This question should have been asked on the survey just below the question on the number of anime series purchased...
00. Of the Anime DVD and/or Blu-ray series you purchase, how many are released by Funimation?
- 1 - 25%
- 26 - 50%
- 51 - 75%
- 76 - 100%
In 2008 my answer would have been 4.
In 2012 my answer would have been 3.
In 2013 my answer barely made it to 2.
What would your answer be?
** Rant below...you can stop reading at this point unless you want to continue!
My concerns with the future of Funimation are growing. Of the dozen DVD titles I have already purchased this year, only 3 of them have been Funimation titles. Sentai Filmworks has already released or has scheduled for release a number of titles from the 2012 seasons. I have not seen a single 2012 title licensed by Funimation even scheduled for release yet. Anime Works appears to be nearing its end. Their two biggest titles, Ikki Tousen (3rd season licensed by Funimation) and Queen's Blade (3rd season licenesed by Sentai Filmworks), have just been released on season 1&2 boxsets which means their license for each is most likely due to expire soon (all other things considered). Once expired, which company is going to get their respective 3rd season out first? Why is Funimation falling behind?
Well just from a few min of looking at ANN I found these:
Toriko part 4 coming out May 7th (episodes in set ran from January to April of 2012)
They announced acquisition of Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar on 07/29/2012 and part one and two are scheduled for release May 24th
Shana III is from the beginning of 2012 and was released this month
You have to consider Funimation dubs all of their releases, Sentai doesn't. This adds a significant amount of time between announcement and release date, and there are only a finite amount of VAs they use, so they cannot work on all of the projects at once.
Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn’t happen.- Steven Wright
@batou01: Funi is looking into the possibility of doing sub-only releases to mitigate dubbing costs in conjunction with streaming revenue
Locomotion
animation, young adults, digital era
And what survey are you talking about?
2013 is not even finished yet but the rate you are at currently, you will have more FUNi titles than previous years.
Just because something is released in box-sets does not mean that the license is expiring soon.
Funi wouldn't be the same if they did sub-only releases. That's to be expected from other companies but people hear Funimation gets an anime and the first thought is usually, "Yes, it'll be dubbed!".
"When you truly care about someone, you don't need any specific reasons to justify your feelings. If you don't know why you feel the way you do, then you can't lose that which causes you to care."
Rather than copy quotes I am just going to reply in general:
Toriko began airing in April of 2011 and continued on into 2012. Shakugan no Shana III began airing in October of 2011 and continued on through the beginning of 2012. Tenchi Muyo! War on Geminar OVA started releasing on digital media in Japan back in 2009. Since it is more cost effective to dub an entire series at once it would be reasonable to say that Funimation has tied up their entire dubbing budget on Toriko and Shana 3 which combined total nearly 100 episodes.
Sentai Filmworks has already released two dubbed titles from the Winter 2012 season (one of which ran for two seasons). They have scheduled for release in May two dubbed titles from the Spring 2012 season.
It doesn't seem to be available right now, but when you buy a DVD/Blu-ray released by Funimation it comes with a survey card that you can fill out and mail in or go online and complete. That online survey is the one I was referring too.
I don't want to see anything happen to Funimation. I will always be grateful for their quick action salvaging the active titles that Geneon was releasing at the time they closed and Funimation's promise to dub their releases back when everyone else wanted to start releasing sub-only media. I'm just a bit frustrated that such effort was made last year on rescued titles which I already have and there is little news on the shift back to the newer titles along with their release schedule (aquisition not meaning much as proven with the late release of Rosario+Vampire).
Funi hasn't said a thing about doing sub-only releases,they are sticking with doing dubs.
"Haven't said" is different from "sticking to", reading between the lines on the previous Funimation survey gave you the idea that they were testing the market's opinions on sub-only releases.
Right now in considering it seems that for some titles they only bought streaming rights (C3 and Symphogear) and no word has been giving if they are dubbing I would take sub only DVD if it meant I have a means of watching it whenever I want and not having to stream it every time I wanna watch either of those two series.
...... I'm sorry but....you do realize how silly that sounds right? You do realize how much Funimations dubs on an annual basis, its MUCH MUCH more then 100 episodes of anime. You...you really need to stop making baseless guesses on things.... its not kosher brah.
I won't lie I do agree the anime industry in the states as a whole is in trouble, but thats more of a mixture of piracy, a not so great economy, and anime fans not often putting their money where their mouth is.
Isn't It Great To Different, Isn't It Great To Be Who You Are!? Once You Learn To Accept Yourself, You'll Become A Shining Star.
They havn't released a sub only release since that survey.and untill they say something about it,they are gonna continue releasing dubs.