Crunchyroll for sale, Kissanime shutting down, and anime legally on YouTube in the future

 The current pandemic has left me with more time on my hands than I had in years, so I kinda wanted to go back into writing (at least for a while). And the last week has given me more than sufficient material to work with. 

For real, it's been years since the anime community has been shocked this much. And I remember writing about it last time as well: See this post.

So let's connect the dots, shall we?

Part 1: AT&T is in huge debt and wants to fix that

AT&T? What does this have to do with anything, you ask? Well: everything! Back in 2018 AT&T purchased Otter media for the whopping sum of 1 billion dollars. The name Otter media may not ring a bell, but this is thé group that consisted of Crunchyroll, VRV, RoosterTeeth and a few others. This thus made AT&T the owner of Crunchyroll.

However, massive consecutive purchases and the Corona-crisis has left AT&T in a period of self-reflection to fix its massive debt situation. The company is 151 billion dollars in debt and needs HUGE restructuring in order to get it back into shape. Earlier messages confirmed that most of the staff of DC Comics (another subsidiary of AT&T) was fired and that the comic book industry will undergo a digital revolution (including stopping physical prints of single issues, stopping the DC Universe streaming service and other things).

Now, the old rumor of Crunchyroll being for sale has turned into pure facts. AT&T wants to sell Crunchyroll for 1 billion dollars or more and sees in Sony an ideal purchasing "partner". However, AT&T is trying to milk as much money out of this deal as possible, resulting in some bickering back and forth.

AT&T originally wanted 1.5 billion dollars, Sony balked at the price, and now they're talking with multiple partners about a sale price. Who these "other partners" are, is not revealed and may even be pure speculation/fiction to drive up the price. But I guess we'll hear more about this in the future, since deals like this can take months to complete (if not years).

Part 2: Kissanime has closed its doors

Huge news came this past weekend when fans had to read the news that Kissanime and its content servers were taken down by copyright owners. 

This news does not come out of nowhere. Back in June, Japan reinforced its copyright protection laws and made it easier to strike towards people who upload copyright protected works (anime, manga, magazines, books and other forms of media or academic papers). This clearly gave copyright owners the right tools to finally go after sites who provide streams and downloads of anime, like Kissanime. It has been one of the biggest thorns in their side for the past decade, so it obviously had the biggest target on its back.

But it's also obvious that they won't stop there. (in)Famous anime torrent site Nyaa had survived its earlier takedown which I reported on a few years ago (that post aged horribly, considering it bounced back a week later or so). But with the takedown of Kissanime, I think it's safe to say that Nyaa will probably be next on the radar of the copyright owners.

Let's not beat around the bush: The intent of the Japanese copyright owners is to eliminate fansubs and especially end groups that steal legal streams and spread them as their own (most notoriously offenders being Horriblesubs and Kissanime).

Will this work? That is a big question. Prior famous takedowns of Piratebay and Nyaa have not really worked, since alternative sites quickly take its place. But takedowns of "content sharing services" like MegaUpload, Rapidshare, Limewire, and others have worked. It all depends on how much of a witch hunt the copyright owners are willing to go on. With the Japanese law now at their sides, we may see a notable change in how anime is "shared" in the future.

And on that note...

Part 3: YouTube channel AnimeLog will host anime legally

Source: https://variety.com/2020/streaming/asia/japan-animation-unified-youtube-anime-initiative-1234728555/

Link to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsnDtu-g18tDA4miToMOjXQ/videos

Toei Animation, Kodansha, Nippon Animation, Tezuka Productions, Shogakukan-Shueisha productions and Shinei Animation have banded together, and together with an influx from American money will make anime legal for viewing on YouTube. This American money being Benjamin Grubbs and the investment venture Next10 Venture.

While the first uploads will be exclusive to Japan, the uploaded titles will eventually get subbed into multiple languages (including English, obviously). 

What content is going to uploaded is still up to question. But most likely it's older anime (like Black Jack and Astroboy which are present in the banner), and family-friendly anime (I've read things like Doraemon, Shin-Shan and others). 

