Re: Spring 2014 Streaming - Another J-Drama now available
Rui said:
But in spite of Animax's huge problems, it's still preferable to the Funimation situation. I've been thinking on it and back in 2012 Jerome said that Funimation tend to acquire all English-speaking rights for their shows as a matter of course and then sublicense to regions like the UK - presumably this is the case for almost all of the ex-Funi shows that Manga UK pick up other than those like One Piece where they apparently negotiated with Toei directly.
Generally their rights packages are either
1) US and Canada only, or
2) US & Canada, UK & Ireland, Australia & New Zealand and South Africa.
The only reliable way of telling which they have (unless someone actually states so) had been whether their episodes are unlocked on YouTube - but they don't upload new simulcasts (or even newer catalogue titles) to YouTube any more.
Gonzo licenses, for example, were always US&CA only and UK companies like MVM licensed direct from Gonzo (hence they kept the licenses for shows like Samurai 7 when FUNi was bought by Navarre). Manga also, for example, licensed Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood from Aniplex rather than FUNi (although FUNi still retain UK rights to the original version).
Even if these rights aren't exclusive (as I think they generally are, massive hits like Attack On Titan notwithstanding)
There have been a one or two "shared" simulcasts with FUNimation (e.g. Sora no Otoshi Forte) and they have managed to retain rights to some shows after licensing (mostly early Gonzo simulcasts like Druaga). FUNimation obviously got their "wide" package for Asobi ni Ikuyo, but Crunchyroll
retained the show for the rest of the world (barring Japan, Korea and Mongolia) while apparently working something out with FUNi for the first two episodes for US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa (the same two episodes FUNi streams for free on
YouTube).
I'm guessing it's not financially sound for Crunchyroll to pick up a title someone else is streaming when they could be the sole source for something different instead.
They have started doing that recently - but only for non-English majority regions (e.g. French territories). This may be an indicator that FUNi has the UK rights, or that they just couldn't get any English language rights for some reason or there was a good deal on the other languages that made it worthwhile.
I doubt that any change is going to come from Funi as it's unlikely to be worth their while to set up a dedicated UK streaming service for the ten people in this country who want to watch the legit streams and I understand that they see Crunchyroll as a competitor, but is there not something that the UK companies can do to to stop the current situation? The Mahouka situation could even mean that a UK distributor has shown interest and actively discouraged the Japanese and US companies from including the UK in any streams to keep them sweet, which has troubling implications.
FUNi have changed, but for the worse; they used to allow UK access to their own streaming site (that stopped after the One Piece leak, and I suspect Toei had something to do with that since some Toei shows were inadvertently open to the UK at the time) and, as I mentioned before, on YouTube - I watched the simulcasts of Denyuuden and C3 and some other shows I forget there. Hagani they only added to YouTube after it finished airing (it has been on NicoNico as part of their "FUNiCo" thing). The Haganai sequel was blocked in the UK on YouTube, as were all the other shows from that season, and after that they stopped putting simulcasts on YouTube at all.
Funi taking the rights then refusing to provide a UK stream or share the digital rights with someone who will is way too shifty, and I'm now uncomfortable supporting UK releases of those shows when they come out on disc. The UK companies are the ones who are supposed to be fighting in our corner and providing the services we want - why are we still having to deal with this in 2014?
Anime on Demand was supposed to be working with the other UK companies on streaming, which I hoped meant FUNi titles via Manga. It never happened so they only ever had Kaze shows.
