making him a director is why Sabat's flying monkes went into action.

Vic is not the reason that movie made a ton of money. It was a dragon ball movie with incredible visuals and a fan favorite legacy character. Broly is the most popular movie character across the world, no barring on his voice. And frankly it’s a shit role with barley any real lines.

And as far as being a director, a ton of Va in the industry direct the dubs for these shows, that’s not that huge of a deal

 

[Xenomorphs Are Cute]

I just hope Vic gets hired back for something.

That's all I want.

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

Yes tanking company…that’s why they just build a whole new studio within the last few years


Vic is not the reason that movie made a ton of money. It was a dragon ball movie with incredible visuals and a fan favorite legacy character. Broly is the most popular movie character across the world, no barring on his voice. And frankly it’s a shit role with barley any real lines.

And as far as being a director, a ton of Va in the industry direct the dubs for these shows, that’s not that huge of a deal

Irony is, Vic has less lines than the OG Broly in the movie. 90% of Nu-Broly's lines are just growling.

 

[Lone MacReady]

I see nothing depressing about this. Funi's had this coming for a long time and are far from the company they used to be. Only shame is that it didn't happen sooner or that they didn't get worse.

Even as far back as 2017 they could be insufferable. I for one haven't forgotten their various WOKE script rewrites (My Girlfriend is a Gal being the infamous example). Even further back then that, I can remember the odd snide remark about GamerGate coming from Prison School's script. That was all the way back in 2014/15, before even Trump and TDS. Funi getting Woke and Going Broke is hilarious, but they tainted a lot of content in official DVD form, and Soyny owns the whole circus, California-based Soyny.

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

Irony is, Vic has less lines than the OG Broly in the movie. 90% of Nu-Broly's lines are just growling.

The movies have never been the same since they started cheaping out on the metal royalties. The old shit could be great, and it fit DBZ well.

 

[Xenomorphs Are Cute]

Even as far back as 2017 they could be insufferable. I for one haven't forgotten their various WOKE script rewrites (My Girlfriend is a Gal being the infamous example). Even further back then that, I can remember the odd snide remark about GamerGate coming from Prison School's script. That was all the way back in 2014/15, before even Trump and TDS. Funi getting Woke and Going Broke is hilarious, but they tainted a lot of content in official DVD form, and Soyny owns the whole circus, California-based Soyny.

The movies have never been the same since they started cheaping out on the metal royalties. The old shit could be great, and it fit DBZ well.

Thing is, the metal is also a dub change, it's not as bad as the wokeism & politisperging, but it's still a sort of localisation, even if it makes the series really awesome. It's like Faulconer OST, I fucking love it, but it's still part of the same dreadful localisation that's shunning the creator's true vision, even if it's done pretty well compared to modern Funi's wokeshit garbage.

All that said, I fucking love Pantera & Drowning Pool because of it, & it's one of the reasons Cooler is my favorite movie character after OG Broly.

 

[Peepeepoopoo1596]

Tbh I'm just glad they died as a lesson even if in theory everyone involved is still alive. They could have kept winning with Vic bringing in maybe the biggest anime dub in history and made millions but they decided it was more fun to be fucked up cunts and nuke their own company out of existence.

It's really impossible for me to believe this and Vic have nothing to do with each other, even though it appears Funi was too fucked-up and dysfunctional for even a shithole like Soyny to bother fixing up. I hope they get rid of some dead weight when they fold whatever is left of Funi into CR. And by that I mean get rid of a couple of fat fucks. Like Monica and Jamie.

They can claim that all they like I won't believe it until a year or so has passed and everyone is still there. Why would they want to start a panicked exodus before they even decide who they want to keep?

Im sure it contributed, at least. After all, when you own two anime publishers and one of them keeps spazing out and gets sued you might start thinking about sweeping it under the brand that isn't.

I know about Sentai, which is why I clarified "brand", ADV as a brand was retired, their headquarters changed, imo it's more like the founders of ADV simply started a new company than ADV just changed names.

Bandai still exists but they longer publish anime, Bandai USA was the name of that brand it went defunct.

I think Viz is the only one left.



I lost a lot of interest after 2008 as well but that was because my two favorite publishers, ADV and Geneon, were both gone by 2009.

One big difference between now versus then is that when there were more publishers, they each could have more of a brand identity and specialization, ADV specialized in mecha and wacky comedy, Geneon published a lot of drama, action adventure and mind bending thrillers, Funimation were the shonen people and Bandai USA specialized in whatever Sunrise was producing.

Funimation would try to have stuff that appealed more to the mainstream like DBZ, ADV was more authentically nerdy and also tried to chase the South Park crowd back in the days when edgy animated comedy was still shocking to people.

But when things shifted to 90% of it being Sentai and Funimation both companies' identity became "publishes anime" with no real preferences either way for any specific genres or studios and things became a lot more bland, though Funimation did try to have some distinctive marketing around a decade ago, but we all know how things out turned out with them in the long run.

