Funimation to stream One Piece

MaxonTreik

Chuunibyou
http://www.funimation.com/?page=news&id=565

Flower Mound, Texas – May 14, 2009 - FUNimation® Entertainment and the Japanese powerhouse consortium of producer Toei Animation Co., Ltd., publisher Shueisha, Inc. and broadcaster Fuji Television Network, Inc. have entered into an agreement giving the American anime leader exclusive rights to the U.S. and Canadian online simulcast of the studios' signature animated series "One Piece".

Starting Saturday, May 30th at 9:00 p.m. CDT, just one hour after airing in Japan, FUNimation and the consortium will stream the first, free, professionally-produced, accurately English-subtitled "One Piece" series episode beginning with episode 403 via the official One Piece website http://www.onepieceofficial.com followed soon thereafter by FUNimation partner sites.

Each new episode of the current season will be rolled out weekly as "One Piece" continues its Japanese television run.

I don't know what this means for the UK. I'm hoping it's not limited to the US.
 
Yeah, this would be much more effective if they had put the first 400 up first. Still, it's nice to see anime distribution going in the right direction :]
 
Why would anyone give a toss about streaming One Piece when it's so old and it's easy to download HQ fansubs?

/has just downloaded episodes 6-9 of Hajime no Ippo 2
 
Apparently, episodes 1 and 2 are already up in dub and sub.

However, looks like its only for the US and Canada :(
 
Well the older ones are pretty hard to get a hold of so that would be good for someone who is just watching through them or re-watching them.
Prefer my fansubs though to streaming normally.
 
hmmm Pirates (One piece) or Ninja's (Naruto)

How bout Pirates v Ninja's

nvsop2.jpg
 
Agreed, I've given up on Crunchyroll (I meen for the love of all that is holy, you can't get International Rights to something as no name (widespread) as Black Jack? They weren't trying there) and I do not want Funimation to throw away all the good they've been doing by showing themselves as the one video site that will tell Toei exactly where it can shove it's region nonsence with it's shows.

Mind you, if it comes to it, It's not as if we will not resort to geting it by hook or crook. We want to be treeted as a viable source of income for these companes but if they don't want our business, there's a ton of other things we can do to see these shows.

Mind you, One Piece and Dragonball seem to be the two shows caught up in the biggest European dicking we've ever gotten as far as anime is concenred. The AB Group forces us to have horrid releases for the DBZ movies and bugger knows who has the rights to One Piece but they're certainly not in the bussiness of making Fansubbers look silly, i'll say that much.
 
Aion said:
Why would anyone give a toss about streaming anything when it's so easy to download HQ fansubs?
Fixed, but echoed. If your computer can stream it can torrent, I don't really see the difference between downloading to watch or watching online. If it makes you feel like a thief you can always delete the files after watching, but it's not going to harm anyone hanging on to them until they're released officially.
 
One assumes that Funi actually somehow benefit from it, otherwise they wouldn't do it, surely?

As for Pirates vs Ninjas... they would all get owned so hard by Goku. ^_^

/loves playground arguments about these sorts of things
 
I imagine any cash Funi have made from this will have come from these "partner sites" and not the people watching (unless they're not making anything and it's just for publicity purposes). Since it's free to watch I would have to presume that's the case. Granted, the other sites will be more likely to keep running the series the more people watch - But if we in the UK are being blocked from watching there's not much we can do about that is there?
 
ayase said:
But if we in the UK are being blocked from watching there's not much we can do about that is there?
Well, of course not, but your post made it sound like you were talking about the general case.
 
ilmaestro said:
ayase said:
But if we in the UK are being blocked from watching there's not much we can do about that is there?
Well, of course not, but your post made it sound like you were talking about the general case.
Probably because most legitimate anime streaming sites seem to be blocked in the UK. I'm all for giving the creators / licensors their proper dues, but if they're going to make it hard for us to get this stuff legally then I don't see why we should go out of our way. I'd liken it to the speed issue - The longer it takes international distributors to get a series out, the more they're going to lose to downloads. It's common sense to make something available legally to as many people as possible as quickly as possible, hence Bandai's recent world wide releases - now that makes sense.
 
Do you think this means FUNimation will release one piece on DVD here in the UK?
I hope they do, I really don't want to import R1 DVDs at such a high price.
 
iisan said:
Do you think this means FUNimation will release one piece on DVD here in the UK?
Not really. More likely that some admin forgot to block UK.

Funimation does not release anything directly here.
 
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