Remember in 2016, Funimation and Crunchyroll teamed up together? Back then, some Crunchyroll anime got English Dub and then anime owned by the companies could be streamed at both sites. Unfortunately in 2018, the partnership ended and these two went their ways. Now in 2020, these two companies are back in a one big monopoly technique.
According to sources, AT&T and WarnerMedia agreed to sell the anime streaming service to Sony and Funimation. Sony and Funimation has purchased Crunchyroll for roughly $1.75 billion USD. Here is an official statement from Tony Gonclaves, CRO of WarnerMedia:
“The Crunchyroll team has done an extraordinary job of not only growing the Crunchyroll brand but also building a passionate community of anime fans. Crunchyroll’s success is a direct result of the company’s culture and commitment to their fans.
By combining with Funimation, they will continue to nurture a global community and bring more anime to more people. I’m incredibly proud of the Crunchyroll team and what they have been able to accomplish in the digital media space in such a short period of time. They’ve created an end-to-end global ecosystem for this incredible art form.”
To add to this statement, Tony Vinciquerra,the Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment had this to day:
“We are proud to bring Crunchyroll into the Sony family. “Through Funimation and our terrific partners at Aniplex and Sony Music Entertainment Japan, we have a deep understanding of this global artform and are well-positioned to deliver outstanding content to audiences around the world. Together with Crunchyroll, we will create the best possible experience for fans and greater opportunity for creators, producers and publishers in Japan and elsewhere. Funimation has been doing this for over 25 years and we look forward to continuing to leverage the power of creativity and technology to succeed in this rapidly growing segment of entertainment.”
How do you feel about this news? Sony purchased Funimation in 2017 and now these two are together and have Crunchyroll among them.
sources:
Matt-in-the-Hat 
“If you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em,” seems to be the creed of our day.
Yeah. I guess they want to try again with the Funimation-Crunchyroll merge. Funimation and Sony are going to try and expand anime.
If that means all the anime is on one platform, then I’m happy
Yeah if it’s going to be like back in 2016, I am pretty sure this means Funimation is going to try make watching anime easier like keeping same platform or do more licensing and dubs.
I hope so! I hope Death Note English dub is on there. Netflix UK replaced it with Polish dub for some reason
Really? I didn’t know that. I think Funimation holds the rights to sell the live action Death Note movies. I think Viz holds the rights to the anime.
This is too much consolidation. I don’t like it. On top of that, I don’t trust Sony, but what can you do. We’ll just have to see how this goes.
Yeah I been hearing online that some may not agree with this action. According to Twitter, some people fear that Sony is going to be altering anime like censorship or translations. Still, I wonder what’s going to happen next now that they got both anime services.
Yeah, same. I hope the fears are unfounded, though. We don’t need a return to redrawn costumes and weird attempts at westernizing in the translations. If that happens, a lot of fans will react badly and might look for alternatives away from the streaming services anyway.
Yeah I agree. I want to be hopeful, but I also don’t’ want these companies to start switching things up and taking away things that was original. Funimation did something like that with some anime and fans was not happy.
Censor? Like Interspecies Reviewers?
I am concerned that having them all under the Sony umbrella will mean Sony/Funimation will actually be able to influence creative content by what it will and won’t carry. They can do this even without formally censoring scenes or series or rewriting dubs and subs. They’ll still say we can watch anime on Netflix and Hulu and Amazon, so it isn’t really a monopoly.
Of course, after that, someone will snap up HDive and any other remaining small distributors and that will be that.
I actually forgot that most of the Funimation anime are in Hulu. Maybe with this deal, more anime can jump into other streaming services. Haha it’s only a matter of time before Sony obtains HIDive.
It is called “consolidation” and th results are always a reduction in diversity.
If Funimation can play their cards right, they could try to expand with this new plan. I remembered back in 2016, they did wanted to reach out for titles from the Crunchyroll library and release DVDs of titles.
Honestly? If it creates the possibility of them becoming one platform with a single monthly fee, I’m happy. It would certainly make it easier to decide on a streaming service.
I actually like the idea. I thought it was cool to have anime in one account and be able to watch through Funimation and Crunchyroll sites.