I simply liked the vibe companies like ADV had, I liked anime to be translated into something that worked better in the context of US culture, I liked dubs, I liked the pseudo celebrity of dub actors (before so many of them revealed themselves to be shitheads), I liked how the fandom used to be.

Now I can understand people who simply want to cut out the middle man with all that and just watch fansubs, but I'm just saying for me my main interest wasn't just anime itself, it was anime specifically in the context of US culture, ie Toonami, Adult Swim, ADV etc, some may find that odd, but that's just the way it is for me.

Certainly now is the time to cut out middle men though as "making anime work better in the context of US culture" means adding Woke shit and fuck all that.

Yeah, I get the nostalgia for that time, too. Although I was never all that attuned to the con/fandom stuff.

 

[Mr.PiggyOinkOinkOinkOink]

Thing is, the metal is also a dub change, it's not as bad as the wokeism & politisperging, but it's still a sort of localisation, even if it makes the series really awesome. It's like Faulconer OST, I fucking love it, but it's still part of the same dreadful localisation that's shunning the creator's true vision, even if it's done pretty well compared to modern Funi's wokeshit garbage.

All that said, I fucking love Pantera & Drowning Pool because of it, & it's one of the reasons Cooler is my favorite movie character after OG Broly.

Coolers revenge English soundtrack goes so fucking hard, I use to play the credits of the vhs tape on repeat when I was a lad to listen to that Phoenix song

 

[Marissa Moira]

Bandai still exists but they longer publish anime, Bandai USA was the name of that brand it went defunct.

Bandai has Bandai Namco Pictures which puts out anime.

They will more than likely bring shit stateside again because they just re-re updated their logo because in April their new corporate initiative takes over.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Even as far back as 2017 they could be insufferable. I for one haven't forgotten their various WOKE script rewrites (My Girlfriend is a Gal being the infamous example). Even further back then that, I can remember the odd snide remark about GamerGate coming from Prison School's script. That was all the way back in 2014/15, before even Trump and TDS. Funi getting Woke and Going Broke is hilarious, but they tainted a lot of content in official DVD form, and Soyny owns the whole circus, California-based Soyny.

The movies have never been the same since they started cheaping out on the metal royalties. The old shit could be great, and it fit DBZ well.

It's hilarious how poisonous this shit is and how it progresses, from a few throwaway lines to tanking the whole brand.

This shit should have been nipped in the bud, but we had no idea how far things would go.

Yeah, I get the nostalgia for that time, too. Although I was never all that attuned to the con/fandom stuff.

Never made it out to any cons back then sadly and the only real experience I had with fandom was attending "anime nights" at a store called Media Play, which were kind of like mini cons.

It was a lot of fun but then the store closed before I was able to build up any friendships with anyone.

Bandai has Bandai Namco Pictures which puts out anime.

They will more than likely bring shit stateside again because they just re-re updated their logo because in April their new corporate initiative takes over.
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I doubt it, but I could be wrong.

 

[General Gunther]

It's hilarious how poisonous this shit is and how it progresses, from a few throwaway lines to tanking the whole brand.

This shit should have been nipped in the bud, but we had no idea how far things would go.

The management at Funimation was incompetent when it came to dealing with these people in 2015 when that one writer referenced GamerGate in Prison School. No one was really reprimanded for their behavior on social media when it happened but they fixed that line for the DVD/Blu-ray release. However that was all they did, they probably saw that as a one-off that wasn't going to happen again which has cost Funimation greatly.

 

[Maurice Caine]

I know about Sentai, which is why I clarified "brand", ADV as a brand was retired, their headquarters changed, imo it's more like the founders of ADV simply started a new company than ADV just changed names.

Bandai still exists but they longer publish anime, Bandai USA was the name of that brand it went defunct.

I think Viz is the only one left.



I lost a lot of interest after 2008 as well but that was because my two favorite publishers, ADV and Geneon, were both gone by 2009.

One big difference between now versus then is that when there were more publishers, they each could have more of a brand identity and specialization, ADV specialized in mecha and wacky comedy, Geneon published a lot of drama, action adventure and mind bending thrillers, Funimation were the shonen people and Bandai USA specialized in whatever Sunrise was producing.

Funimation would try to have stuff that appealed more to the mainstream like DBZ, ADV was more authentically nerdy and also tried to chase the South Park crowd back in the days when edgy animated comedy was still shocking to people.

But when things shifted to 90% of it being Sentai and Funimation both companies' identity became "publishes anime" with no real preferences either way for any specific genres or studios and things became a lot more bland, though Funimation did try to have some distinctive marketing around a decade ago, but we all know how things out turned out with them in the long run.

I simply liked the vibe companies like ADV had, I liked anime to be translated into something that worked better in the context of US culture, I liked dubs, I liked the pseudo celebrity of dub actors (before so many of them revealed themselves to be shitheads), I liked how the fandom used to be.