Now the big question as to WHY and why now? Simple: Combating piracy. One of the few valid remarks that the internet had on Kissanime's existence is "preservation of older titles". Titles that aren't on streaming services and where the content is out of print or very hard to find. This can fix that issue. And if it's successful, maybe even more in the future. There's a huge library of anime that can be added.

But a few questions remain. 

Question: Will EVERY anime title in existence appear on here? No, definitely not. The bigger  titles are just too profitable to sell through distributors instead of YouTube ads. While I'd love to see more titles on here, it's obviously not going to go that fast.

Question: Is this the end for Crunchyroll and Funimation? No, definitely not. However, in the case AnimeLog becomes a success, both may see their catalog shrink over time (not immediately). 

On Funimation's side, I think it's noteworthy to mention that one of the production companies absent from the AnimeLog description is Sony/Aniplex. They own Funimation and they clearly do not want to be part of this YouTube endeavor (yet). So it's safe to say that the amount of Aniplex/Cloverworks titles on this channel will be limited, if any at all. Funimation dubs will not be present either. So if you think about it, regardless of AnimeLog's success, this will have little to no impact on Funimation's business.

Crunchyroll on the other end? Not in the beginning, at least. Crunchyroll focuses more on new titles, which sure aren't going to appear here (yet). However, if this channel does become a success, Crunchyroll's catalog may take a hit over time, as licenses may no longer be renewed. We've already seen a lot of titles disappear from CR very recently. And if AnimeLog becomes a success and becomes larger, I wouldn't be surprised if more were to follow in the coming months and/or years.

And with a lot of titles disappearing from the service over time, what is left for them? The Netflix method: Branding yourself with original content with the Crunchyroll Originals. If Crunchyroll can host many original titles that will not appear on AnimeLog, it will secure its own future.

On that note: let's circle back to Part 1 of this post: If AnimeLog becomes a success and becomes the future for anime streaming, is Crunchyroll still worth more than 1 billion dollar? I think most people would agree it is not. However, this is a speculative area, and I doubt things will go that fast overall, and thus very unlikely the value would drop very fast (I'd be surprised).

Also, why is Sony/Aniplex is seriously bidding for Crunchyroll right now? This is because they want more exclusive content to stand strong against any challenger in the current Streaming wars.

One final question: WILL AnimeLog become a success? Only time will tell. Daisuki wasn't the greatest success (though that may have been because Aniplex/Sony bailed on them), but maybe this will be the future of streaming. We'll see what happens.

For now, the best we can do is subscribe to AnimeLog and watch the content they provide when it becomes available in your country. If we all partake in this, AnimeLog may become the success that everybody hopes it will be.

Always remember: Because moe

Bonus question! With Kissanime gone, where can I watch anime legally? One address: because.moe. No, really! Because.moe is the anime streaming search engine. Select your region (limited to US/CAN/UK/AUS), type in your title and follow the link they provide in the icons.

Note: If you live outside of the mentioned regions and some links leads to the classic: "not available in your region", try scouring through Yatta-Tachi's ultimate list of streaming sites for alternatives. There sadly isn't a fix-all for everybody worldwide, but I can only hope that AnimeLog will fix that at least somewhat in the future.

That's it from me at this moment. 

V out.

Edit: Also, on a side-note: there's already a fake Animelog channel out there, and I of course had linked to that one first. God dammit all! this caused a few structural changes to the post. Sorry for that.

Let's talk about the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2017

Well, last year I came back to blogging due to the Crunchyroll Anime Awards and then talked about the Oscars. This year, it's the opposite way around.

Anyway, I still needed to vent a little on this because the awards have been improved in comparison to last year, but there's still room left for further improvement. Let me explain...

The Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2017 - The Good, the bad & the ugly

Updated categories are both better and worse

First up, I'm glad Crunchyroll reorganized the voting categories. The awards look less like they were done by a random youtuber. Though they're still hit and miss.

