Joost Streams Legal, Subbed Naruto, Death Note for Free!

Maltos

Maltos

Stand User
It's finally happened.

The American anime distributor Viz Media and the Joost online video service have announced that Joost is streaming legal, English-subtitled episodes of Naruto and Death Note for free in the United States, with Bleach coming soon. The first 20 subtitled episodes of Naruto, all 37 subtitled episodes of Death Note, and dubbed episodes of Blue Dragon, Zatch Bell!, and MÄR have already been posted, with more episodes being added regularly. The service also features the 2003 Astro Boy series from Sony; Cosmo Warrior Zero, Gun Frontier and Ikki Tousen from Gong, and news coverage from ANNtv. The site requires user registration and a plug-in on some computer configurations.

The competing Hulu online video service has also announced today that it has begun streaming anime from Viz, Funimation, and Gong.
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From ANN.



Personally I think this is a good move. Of course it isnt going to stop fansubbers, but hopefully people will be more likely to use the legit services.
 
It's a bit on the slow side to start releasing legal streams when Death Note has been finished for ages and Bleach/Naruto have 100's of episodes.

I can't say I see the point in allowing people to watch LQ Youtube videos with subtitles (I sense much eye-strain) when fansub groups have been offering internet users subtitled anime fresh from Japan for god knows how long, with usually HQ video and subtitles.

The best thing to do in this situation would be for Viz to actually hire DB, the main subbers of Bleach/Naruto, paying them to do what they have been doing. As it stands now, people are just going to ignore the free LQ quality episodes that were subtitled something like 5 years ago - It's pointless to compete with established fansubbers.
 
So before people could watch Death Note illegally for nothing. Now they can watch the whole series legally. Still for nothing. How do they expect to make money out of this? The same people who watch fansubs and don't buy the DVDs will just watch it legally and not buy the DVDs.

The smart thing to have done would have been to get set up with someone like iTunes and sell the eps for download at a lower price - given that there's no physical media involved that should be do-able. I imagine offering indvividual eps for a couple of quid would be quite attractive to a lot of people.

Then at least there'd be a half way point - at the moment it's either buy sporadically released DVDs at a relatively high cost or download for nothing. That still doesn't change with this announcement. They haven't offered anything new.
 
ayase said:
The smart thing to have done would have been to get set up with someone like iTunes and sell the eps for download at a lower price - given that there's no physical media involved that should be do-able. I imagine offering indvividual eps for a couple of quid would be quite attractive to a lot of people.
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I probably wouldn't use that service much (because I much prefer owning the physical products), but for series like X'amd which are airing in Japan (and over here in this instance), it would be a tempting offer.

Like other people have said before; if they can make an alternative to fansubs that are low cost, its not going to stop the people who just download for free and never buy anything, but its certaininly going to appeal to some people.

But I think this is a step in the right direction. At least they're getting the idea they need to find an alternative to fansubs. Now if they could just do it better...
 
ayase said:
So before people could watch Death Note illegally for nothing. Now they can watch the whole series legally. Still for nothing. How do they expect to make money out of this? The same people who watch fansubs and don't buy the DVDs will just watch it legally and not buy the DVDs.
The bulk on funding for anime comes from sales and airtime in Japan. Apart from the tiny amount of anime which is funded by western companies, the fate of these companies bears little relevance for the future of anime.

That aside, western anime licensors are stuck in the same business model that the music industry is. Like the music industry they're fighting change every step of the way rather than embracing it. Something needs to change for them to survive long term, either by a change of the business model or a legislative change that renders fansubs/downloads no longer viable for the majority.

That said I dont like seeing any Western companie go belly up, but for years they have been using the old "its fansubs" as a ruse to cover up there own deficencies.
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Hmmm. Well, Viz, if you're gonna do that, then why not ask the rest of the companies to do the same? Or even better, why not just ask to legalise the whole fan-sub movement? *Shakes head*

Seriously, it'll be simpler to say "let the nerds do their thing, they dont have the cast for dubbing them, right?" That's really the only different between watching a japanese vid and an english vid (apart from understanding what they say).
 
EpicLulz said:
The bulk on funding for anime comes from sales and airtime in Japan. Apart from the tiny amount of anime which is funded by western companies, the fate of these companies bears little relevance for the future of anime.
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In actuality they pay to get anime on TV rather than get paid for anime on TV in the vast majority of cases. They rely on TV exposure to sell the DVDs and associated merchandise with the sponsors part-subsidizing the venture.
 
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