Now I can understand people who simply want to cut out the middle man with all that and just watch fansubs, but I'm just saying for me my main interest wasn't just anime itself, it was anime specifically in the context of US culture, ie Toonami, Adult Swim, ADV etc, some may find that odd, but that's just the way it is for me.

Certainly now is the time to cut out middle men though as "making anime work better in the context of US culture" means adding Woke shit and fuck all that.

Our greatest loss was when we lost wacky shit like The Adventures of the American SOS Brigade and other oddities.

 

[Dom Cruise]

The management at Funimation was incompetent when it came to dealing with these people in 2015 when that one writer referenced GamerGate in Prison School. No one was really reprimanded for their behavior on social media when it happened but they fixed that line for the DVD/Blu-ray release. However that was all they did, they probably saw that as a one-off that wasn't going to happen again which has cost Funimation greatly.

Like I said, it all should have been nipped in the bud but it was easy to shrug off a throwaway line here and there.

I always kind of knew it was give an inch and they'll take a mile with these people, but it was hard to rant too much about SJWs back then without it being off putting to people.

Our greatest loss was when we lost wacky shit like The Adventures of the American SOS Brigade and other oddities.

ADV especially personifies that, they would do stuff like include a pair of panties with Najica Blitz Tactics, sell a Menchi plush on a fake grill for Excel Saga and even sold bars of soap with small figures inside them to encourage sweaty nerds to wash up before cons.

That's the kind of wacky shit that's missing today.

There was also a great "the sky's the limit" vibe to that era, no one knew what the limits on how popular this stuff could be was, so you had things like ADV trying to make a live action Evangelion movie with Weta, you would see anime magazines sold in grocery stores, many networks would air anime.

I mean it's popular today sure, but it's still not at "magazines at grocery stores" level.

 

[5t3n0g0ph3r]

Coolers revenge English soundtrack goes so fucking hard, I use to play the credits of the vhs tape on repeat when I was a lad to listen to that Phoenix song

On an unrelated note, the band who produced that song, Breaking Point, also did Rob Van Dam's theme song, "One of a Kind," in WWE.

But to get back on topic, wasn't there reports of a major release of Funimation employees in the fall of 2019? Or am I thinking of COVID cutbacks (which saw the departure of Funimation's in-house legal counsel, Evan Stone)?
I know Cody Baier of Anime Outsiders reported it at the time.
Regardless, a lot people who were at Funimation in 2019 are gone.
What I'm trying to get at is that another wave of cutbacks is coming.
I have to wonder what Funimation's and Crunchyroll's staff sizes looks like at the moment as fat will be trimmed and redundancy will be eliminated. That is, if it hasn't happened already.

 

[Mothra1988]

I kind of agree that the shift from the earlier 2000's to now with these people mirrored the changes in pop culture as we went from South Park to Steven Universe. Then again, thinking back, despite the massive hypocrisy, you could tell a few of these people like Monica and some of the other usual suspects that went after Vic kind of were waiting for their inner-SJW or libtard or whatever to burst out. The wacky, edgy stuff may have just been done for money.

A lot of them were probably in the age range of the kind of liberal that would have been butthurt over W. Bush (not defending him, I don't like him either), so as they saw this faux-lefty-moral shit gain traction it was an easy transition for them to make so they could start lecturing to all the uncleaned masses of US otaku they secretly hated before but couldn't actually directly criticize during the earlier climate.

 

[5t3n0g0ph3r]

I kind of agree that the shift from the earlier 2000's to now with these people mirrored the changes in pop culture as we went from South Park to Steven Universe. Then again, thinking back, despite the massive hypocrisy, you could tell a few of these people like Monica and some of the other usual suspects that went after Vic kind of were waiting for their inner-SJW or libtard or whatever to burst out. The wacky, edgy stuff may have just been done for money.

A lot of them were probably in the age range of the kind of liberal that would have been butthurt over W. Bush (not defending him, I don't like him either), so as they saw this faux-lefty-moral shit gain traction it was an easy transition for them to make so they could start lecturing to all the uncleaned masses of US otaku they secretly hated before but couldn't actually directly criticize during the earlier climate.

It was counter culture (edgy) to buck against right wing values and Republican-held establishments during that time.
Now that these same "edge lords" are the culture in power (something the honest ones will admit that was the goal from the beginning), it's time proselytize. TL;DR They became the very thing they hated, but are either hypocrites or in denial.

 

[Mothra1988]

It was was counter culture (edgy) to buck against right wing values and Republican-held establishments during that time.
Now that these same "edge lords" are the culture in power (something the honest ones will admit that was the goal from the beginning), it's time proselytize. TL;DR They became the very thing they hated, but are either hypocrites or in denial.

I agree. Back then though it was also cool to make fun of political correctness or directly contradict it so it confused fans and made them think they were politically neutral or something. All these people made gay jokes and black jokes and crap like that at some point on disc extras or weird dubs. They wouldn't dare do that now, and they would even cancel people for the same thing. It's completely insane. It's still funny how KV Twitter played off the "my son is a faggot" gate like it was nothing and it should be excused becuase it was normal for the era.