The following are gone:

• Best Fight Scene
• Most Heartwarming Scene
• Best Couple

The following were added:

• Best Continuing Series - Nice addition, though the execution could be better
• Best Manga - Good!
• Best movie - Very good!
• Best (use of) CGI - Good!
• Best Score - Very good!
• Best Slice of Life series - Not good. Honestly this is a superfluous category! All of the nominees fit either in Comedy or Drama categories!

Note: While most of the manga from Best Manga are not from this year, the first volume of every nominee was released in English for the first time in 2017. The page could've used that asterisk, tbh.

The following categories are still missing (read: missed opportunities)

• Best Voice actor/actress in Japanese and in English DUB: Come on, Crunchyroll, get to it! I said this last year as well!
• Best Direction: no-brainer, right? I mean it's a default category in most tv/movie awards shows.
• Best Character Design: An underrated category. Animation is not only the animation, it's the overall character design as well.
• Best Short series: Anime of 10 minutes or below deserve some love!
• Best Original / Adapted story: It's a default category in movie award shows, so why not here? Yes, it's a difficult category because you would need to have knowledge of both the source material as well as the adaptation. But still...
• Best NEW series / Best Sequel: The Best continuing series is a good new addition, but I feel the choices in this category are a mixed bag (to say it nicely). I feel that a split of series in new/sequel/continuing series would generally improve this and would give a proper spotlight to all kinds of series.

About the Judges

While it does surprise me that 6 of the 7 judges of last year don't reprise their role (too much salt/backlash last year?), I'm kind of neutral on the choices this year. I don't know any of them personally, but CR has listed their credits and well... they're legit (no, really).

And while I do like that there are more judges than last year... 10 vs 7 is still not that much better. Not to mention the total lack of Anitubers now that Arcada/Glass Reflection hasn't returned as a judge. Why not ask the advice of somebody like SuperEyePatchWolf, UnderTheScope or even Digibro (just to name a few)? Heck, people like Geoff/Mother's Basement would've been a perfect judge when it comes to music, OPs and EDs - That IS his Youtube schtick!

On a side-note: Praise goes to those who deserve it. I love the addition of separate judges specifically for the best manga award. Good decision!

Weird and confusing voting method

Yeah, let's just say it out loud: The new website is not that good, the previous one was better. Yes, the new one does look more like a professional awards show website and less like a fan-site. But looks aren't everything, you know.

The first time I went to the new awards website, I was utterly confused. I saw the Crunchyroll promo that you could start voting, but the first three categories I clicked on were disabled with no information on when voting would become active. I honestly thought they f**ked up.

It wasn't until later I figured out that they split up the voting over a period of multiple weeks, with each period only allowing you to vote for a small group of categories. This in a clear attempt to trigger people's engagement multiple times and keep themselves trending for a longer period of time. (*sigh* I hate cheap marketing ploys like this)

But it was clear that this decision was made late in the game, because the website was not created to support this voting method. As I said, the categories you could actually vote for in the first week were not properly highlighted nor sorted. And there was no clear message on how the voting worked (unless you read multiple posts and ads from CR). And the black site color did NOT help any of this.

But I must be honest. Checking back on the site this week will show you proper fixes. The site has been cleaned up, categories have been clearly divided and proper dates on what you can vote for when have been added. Too bad this had to happen weeks after release (*sigh*). At least they listened to the initial feedback.

But in order to prevent this kind of backlash, here are a few tips for future improvements:

• A: Don't make the site background black. Using black backgrounds is cool when you're an edgy tween, but that's the only advantage it has. In reality black makes site layout harder. Layout and graphic mistakes are easier to spot, mixing in other colors can quickly look real ugly real fast and highlighting attempts are easily overlooked.
• B: The split time periods: Don't do this. It's a cheap marketing trick to stay trending on social media, but you can do this differently. IF you still want to use this method, open the categories in a cascade form like this year but close all categories together at the end date. This way the unlock will still trigger new topics, but nobody will be frustrated that you can't vote anymore for other categories.
• C: Make it visually stand out on which categories you can already vote and on which you cannot. It will only create frustration if you click on a category, only to find out voting still isn't available and you should come back "on a later date". Oh, and on that...
• D: All necessary information should be visible on the main page. Your voting site should NOT need several blog posts or news articles for explanation on how to vote, especially if that information is on a different website all together. If it does need extra explanation on another site, you're doing something wrong!

