FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:long explanation of how I overreacted

I admit I might have conflated the bad behavior of certain fans with the sup-par work of the actors to generate a fake enemy-figure I could rage against.

BlueBasilisk wrote:At the end he says Funimation really wanted Evangelion, so it sounds to me like Netflix may have outbid them for the rights and there's a hint of salt.

I mean, it's understandable - they basically took over Eva after ADV failed. I'm sure that since they've been regrated and integrated into Sony, they for the first time had the financial means to make a purchase of the rights to NGE feasible. And then, just like that, Netflix swoops in.
Now I'm even more curious about what's going to happen with the Final movie.
I just hope that someday the beans will be spilt - I want a mega detailed explanation of that fucked up licensing situation. Evangelion Licence CRC when?

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:it'll always be buried under the Netflix Original titles.

I don't think it has to be that way at all. Look at the splash the announcement made. And Devilman Crybaby and Aggretsuko are Break Out Hits from Netflix.
Regarding a Blu-Ray release... At this point I just hope for a "international version" made by Khara with all the language tracks and subtitles from Khara themselves and the Booklet/Bonus Features translated into English. Kinda like what Devilman Crybaby got.

Interesting discussion in-thread here between industry people and fans:

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DarkBluePhoenix wrote:we passed clusterfuck when the seiyus got involved, now we're heading headlong into FUBAR territory.

Mmh. I just like to hope against hope that people have their wits about them, but

Things look busy the rest of this week, so I probably won't post anything else in here.

I love how they spent years working on the dub for 3.33, and it wasn't any better than the dubs for the first two movies: fine, but not great. Still had Spencer and Grant (though, to be fair, Asuka had maybe eight lines in the whole movie). Maybe it's just because I loathe 3.33 in general, but it didn't seem like all that extra work of theirs payed off.

Funimation is being really jealous of Netflix over this.


(Meanwhile, I love that Eva cast picture Polygon used because it includes Pen Pen in the group.)

Damn... have the VAs actually lost their shit? Obviously they don't realize they're entirely replaceable? Must be nice to be that obstinately oblivious to reality.

Also, Netflix owes us nothing in terms of announcements. Hell, they may not announce anything and let the fanboys on Twitter advertise for them till they se a need to announce further details.

And as for Funimation, boy they sound salty as fuck about getting pass over. Maybe Studio Khara & Anno felt Netflix could do better at a wide release given Funimation's penchant for region locking shit to death.

Sailor Star Dust wrote:It's honestly a shame that one bad apple had to ruin a pretty interesting and polite discussion—just like how it's honestly a shame this strong(?) possibility of a redub feels as if it's turning into such a clusterfuck. That seriously doesn't have to be the case!

Sailor Star Dust, we passed clusterfuck when the seiyus got involved, now we're heading headlong into FUBAR territory.

Actually, has Evangelion's rights holders ever had a good relationship with any of the U.S. licensors? I mean, ADV mangled their initial attempts at the subs and dubs as well, and, while I don't know if Gainax had issues with ADV's sub/dub quality at the time, Gainax most certainly took issue with ADV's behavior after their Eva licenses had expired. Funimation's release of 1.11 had special features that they did not license from Gainax and were forced to remove them from future printings of the discs, and after Khara acquired the Eva rights, they took issue with Funi's initial sub/dub tracks in their theatrical run of 3.0. (Not to mention the misspellings in the small pamphlet that came with Funi's DVD release of 1.01, which was corrected in their 1.11 releases.)

Weirdly enough, I've never heard Gainax taking issue with Manga Entertainment's infamous handling of D&R and EoE, added sound effects and all. (Just pedantic fans like us take issue with it, because yes, there are issues with their handling of those films.) And I agree with Gen Fukunaga's points, but Gainax/Khara has had a longer history of issues with them than they did with ADV. (Though admittedly, the issues they did take with ADV were far bigger than their issues with Funi.) And Khara is probably thinking more big picture with Netflix's release anyway. Khara doesn't just see it as releasing a show that's great in its own right to a world-wide market, they also see it as Netflix paying for the privilege to advertise the Eva franchise to a world-wide market just in time for Shin Eva's theatrical release in 2020. To Khara, this is probably just another part of their countdown to 2020. They don't need to place Shin Eva adverts in the Netflix release itself, they just gotta plant the Eva bug in the ears of the fans until 2020.

And finally, while Funi would have certainly provided more Pomp & Circumstance to the release of NGE to the U.S., would they really have made Eva any more known in the general public than Netflix would have? I honestly don't know myself. I'd like to say that posters for The End of Evangelion in U.S. theaters would provide a greater awareness of this property to the average American, but all I really know is that I would have creamed myself looking at them and have asked the manager of the theater if I could take them home with me after the screenings. Seeing NGE Blu-rays on store shelves would have certainly made me happy, but I don't know if that would really increase awareness to people outside of anime fandom anyway.

