Funimation made a rare move that made many fans unhappy recently. Was their decision good business sense, or did they make viewers unnecessarily angry with a bad move?
Note: this article is about a series with mature content that may not be appropriate for work or younger audiences.
The History
In 2014, Artist Amahara drew a series of adult art/comics. Amahara would then team up with artist masha for a revised version of the story. This one-shot manga debuted in Dragon Age, a shounen magazine from KADOKAWA, in July 2016. A month later, Interspecies Reviewers would then be serialized on the Nico Nico and KADOKAWA digital magazine partnership Dra Dra Dragon Age. This site would then get a relaunch-slash-spinoff in Dra Dra Sharp, and Interspecies Reviewers moved here.
At Sakura Con in 2018, Yen Press announced it had the English language rights to the series. In June 2019, an anime adaptation was revealed and would premiere in the winter 2020 anime season. On Christmas Day, Funimation announced it would simulcast and simuldub the Interspecies Reviewers anime. Many of Funimation’s associated partners around the world also announced they would be streaming it.
And they did. Until…
The Controversy
At the end of January, people noticed that the Interspecies Reviewers page had disappeared from Funimation’s website. A Reddit user by the name of Winnah9000 emailed the company and received a response that the series was dropped.
Within a day, it was confirmed:
“After careful consideration, we determined that this series falls outside of our standards. We have the utmost respect for our creators so rather than substantially alter the content, we felt taking it down was the most respectful choice.”
Some other international services also dropped the show, like Wakanim in the Nordic regions. However, Wakanim France and Australian/New Zealand platform AnimeLab would continue, although the latter would be delayed. Later, one of the stations broadcasting the show in Japan stopped airing it.
Fans took to social media to express their displeasure. Some hoped a company Sentai Filmworks/HIDIVE would rescue it now that it is unavailable in the US.
So, let’s go over some of the arguments both sides have launched. Now, full disclosure: I didn’t watch Interspecies Reviewers, and I have absolutely no interest in Interspecies Reviewers. So some of this is going to be second-hand knowledge. And part of it is going to be subjective, which is unavoidable in a topic like this.
So here’s Yen Press’ blurb for the first volume:
“Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder! From elves to succubi to cyclopes and more, the Yoruno Gloss reviewers are here to rate the red-light delights of all manner of monster girls…The only thing is, they can never agree on which species are the hottest!”
They rate this series for mature audiences, and ComiXology recommends this for ages 17+ only.
So between that and looking at the cover (and, later, the anime’s promotional art),
there shouldn’t be any shadow of a doubt what kind of series Interspecies Reviewers is. (You can also read the rest of Helen’s Twitter thread above for more images and her review as well.) This is the kind of imagery that makes non-anime fans think that all anime is porn.
We live in a world where companies tend to jump on licenses. Nobody wants to be the one who misses out on The Next Big Thing. Interspecies Reviewers piqued Yen Press’ interest, and having the manga already available in English probably made the anime appealing to a couple of companies. Not to mention sexy monster girls, which is often a recipe for success. Funimation might have had additional interest because the studio, Passione, developed the final season of High School DxD (High School DxD Hero). That series is also licensed by Funimation and is also connected with KADOKAWA’s Dragon Age line. Looking at their Winter 2020 lineup, Interspecies Reviewers also probably helped fill the sexy/raunchy void in the season.
Plus, even if some of the license decision-makers had read the series or had talked to people who have, they might not have been prepared for the direction it went. It seems like the third episode — the last one Funimation made available before dropping the show — added some scenes. It may have pushed the envelope a little too far for Funimation and/or its parent company.
I’m sure some of you who are reading this are going, “It wasn’t any worse than the rest of the show!!” Maybe. I don’t know and I’m not going to find out. But what about episode four? What if it adds another level of raunchiness by adding some filler or elaborating on parts from the manga? One of the downsides of the modern anime world is that licensors are taking a chance. They already paid the money, and there’s no guarantee of the direction the series will take.
Some people blamed Sony and/or Aniplex, but yet some of their other owned platforms are continuing with the series, so that reason is suspect. There’s always the possibility that it was just explicit enough that some of the services/devices that host a Funimation app flagged the show, and keeping it would have caused the app to be removed or aged up. The added graphic content may also have prevented Funimation to be able to sell Blu-rays to outlets like Best Buy. Personally, this would be my guess.
Other viewers argue that Interspecies Reviewers is a shounen show. Dragon Age is classified as shounen, so its digital supplement could be considered shounen as well. But online webcomics tend to blend genres even more often than their magazine serialized cousins. It’s a good possibility that Interspecies Reviewers moved to the online portal because it was too racy otherwise.
And while demographics often give you a good baseline, even Japan is inconsistent on classifications. Kitchen Princess won an award for best children’s (kodomo) manga, but it was serialized in Nakayoshi, the magazine home to titles like Sailor Moon and Missions of Love, the latter of which is rated by Kodansha Comics USA as for OT (ages 16+). Manga like Horimiya and Inu x Boku SS often end up on favorite shoujo manga lists by mistake. NANA gets called josei.
