Sony Buys Funimation

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Gendo'sPapa
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Sony Buys Funimation

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Postby Gendo'sPapa » Mon Jul 31, 2017 9:50 pm

Interesting. Sony has bought Funimation & now owns all their content.

http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/sony-pictures-tv-funimation-acquisition-1202511492/

No idea what this means but if Sony listens to the people who run Funimation it might mean more money can be funneled into giving certain anime films a more robust theatrical release with a stronger marketing access. I.E. Sony can afford to sell a movie like "Your Name." to everyone & not just inform anime nerds it's playing at a theater somewhere. I'm thinking this will work better for the broader appeal anime release - the Your Names. & good Mamoru Hosoda releases - giving them real theatrical runs than titles like Dragonball/Evangelion which I think will still stick to limited engagement type releases.

Either way. Should see some interesting things come out of this partnership. For one, I doubt Sony would have allowed a three year gap between the Bluray release of Evangelion 3.0 in Japan & a release in the US. Plus, Sony could hire some real actors for their dubs & not just the same four people who live in Houston.

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Re: Sony Buys Funimation

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Postby Ray » Tue Aug 01, 2017 1:04 am

Plus, Sony could hire some real actors for their dubs & not just the same four people who live in Houston.


Christ, I hope not. I don't want to see the anime voice acting gig to go down the road the road Disney and Ghibli films do. Where they only recruit AAA talent to voice their roles, and shove out any possibility of new talent breaking into the mainstream.

As much as I like some celebrity VA casts. I don't want to see every anime dubbed over by Hollywood talent. Anime voice acting is one of the few times voice actors can actually ACT, because of the rest of the time they are either doing Jingles or radio spots and gain a smudge of fame in their own right.

I mean, it might have been awesome to have an actual celebrity kid actor voice Edward Elric. But then we would have been denied a great performance by Vic mignogna. It might have been nice to have a big name celebrities voice Spike Spiegel And Jet. But then we would have been denied the Great performances of Steve Blum and Beau Billingsley.

That's just me rambling about what first came to mind I doubt it'll get as serious as I'm hyperbolizing it to be.

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Re: Sony Buys Funimation

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Postby robersora » Tue Aug 01, 2017 3:02 am

Gen Fukunaga sure does have more money money.
My first instinct was to think: Welp, now it's not just Netflix and Amazon, another Big Boy has entered the Anime market.

View Original PostGendo'sPapa wrote: I.E. Sony can afford to sell a movie like "Your Name."


I haven't considered that. Now it's kinda sad that that didn't happen pre-Oscars. Sony could have pushed the movie pretty hard.
Also, now that Funimation is rich, maybe they're able to afford the rights to NGE.

View Original PostGendo'sPapa wrote:Plus, Sony could hire some real actors for their dubs & not just the same four people who live in Houston.


That too, in the end it really comes down to how much Sony cares about Anime.
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Re: Sony Buys Funimation

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Postby pwhodges » Tue Aug 01, 2017 3:28 am

How does this affect Crunchyroll given their current cooperative arrangement, I wonder?

That too, in the end it really comes down to how much Sony cares about Anime.

Enough to buy an anime company, at least!
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Re: Sony Buys Funimation

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Postby DarkBluePhoenix » Tue Aug 01, 2017 9:45 am

Gendo'sPapa wrote:For one, I doubt Sony would have allowed a three year gap between the Bluray release of Evangelion 3.0 in Japan & a release in the US. Plus, Sony could hire some real actors for their dubs & not just the same four people who live in Houston.

Well, they may be able to have it translated for an actual release in theaters rather than just a direct-to-DVD release to maximize profits, they would certainly run things in theaters to get the most out of thier properties. And it would be nice to be able to see Evangelion in theaters, or any OVA/film for that matter that Funimation has in some sort of limited release.

