Contrary to many anime fans’ hopes, the fanatical, totalitarian Cult that’s usurped pop culture isn’t letting a little thing like an ocean get in the way of their conquest.
Funimation, the American dubbing and distribution house that made news last year thanks to a defamation lawsuit brought against them by voice actor Vic Mignogna, now has a seat on the production committee of three anime series slated for 2020.
Funimation is listed on the production committee for three titles during the Winter 2020 season: Hatena Illusion, ID: INVADED and Plunderer. They’ve also been on the anime production committee for titles like Fruits Basket (2019), Fire Force and Dimension W.
Due to the work they’ve done and the strong relationships the company has built with Japanese partners in licensing shows from them, they were invited to participate on these committees to help fund these productions directly.
Instead of simply licensing the rights to a finished show (as companies usually do), Funimation is now able to take part ownership of some titles directly when bringing them to the rest of the world. There’s no fear about losing the rights to these shows either; they are here to stay in the Funimation library in perpetuity. Conversely, Funimation is trusted by the rest of the committee to use their international expertise to better market the show to foreign viewers and provide more detailed input to the other Japanese companies regarding what fans abroad would like to see. It’s a win-win.
For fans, this kind of access means the ability for international partners to collaborate with creators on things like key visuals, PVs and exclusive behind-the-scenes content. For example, co-productions between Funimation and KADOKAWA have led to new key visuals for titles like ID: INVADED and Plunderer. This access can also sometimes allow for faster subtitling and dubbing production, leading to an increase in the number of “day and date” simulcasts/SimulDubs which air within 24 hours of Japan’s initial TV broadcast.
Anime is no longer focused solely on the Japanese market. Japanese companies are looking to foreign fans’ interest in titles more than ever before to increase the financial return on their investment as well as allow them to reinvest that money into new productions of ever higher animation quality. This means that subscriptions to Funimation and purchases of home video releases, digital downloads, and merchandise supervised by Funimation will help creators in Japan more directly than having a finished title licensed as-is would.
And while it’s only been a handful of titles in the past, there’s a future where Funimation and companies like it are on the production committee for more and more shows. The more involved they get in helping these shows resonate around the world, the stronger these relationships grow, and the more people get to experience the brilliance of anime. That’s a future we’re here for!
It’s not exaggerating to say that anime’s fortunes are now tied to overseas markets. The industry has been stagnating in Japan as foreign markets, including the US, increasingly account for the lion’s share of anime studios’ business.
This chart pretty much means that bringing foreign collaborators in on the anime production process was inevitable. Unfortunately, the American collaborators the anime studios chose are infamous for injecting Death Cult agitprop into the series they handle. And if the Mignogna affair is any indication, they’ve got a major hate on for Christians.
Non-Cultist anime fans are well advised to learn from the fall of print sci fi, comics, movies, TV, and games. Skip the first four stages of grieving and go straight to acceptance. Dodge the nostalgia trap. Understand that the hobby you loved in your youth is gone, and it isn’t coming back anytime soon. Ripping the band-aid off will spare you the long-term pain and humiliation of getting jerked around by the Pop Cult.
There are thousands upon thousands of hours of unpozzed entertainment at your fingertips–including classic anime, plus new indie movies, music, and books. Many of them are available for free or at bargain prices.
I knew it was coming eventually but This is sad to see. Though one could argue the genre had fallen into decadence and decay long beforehand. It will not effect me much since I prefer older works but still another nail in the coffin.
Anime died in 1999.
Ironically, that is about when I (re)discovered it, after having loved Robotech as a little kid. I didn't get all of the weirdness of the series. All a little boy needs to know is "the hover tank is also a robot," after all. My wife and I still love studio Ghibli, but I have to admit that Isao Takahata and Goro Miyazaki can't fill Miyazaki-san's shoes.
To be a bit snarky, is that when bleach and naruto started?
It was when every anime studio switched from cell animation to all computer-generated animation, and everybody forgot how to color.
Naruto started airing in 2002 & Bleach in 2006.
Yup, I have no reason to alter my prediction.
Five years seems about right.