Eva fans know Netflix has Eva.

Anime fans in the U.S. must know by now that Netflix has Eva.

Would Funimation have really done better? I would have certainly appreciated their physical releases, but I don't know if that would have actually increased the viewership of a niche genre. If anything, it being on Netflix might actually make it easier for me to convince some of my film peers to see it despite their lack of fandom in Japanese animation, since it would be "free" with the Netflix they already have.

^I haven't heard any issues with Dark Horse except for the schedule slip with the Shinji Ikari Raising Project. That's something, I guess?

Releasing through Netflix has vastly more reach if they want to expand their audience. A re-release through Funimation would really only reach existing anime fans. Eva has a history of having a crossover appeal outside the hug pillow demographic.

BlueBasilisk wrote:^I haven't heard any issues with Dark Horse except for the schedule slip with the Shinji Ikari Raising Project. That's something, I guess?

Even that was only a minor inconvenience rather than something more sinister.

Chuckman wrote:Releasing through Netflix has vastly more reach if they want to expand their audience. A re-release through Funimation would really only reach existing anime fans. Eva has a history of having a crossover appeal outside the hug pillow demographic.

hug pillow demographic

Back on point, there are a few younger folks at work (early-30s) who have watched a few anime's on Netflix "just because they were there" and ended up liking it, so Netflix does that have that broader base of people saying "why not?" and then they watch and enjoy it.

I just read the Polygon article, and I wouldn't necessarily say that Netflix will do a worse job marketing Eva than Funimation. I saw Big Mouth ads before every other YouTube video for quite some time, and I could easily see Netflix running ads for NGE before videos. It seems reasonable that they would market their most expensive "original" anime to as wide an audience as possible. (I don't know how much it cost, but if they outbid Funimation, I'm assuming they paid a decent amount of money.)

And again, since American rights for NGE are back on the table, maybe Netflix will get the merchandising rights too? That'd be crazyyy.

How long before Netflix throws some bucks at Khara to make an Evangelion sequel or live action movie? 'Neon Genesis Evangelion Anima: A Netflix Original.'

Back to Funimation vs Netflix, while I don't doubt they'd market the hell out of it, some of their recent work really makes me question whether they'd treat the series right. Dragon Ball is one of their flagship licenses and their treatment of Super has been...dodgy and divisive among the fans, to put it lightly. Translation errors abound, they keep adding in memes and swearing that weren't present in the original, and in the Future Trunks arc they pulled a time loop explanation for Goku Black right out of their asses.

If I want meme versions of the characters, I'll read Legend of Piko Piko Middle School Students. At least that is supposed to be a farce.

BlueBasilisk wrote:How long before Netflix throws some bucks at Khara to make an Evangelion sequel or live action movie? 'Neon Genesis Evangelion Anima: A Netflix Original.'

You know, I would watch that without hesitation.

A Netflix adaptation will have Shinji as a female and Asuka as a male considering how they are attempting to murder Saint Seiya.

BlueBasilisk wrote:How long before Netflix throws some bucks at Khara to make an Evangelion sequel or live action movie? 'Neon Genesis Evangelion Anima: A Netflix Original.'

Be careful what you wish for.
Bebop is Happening right now, so many other Anime stuff is happening right now. So if Eva turns in the right numbers, I'm sure we'll see that happen faster than we can 3rd impact.

I'm well aware of that and GitS SAC 2045. Where do you think I got the idea?

I don't know if it's been mentioned earlier in this thread, but Fukunaga being salty about Netflix getting the streaming rights to NGE is a bit rich considering his own company fucked up the English dub of 3.0 so badly that Khara ordered them to fix it, thus not being able to release their final English version until over three years after the Japanese theatrical release date. It's a virtual guarantee that that whole debacle played into Khara opting with Netflix instead.

Netflix is ultimately the better choice as far as Khara is concerned because, like Chuckman indicated, Netflix has far more reach than Funimation does, considering how many more daily users Netflix has versus Funimation's own streaming services. Having it exclusively on Funimation's site would only cater towards fans of anime, whereas on Netflix, it gets thrown into a more mainstream platform and would broadcast to far wider audience than Funimation would be able to offer.

All of this plays into Khara wanting as many people as possible to board the hypetrain for the 2020 release of Final and get as many people interested in the franchise as possible. Considering how much Netflix probably paid for the rights, as well as the added reach that a massively popular worldwide streaming platform like Netflix has, Khara's making out like gangbusters.