My votes

I'll try to keep this as short as possible. I'll probably film a vlog to go into more detail.

• Best Action: My Hero Academia
• Best Drama: While real difficult to choose between Rakugo Shinju, March comes in like a Lion & Made in Abyss, I ended up choosing for March comes in like a Lion. The series needs some love!
• Best Comedy: There is no question here: KonoSuba Season 2!
• Best Slice of Life: Redundant category, but from these nominees: Sakura Quest
• Best Continuing series: Questionable choices, since some are sequel and others are actually continuing series. Best sequel is March comes in like a lion (which I voted for), but best actual ongoing series form this list would be Dragon Ball Super.
• Best Girl: The girls from My Hero Academia honestly deserve a best girl category by themselves (lol). But if you make me choose between Ochako & Tsuyu, my vote goes to Ochako (with Tsuyu a VERY close second).
• Best Boy: Kazuma without a doubt. And err... Fafnir? Really? Why?
• Best hero: I was originally going to vote for Deku. But after hearing Geoff's arguments on why Nanachi deserves the win in this category, I changed my mind. Thus: Nanachi.
• Best Villain: Stain. While Tanya is a masterful villain (or anti-hero depending on your point of view), it's Stain that stood out so much he outshined every other villain of the entire series.
• Best Manga: I'm not going to vote for this, since I haven't read most of the titles and thus cannot give an honest answer.
• Best OP: Winter 2017 had the best OPs of the entire year, though my favorite did not make the list (my vote would've gone to Fhána - Blue Sky Rhapsody from Ms Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. So from the choices available, I'm going to pick One III Notes with Shadow & Truth (from ACCA)
• Best ED: Again my choice is not on the list (the ED from Saga of Tanya the Evil: Aoi Yuuki - Los! Los! Los!). But after taking some time and missing the deadline for the category (hence my frustration) I finally listened to all nominees and would've chosen Chorogonzu - Ishukan Communication from Ms. Kobayashi's Dragon Maid.
• Best Film: A Silent Voice, with In This Corner of the World a close second.
• Best (use of) CG: Important category, considering how often this gets f**ked up in anime series. One series did NOT f**k up at all and that is Land of the Lustrous.
• Best Score: My heart bleeds because I have to choose between two great scores (ACCA and Made in Abyss). But in the end I have to go for Made in Abyss, because it elevated an already great anime into even greater heights.
• Best Animation: How is it fair that movie-level animation is compared to tv-level animation? I refused to vote for A Silent Voice because of this. My vote went to the best animation in a TV-series: March comes in like a Lion. See my review for a more detailed explanation.
• Anime of the Year: No best Yuri-on-Ice of the year? Good! With the awards starting a little later and no late fall anime that took the internet by storm, all anime now have a fair chance. My vote goes to the only anime that actually succeeded in making me cry... multiple times: Made in Abyss. Don't let this cutesy art fool you, this anime starts of "light", but gets drenched in darkness the further you go into the series. I was genuinely sad that the last episode ended (even if it was extra long), because I wanted more.

Afterword

As I said, I'll try to make a vlog for a more detailed explanation (try, no promises). But these are my choices for the Anime Awards.

Until next time, V out.

V's Thoughts on Crunchyroll's Anime Awards

Well, 2016 has come to an end. And with Yu-Gi-Oh being more boring than ever before (a game lasting longer than 3 turns is considered a "long" game), I wanted to go back to reviewing anime that I've seen in the past year. And while there have been some great series lately, there are also a few turds.

But before reviewing any of the series I've seen, first off I wanted to talk a little about the Crunchyroll Anime Awards.