This does not surprise me, honestly. Christians have always been a small minority in Japan. The Catholic Church was suppressed during the Tokugawa Shogunate. The "hidden Christians" did not resurface again until 1865. The Western Death Cult infecting and co-opting the mass media of a fundamentally pagan nation constitutes death cult cross-contamination, I think, and frankly makes the resulting "japanimation" less Japanese. The Japanese have their own character, culture, hang-ups, and misapprehensions. Injecting the Death Cults' hang-ups and misapprehensions renders the product inauthentic. All error is lamentable, but error that's not even part of the indigenous culture somehow seems even more so.
Good points.
Anyone who's shocked by this turn of events must have been turning a blind eye to the weeb scene's endemic degeneracy.
The problem in one word: hentai
That's a symptom of the society-wide spiritual disease JD mentioned.
Good point. The hedonism is upstream of the hentai.
Unfortunately, there isn't anything we can do about this aside from not supporting Funimation. This is entirely on the Japanese to fight it off, but even in video games their "global standards" obsession is affecting their output. See making Jill Valentine in the Resident Evil 3 remake look exactly like Lara Croft from the failed Tomb Raider reboots, or Tifa's breast size being pointlessly reduced in the FFVII remake. Then there's Sony's takeover by California.
I know there is a surge of otaku in Japan aware of what is going, and even know SJW-types are not a majority, but at this stage there is little they can do. They need the numbers, and that requires marrying and having kids. It requires a whole shift from what they currently are.
It's going to be interesting to see here this goes.
Last week, I was watching Gator live stream the RE 3 demo, and it was striking how shit Jill's character model looked.
JD
I'm skeptical the Japanese will change the society. They're still wedded to overwork for men and severely limiting women's agency.
They'll be overwhelmed by the SJW wave as there's nothing in the contemporary culture acting as a serious alternative
xavier
You can see the flickers of Japan wavering between convergence and in continuing where they were going. It's not unlike the skeptic Vs SJW battle we had here a few years ago.
However, their descent into hedonism is precisely what led to this in the first place, much like it was here.
If Japan is going to fight back it basically means overhauling everything they've become. But that can be said about the modern world as a whole. We've been living in a burned out rotting husk since the end of WWII. Times are changing, whether we wish it to or not.
Japan at its heart as a place where tradition is what matters most. They are soon going to have to decide what that tradition is, and what it truly means to them.
Sitting around in tiny apartments after working 18 hours a day and going to comiket instead of building a family is not sustainable.
Heck, the whole reason the anime industry began targeting overseas audiences again is because they can't support their own industries.
It was always going to be this way. Shusaku Endo called Japan a swamp that merely swallows everything around it without taking a glance at what they're even taking. They are the original consoomers.
But it can't be this way forever. I think more of them know it than will say it, at this juncture.
That's the thing about Modernism: You can choose to do an overhaul now and step away from it like Orban's doing, or you'll have to do an overhaul after it ruins your society.
It's a surprise something like In/Spectre got made with Western money.
The other revolt is if the Latin American countries leave anime for other sources of entertainment. And many of those rabid fans are upset at Funimation for blocking releases in their countries.
Funimation is just getting their foot in the door. They're not going to rock the boat yet. Fire Force has a lot of things in it I'm sure caused them to nearly bite their tongues off being quiet.
Thankfully, however, their projects as a whole just don't seem to be taking off.
I wish that chart were more readable (on Brave at least). It would also be more useful if Japan were present as a baseline.
While this is very bad news, The fact that anime contracts are so spread about the world may provide the industry with some immunity. Funimation has an interest, but America and Western SJWs are in no position to seize a controlling interest. We're going to see the poz spread, but we'll also see backlash from non-Western fans. Too hard to say with confidence how this will play out.
That being said, the way to beat the Enemy, as always, is to be baptised, marry, have kids, and raise them up in God's ways. Since this attack is on a foreign shore, that is primarily the responsibility of Japanese otaku on this front.
Sad but true. Hard to see all of this happen in succession.
-George
Easy is over.
I hear that. What's right is never easy. And what's easy is always never right.
Here's to hoping Corona-chan crashes Funi's parent company before they finish the job. It won't solve the threat, but it will buy time to get the underlying weeb culture issues forced out into the open before they come again.
In short, the rabbits in Weebland need to be driven out.
I'll drink to that!