The streaming of anime is an enigma to me. The ability and connections that both Crunchyroll and Funimation have to put up a subtitled episode of a simulcasted show in mere hours of its original airing is no easy feat. Due to convenience, wanting to support the "industry" or the fact that apps like Crunchyroll are available on most gaming consoles, many have abandoned fansubs. Fansub groups that have subbed shows for years have dissolved and very few still do their own translations. This is a good thing though, right? The industry has made an easy to use alternative and lured many away from the fansub market.
Well, like most online anime fans in the early 2000's, I was a big fan of fansubs. The only way to watch your favorite show as it aired was to download an IRC or torrent client. Now, Crunchyroll and Funimation's services have a wide selection of shows on demand. In regards to Funimation's service, a show being simulcast by them means it's a license. Still, let's go back to the early 2000's.
You still had most of the big R1 licensing companies in: Geneon, Bandai, Funimation, Media Blasters, Manga Entertainment. DVD's were still expensive, quality questionable, and there was no guarantee that the super niche show you were enjoying would get licensed for US release. So, fansubs were a likely outlet for a large portion of online fans. Flash forward to today and most fansub groups simply "tweak" Crunchyroll translations or use them as a base. Crunchyroll and Funimation sites are ripped themselves for currently airing episodes.
It's hard enough to get a group from a niche hobby like anime or manga to start paying money for something they've known to be free for years. Easy to search, sites like Bakabt, Nyaa Torrents or TokyoTosho are community favorites and have been around for years. So when Funimation opened their streaming service, it siphoned off some of the better shows airing each season for their own paid service. For example, in this Winter season, shows like: Assassination Classroom, Maria the Virgin Witch and Rolling Girls are Funimation only. Funimation's service is 40$ a year for its basic service, while Crunchyroll is 6.95$ a month.
If you subscribe to both services, you're looking at a 120$ bill each year for streaming anime. Now over the course of a year, with the selection both have, you could possibly get your monies worth out of both sites. For a large portion of fans who grew up in the fansub era, or even new fans who are used to getting movies and music for free, 120$ is simply too much for a hobby. That is the price of a new external hard drive, a bounty of games on Steam, two console games, or even a couple complete series in Blu Ray itself. So a large swath shun Crunchyroll and Funimation and simply watch the rips of a show.
If you subscribe to both services, you're looking at a 120$ bill each year for streaming anime. Now over the course of a year, with the selection both have, you could possibly get your monies worth out of both sites. For a large portion of fans who grew up in the fansub era, or even new fans who are used to getting movies and music for free, 120$ is simply too much for a hobby. That is the price of a new external hard drive, a bounty of games on Steam, two console games, or even a couple complete series in Blu Ray itself. So a large swath shun Crunchyroll and Funimation and simply watch the rips of a show.
With most of the more popular shows locked away for even Crunchyroll customers, it leads many to simply downloading something they were open to pay for. So what can the "industry" do? Well, they could go with the "scorched earth" policy, like what they did to most manga scanlation sites. Or, the option I'm a fan of, give the consumer more options and choice. Give me a reason to want to pay you to watch TV versions of episodes often retouched, reanimated, or that are missing Blu Ray only episodes or scenes. Don't lock away your shows behind multiple services like regular TV and movies are today.
In closing, I'm all for supporting the industry, especially when they offer a decent alternative like Crunchyroll that has the abilitiy to simulcast shows. I was a big buyer of series I enjoyed via fansub on DVD when they were officially licensed in the R1 market. But still, the aura of free Blu Ray rips of a show(often uncensored compared to their TV counterpart) are often hard to ignore. Especially when storage space is incredibly cheap, letting most have multiple terabyte archives. Services like Crunchyroll or Funimation's streaming service need a reason to draw fans away from the torrent sites. 120$ a year spent split between two services isn't going to do it.
No comments:
Post a Comment