Am I the only one who thinks the saga about anime streaming sites should be turned into a comic or show?
You know, something like Crunchyroll-chan broke up with Sentai-san and started seeing Funimation-kun. Sentai-kun then started seeing the new-to-the-neighborhood Strike-chan, but Strike-chan required too much money and died a horrible death. This caused Sentai-san to get a makeover as HIDIVE-kun.
Meanwhile, Crunchyroll-chan and Funimation-kun (whom everyone thought was the perfect couple) broke up because of their parents, and Crunchyroll-chan went right back to their now-prettied-up HIDIVE-kun.
So who has come to console Funimation-kun? Why, out of nowhere, it’s Hulu-chan!
(My half-hearted apologies to all the companies involved in this bargain basement-level story.)
By now, you’ve almost certainly heard the news that Hulu has entered into a new partnership with Funimation giving them first dibs on co-streaming new Funimation anime. Variety reports that Hulu plans on picking up 20+ series a year.
Hulu is owned by several companies including AT&T. (So in the comic, would Hulu-chan and Crunchyroll-chan be stepsisters or cousins?!) Sony, Funimation’s parent, already has several offerings on Hulu including Ace Ventura, Jeopardy, Seinfeld, and Astro Boy despite not being a stakeholder. In fact, Hulu’s ownership is about to undergo a significant shift due to the Disney-Fox deal where the House of Mouse is going to control 60% versus NBC Universal’s 30% and AT&T’s 10%.
And with Disney planning on launching their own service, you have to wonder just how much effort (and, more importantly, how many series) Hulu is going to get from them going forward.
In many ways, this deal isn’t too far off from Hulu’s anime offerings. Most of their titles are found elsewhere like Naruto and Tokyo Ghoul: re (Crunchyroll), Hunter x Hunter (VIZ Media), and Cowboy Bebop (Funimation). But while Hulu was sometimes the third streamer for some series, now they get to be the second for many Funimation series — and get first dibs as well as both subbed and dubbed versions.
The Variety article mentions that Funimation now is free to pursue even more anime now that Hulu is going to bring in a larger audience. I can’t help but think that rather than going after new anime that Funimation is going to be a partner for more anime. Funimation is almost certainly a part of the production committee for Fruits Basket considering their announcement actually beat the Japanese Twitter reveal.
Hulu not only gives Funimation a bigger audience, but it gives them some cold hard cash to do the same for future projects. Many fans probably remember Funimation’s failed attempts to get a second season of Fruits Basket, but now they have the finances and the standing that they didn’t have back then. Funimation gets money from this deal, then can turn around and say to Hulu, “Hey, we just invested in this new series. You should TOTALLY stream this one since it’s going to be a hit”, and finally watch as Hulu subscribers stumble on it and bring in some ad revenue to cover Funimation’s investment.
It doesn’t hurt that Hulu is probably flush with new or returning subscribers thanks to its incredible Black Friday deal ($.99 a month for 12 months versus the normal $7.99). It was so popular that the signup pages crashed. This gives Funimation an even wider audience than normal to try to convert them into anime fans. Or at least get more ad revenue than normal for the next year.
For most anime fans, this probably won’t mean much. Dedicated fans are either going to watch on FunimationNow with ads or pay for the no-ads version. But with so much content being splintered on the various sites, for those fans with families with some diverse interests, paying for a Hulu account may be more beneficial than the ad-less but anime-focused FunimationNow.
But with new streaming news seeming to pop up every week, we’ll have to tune in next week and see what Crunchyroll, Netflix, and everyone else has up their sleeves in the continuing adventures of Streams of Our Lives.