As for voice actors, I agree with Ray. AAA Hollywood talent is nice, but it does keep actual voice actors from actually acting and doing what they're good at. Save for Mark Hamill, he can do voice work for whatever he wants. But I digress, a lot of Hollywood talent can't act that well on a screen, let alone inflect their voice to make those emotions believable without the body language associated with live action performances.
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Re: Sony Buys Funimation

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Postby Gendo'sPapa » Tue Aug 01, 2017 9:55 am

Had this acquire happened in 2016 I most certainly think Sony would have gotten Your Name. a nomination for best animated feature. I doubt it would have beat "Zootopia" but it would have gotten some recognition.

Either way, this bodes well for future films from Mamoru Hosoda (as long as "The Boy & the Beast" just ends up being an outlier of well-animated tedium in his otherwise strong body of work) & other talented anime filmmakers who aren't named Hayao Miyazaki or brand their films under "Studio Ghibli". Who knows, when/if Hideaki Anno makes another fully original non-Evangelion anime film he could get in there.

+ it's been a pretty shitty year for domestic theatrical animation (seriously, look at the garbage released in 2017... if the Oscars were held right now "The Lego Batman Movie" could basically run unopposed) so this bodes very well for the Funimation co-release of "In This Corner of the World". Though to be fair, I already say short of it being a surprise disaster, Pixar's COCO is gonna win.

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Re: Sony Buys Funimation

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Postby Sailor Star Dust » Sat Aug 05, 2017 11:13 pm

View Original PostGendo'sPapa wrote:not just the same four people who live in Houston.


Funimation's up in Dallas-Fort Worth, I believe. It's ADV Films that had Houston offices.

I've read some people panicking about the acquisition, but I definitely think it can do good in actually release anime theatrical releases/overall a hell of a lot quicker!
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Re: Sony Buys Funimation

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Postby Gendo'sPapa » Sun Aug 06, 2017 12:34 am

Also would like to add:

Now that Netflix has fully dived into the anime game & are so powerful they can play by their own rules (Example: even though the series started airing in January they've only released half of Studio Trigger's "Little Witch Academia" TV anime so far & have not even dated the release of the second half at this moment & there's little reason to see why they'd treat all their many future titles any differently) having Sony at their back at least allows Funimation to still keep a seat at the table when it comes to acquiring titles.

I'd say it's fair to assume after their massive success with Shin Godzilla that Funimation wanted the rights to the anime Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters trilogy but Netflix easily out bid them. The anime Godzilla is only going to play in theaters in Japan, everywhere else in the world it's going straight to online streaming since Netflix is very anti-theatrical.

Hopefully Funimation has been doing their due diligence to assure they'll acquire Evangelion 3.0+1.0 & the original series in the near future.

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Re: Sony Buys Funimation

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Postby imprimatur13 » Sun Aug 06, 2017 1:53 am

Gendo'sPapa wrote:Hopefully Funimation has been doing their due diligence to assure they'll acquire Evangelion 3.0+1.0 & the original series in the near future.


It's funny; I kind of assumed it was a foregone conclusion that they'd get 3.0+1.0... Has Netflix ever dubbed anything themselves? If not, that might be enough of an incentive for them to let Funimation do the work, and just license it from them, right? As they seem to do with everything else...

(And the original series... I dearly wish they'd get that, and license it to Netflix (or stream it themselves). That would be quite nice.)
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Rick Santorum/EchoLight

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Postby imprimatur13 » Sun Sep 03, 2017 12:45 pm

I know I'm double-posting, but it's almost a month later. And on a different subject. <= Justification.

Basically, apparently Rick Santorum was involved in Funimation's corporate side, through his EchoLight company (google "Santorum funimation" for all the juicy details). So, now that Funi's been bought by Sony, does Santorum's company retain any authority there? Hoping someone out there'll know.
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Re: Rick Santorum/EchoLight

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Postby Guy Nacks » Sun Sep 03, 2017 3:36 pm

View Original Postimprimatur13 wrote: So, now that Funi's been bought by Sony, does Santorum's company retain any authority there? Hoping someone out there'll know.


Hopefully not, because fuck that guy.
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