So…yeah. The demographics aren’t perfect. However, because Japan and other countries have their own cultures, you could argue that these could be different demographics in other regions. Different countries have different standards and age ratings after all. (Let’s not get into how Japan’s gravure content and vending machine panties…) In fact, it seems like according to the Japanese Wikipedia, Interspecies Reviewers manages to stick with its shounen classification only because it uses euphemisms.
So maybe it gets classified as a shounen only because of technicalities or old laws. But even then, at least the TV station in Tokyo that aired the series either received complaints or objected to Interspecies Reviewers so that they ended up pulling the show as well.
A more common argument is that Funimation has raunchier content on their service. Again, this is going to be somewhat subjective. But while other series like Valkyrie Drive -Mermaid- or Hensuki: Are You Willing to Fall in Love with a Pervert, as Long as She’s a Cutie? also feature heavy fanservice, their cores are different. Strip away the sexiness, and one is about defeating a virus while the other is about a guy finding the girl who wrote him a love letter. Reduce Interspecies Reviewers down to its basic level, and it’s still going to be about sex workers. The subject matter likely means it gets more scrutiny than other ecchi anime. Yet you can even find comments on social media that Interspecies Reviewers is hentai.
Again, this goes back to being subjective. Go even look at articles like this, this, this, and this, and you can find tons of examples of movies that got away with lower MPAA ratings then they should have — and some that were rated for mature audiences for ridiculous reasons. Companies usually go “better safe than sorry”, but there is no perfect line that separates raunchiness for teens from strictly-for-adults content.
Lastly, lots of comments place blame on what they refer to as “SJWs”, “feminazis”, and the like, but I have not found any major or coordinated effort to remove Interspecies Reviewers. A lot of people disliked the anime and/or manga, but that’s not pressuring or an organized campaign.
The Future
Regardless, the series isn’t coming back to Funimation. So what happens now?
Well, unfortunately, it isn’t likely to be available to watch during or right after this season. Funimation would have paid the license money already, and the contract likely included rights for several years. Of course Funimation doesn’t want to hand over the rights so that someone else, like Sentai Filmworks, so they can snag Interspecies Reviewers and make money off of it, especially right in the middle of a controversy where people are likely to stream/buy it either out of curiosity now that it’s being talked about or as a way to wave their middle finger at Funimation. In fact, people seem to be reverse review bombing (vote brigading) Interspecies Reviewers on MyAnimeList. It’s currently ranked the #2 anime of all-time despite having fewer votes than the other top 10 listings. Not to mention all it isn’t until you get to #25 to find another show that’s currently airing, and even that one is actually a fourth season and not a brand-new show (Haikyu!! To The Top).
It is possible that the contract is something like x amount of yen for the first year and ¥y for each year after that for a maximum of, say, 5 years. In that case, it may be possible for it to be rescued in short order. Then a company would still need to arrange with the Japanese company, agree on a contract, and then get it ready for a US release. That could take a while, especially if a couple of companies are interested.
Could the production company seize the rights back? It’s possible but not probable in my opinion. I doubt “you must stream this or else!” is part of the deal. I’m sure they would like to have it streamed since it prevents people from going elsewhere, but it’s not like every anime each season gets streamed.
That being said, I understand why people would be upset. Having something cancelled in the middle is aggravating.
I’m sure fans would have rather had it locked and, say, only available on Funimation’s website if other platforms like Apple’s App Store restrictions were the issue. On the other hand, supporters of Interspecies Reviewers should not try to argue with a straight face that it’s a shounen show on the level of Fullmetal Alchemist — both in age appropriateness and in prestige — especially after three, maybe four episodes! C’mon. Go buy the manga, and if the anime is ever rescued, go buy it. It probably will be eventually.
That being said, once they decided that Interspecies Reviewers was no longer going to be on their service, Funimation should have known that this was potentially a PR disaster in the making. They should have come up with a more apologetic, sympathetic statement. Maybe something like this:
“We are sincerely sorry to our subscribers, but Interspecies Reviewers has become more graphic than we were anticipating. As such, we will no longer be showing this series. We understand fans of the show are disappointed. We hope to make changes in our licensing process to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. We will be crediting all current paid streaming accounts with 1 month of service as an apology.”
Put it on the website and e-mail everyone; don’t just remove it and then only issue statements once subscribers and news media are contacting you! Regardless of whether dropping Interspecies Reviewers was a bad or good business decision, they took a potentially understandable situation and made it seem sneaky and cold. With many anime watchers still upset with them regarding a certain other situation, for these fans (or trolls), this is another situation for them to offer up as proof that Funimation is not a good company. And that just means more divisions and online wars at a time when there are already too many.