While I can applaud Crunchyroll for doing an "awards" show of sorts for anime, it's clearly still a work in progress. I realize that an awards show will always disappoint a lot of people. But the results of the voting already show a few of the big flaws this first edition has.

We put way too much money into advertising this anime, so it MUST be nominated as much as possible: Kabaneri

One of the bigger "flops" of the past year was Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress.

Okay, okay, I admit... Flop IS a big word for it. Disappointing is a more accurate word. Its animation and art style is overall very amazing and the first few episodes were amazing spectacles. But halfway through the main character we were rooting for (Mumei) becomes a damsel in distress and a generic textbook villain is pasted into the series to add a form of suspense. The end result left most people somewhere in the middle. Some kept defending it, while a lot of others simply hated what happened to it.

But Crunchyroll has put a lot of money into the promotion of this anime over the past year, so it obviously had to be nominated in every category it could somewhat fit in... even if it doesn't make any sense.

Dude... Seriously? Is this a joke?

Obvious result of this is a lot of raised eyebrows among anime fans, and obviously: 0 actual rewards being reaped. But on Crunchyroll's behalf, it got people talking about it once more and maybe a few views which returns some lost revenue for them.

The latest hype train wins everything: Yuri on Ice

First off, I have nothing against Yuri on Ice. I am not the target audience for it, so I'm not going to watch or review it. But unless you've been living under a rock the past months, you must've at least heard of the hype train surrounding Yuri on Ice (further abbreviated as YOI, not to be mistaken with yaoi).

YOI is an anime about guys doing competitive figure skating. And if that premise sounds gay, that's because it is... and there's nothing wrong with that. But somewhere halfway, all shipping girls finally saw their ship set sail with "the kiss" and the hype went apenuts.

If these awards were done half a year ago, most nominations would've gone to Re:Zero, since that was thé hype anime at that moment. But fall season was mostly YOI's hype train, so that's the anime with the most nominations.

Though, let's admit: no all of its nominations were that deserving.

"Yeah, the ice skating animation is so amazing to watch!"

But the reality of things is that, no matter the category it was nominated for, YOI wins the award. Best Couple, most heartwarming scene, best kiss, best OP and ED, Best iced Yuri, Best cucumber party, best anything... If Yuri on Ice was nominated, it would win the award. That's the obvious result of having a big audience vote in your categories. The anime with the biggest hype wins automatically, whether the anime deserves the hype or not.

No industry awards?

Somebody who has some experience with quality award shows immediately realizes something is off about these awards. The categories are too general.

For example: You could have a big range of music awards, but the only things awarded here are opening and ending theme. Really? Where is the award for composer? For the entire Soundtrack? For most effective song used?

Another one: Where are awards for best director? Best composer? Best character design? Where are the typical industry awards?

Heck, even some general categories are missing. Yes, there is a best boy/girl category, and best hero/villain category. But where's the best voice actor/actress? Best main character/supporting character?

And really, Crunchyroll. You are the one platform that could award people who do some really underappreciated work. You could have the award for best English dub / voice actors. Voice actors in Japan are celebrities, but in the rest of the world it's a job with little appreciation.

Obvious result: The salt is real

It's no surprise that the anime community was throwing up heaps of salt over the eventual results. Most of them threw in their five cents on who should've won instead; whether serious or for the lolz (like Gigguk's awards).

I wanted to throw in my salt and my awards too at first, until I saw the Under the Scope awards the past weekend. Most anime reviewers had some choices that were questionable, but his choices... I have to admit: I was impressed. He added multiple categories and had sufficient arguments for all of his choices. My initial reaction after I've seen his video, was clapping slowly with a satisfied face.

Watch it via this link. Seriously.

So Crunchyroll, if you want some advice on a next edition of your Awards ceremony, watch UTS's anime awards and learn some lessons from it.

Also, another tip: seven judges only? Really? While I can see certain judges were chosen (like the Boondocks director and GlassReflection), many other valid voices remain unheard.

So in short: Great initiative, but many lessons that need to be learned for the next edition.

Now, onto the reviews...

Until then, V out.