Guy Nacks wrote:I don't know if it's been mentioned earlier in this thread, but Fukunaga being salty about Netflix getting the streaming rights to NGE is a bit rich considering his own company fucked up the English dub of 3.0 so badly that Khara ordered them to fix it, thus not being able to release their final English version until over three years after the Japanese theatrical release date. It's a virtual guarantee that that whole debacle played into Khara opting with Netflix instead.

It probably has, but it bears repeating so no one forgets how utterly stupid that entire debacle was, and do we know if Funimation has the exclusive rights to Final as well?

I'm still not sure where to land on the "Funi fucked up the subs'n'dubs to Queue!" debate. All I know is that Khara didn't like them. I don't even know why Khara didn't like them, as they've never released a statement detailing their reasons for their dislike and I never really cared. All I do know is that leaked video from Eva Q theatrical screenings had shown footage of many audience members laughing at the gay/queer undertones between Kaworu & Shinji's friendship, and that laughter certainly wan't the desired response of Hideaki Anno. The whole thing could have been an over-reaction on Khara's part to a dumb idea on Funi's part.

See, Funimation is starting to create their own Special Features content for the films and shows that they release. Before it was just audio commentaries on the dubbing process and the cast members involved, but it's since grown from that. See, Funi can't always guarantee the licensing of any special features on any of the releases in Japan, especially if certain rights holders to.certain high-ranking content are a tad over-protective over it. We saw this with Funi's release of Eva 1.11, where the first printing of the discs had special features from the original Japanese release that they were not licensed to have. It was significantly trimmed down in later printings of the same title. For various reasons (none of which have been made known to anybody, and probably for good reason) Funi didn't license any of the 2 Blu-rays worth of behind-the-scenes stuff from Toho (the largest film distributor in Japan) for their release of Shin Godzilla. Funi then made up their own "Godzilla vs the Nerds" video featurette where a bunch of people who seem like Funimation interns discuss Godzilla with someone who professionally drew Godzilla comics a couple times to replace hours of content.

(Even though this is neither here nor there within terms of Funi's relationship with Eva, I would like to point out that the title-less master Funi used for their version of Shin Godzilla was the version that Toho gave them to work on. I'm not sure why this was done, but I wouldn't consider this a "fuck up" on their end, rather just a decision that was mutually reached between the two companies that I personally disagree with.)

Anywho, Funi creating their own special features for their releases at the expense of the original Japanese special features was probably the main thought behind the video recording of the Eva Q theatrical screenings, and things got out of hand when audiences started laughing instead of some mirroring some "Paranormal Activity" styled shock marketing stunt, and footage of that laughter leaked onto the internet. Khara probably got involved to make extra sure no one in the United States would never react that same way again, and hand-held Funimation into the resubbing and redubbing process. (What little I've compared so far to the different subs didn't reveal a whole lot of large changes, just a lot of smaller, pedantic ones. I should probably watch more than a couple scenes, though.) It's also worthy of note that, to the best of my knowledge (which, granted, isn't that in-depth) Eva Q has the most original Japanese content in its special features of any US release of any Japanese animation in which Funimation has ever taken part. This might have been done to compensate for the lack of special features, as well as Khara making sure that Funi didn't piss the bed with another weird self-made special feature stunt. (Khara's involvement with the distribution of Toho's Shin Godzilla movie was probably close to nil, so this probably wouldn't have been as big as a concern to Funi as it was with Eva Q.) Also of note, the release schedule of Funimation as well as the acquisition of the licensing for all of the special features on the Japanese home video release of Eva Q is probably what took so long for Funi to redistribute Eva Q on home video in the US.

Not sure where that lands Funimation in the grand scheme of things. It's always been my hope that Nozomi got the rights for NGE on Blu-ray instead and did another killer box-set release like they did with one of their Gundam releases, or their release of Revolutionary Girl Utena. (They're also pretty good with Japanese special features, if their release of RGU is anything to go by.) It's just too bad that they probably don't have the pockets deep enough for the Eva franchise.

Guy Nacks wrote:how many more daily users Netflix has versus Funimation's own streaming services

Funimation has streaming services!?

They have Funimation Now, which is their own service, and they used to have partnerships with Crunchyroll and VRV, but they ended the Crunchyroll partnership not too long ago in favor of one with Hulu.

SEELE-01 wrote:Funimation has streaming services!?

Funimation keeps talking candidly about things. (I guess some manager is really grumpy things didn't go his way this year, huh?)
Also they said they wanted Funi Now for hardcore fans and wanted to use Hulu to keep the filthy casuals contained.
Additionally, they blame Crunchyroll that the streaming partnership between them couldn't be renewed.