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NEWS: Funimation Files Response to Vic Mignogna's Lawsuit


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FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 28 Oct 2018
Posts: 581
PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 2:56 am Reply with quote
Scion Drake wrote:
Puiu wrote:
I hope funimation gets neat into the ground by the end of this.


If "neat" means something along the lines of "taken down" then that's as unlikely to happen as pigs flying.

As if an entire corporation will be brought down by a simple court case with one man. To believe or hope that this will do them in is nonsensical.


Remember: Sony owns Funimation now.

Remember that episode of Spongebob Squarepants where Sandy was wrestling the Alaskan Bull Worm in a cave but it turns out she was only wrestling the tongue? Yeah, that's what Vic's doing; Funimation and Sony are very much vested in fighting off spurious lawsuits.
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Octorockandroll



Joined: 03 Apr 2015
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 3:10 am Reply with quote
KabaKabaFruit wrote:
No sympathies to Mignogna.

For once in his damn life, he's going to learn the meaning of karma and how it can seriously bite you in the ass down the road.

For the record, I've dealt with Mignogna's ego first-hand at C4 2012 in Winnipeg after asking for his opinion on the state of the anime industry only to have him say that he needed to make a phone call to which he left the table to which then his agent informed me that I can only be there to buy an autograph and nothing more.

So yeah, no sympathies.


Fellow Winnipegger here. I remember the year Vic came to C4 there were tons of stories and anecdotes exactly like that. People were talking about how he was dismissive and uncaring and just blew people off once it was clear they weren't going to spend any additional money on him. The only person I ever paid to meet at a con has been John Rhys Davies and even though I did only speak to him very briefly because I felt bad about holding up the line he was an absolute treasure to speak with and was exceptionably pleasant and cordial and when I spoke about it to my friends they all had the same things to say about him. It's such a huge gap in professionalism as a public figure tbh.
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ZiharkXVI



Joined: 29 Jan 2009
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 3:35 am Reply with quote
Am I alone in thinking the lawsuit is a good thing? I'm tired of random accusations without any court proceedings to actually determine if one side did something they shouldn't have done. Now we can follow the lawsuit and see what happens. Takes a bit more than accusations to make it through a court case. And lest anyone think I have a side - I don't. I just really hate these things being tossed into the realm of social media justice for either side.
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Puiu



Joined: 11 Jun 2007
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 4:34 am Reply with quote
Scion Drake wrote:
Puiu wrote:
Scion Drake wrote:
Puiu wrote:
I hope funimation gets neat into the ground by the end of this.


If "neat" means something along the lines of "taken down" then that's as unlikely to happen as pigs flying.

As if an entire corporation will be brought down by a simple court case with one man. To believe or hope that this will do them in is nonsensical.


Sorry, I was in the middle of editing my comment. You can now read the full uncensored version of my opinion on this topic.


I have and its just a different kind of nonsensical. Just as bad but a different kind of bad which includes a lack of proper understanding of the actual problem at hand.

Also Vic's not winning crap. Funi's going straight at him and the best he can do is reach some kind of settlement which is looking unlikely.

You are confusing public PR statements with what people actually do in court.
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bennyl



Joined: 06 Apr 2019
Posts: 123
PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 4:38 am Reply with quote
Hopefully some of these lawsuits will end the practice of extra judicial trials in the media and in the workplace. These companies and institutions who have bowed to social pressure to try to accumulate internet brownie points should not be taking sides in these matters. If a crime was committed, call the police. It is their job to sort it out. Not Funimation, not Oberlin College, and not the Daily Telegraph. Funimation had a perfectly legal response, they could have let him serve out his contract and never hired him again. They wouldn't have even had to give a reason. Instead they set themselves up to be judge, jury, and executioner in a sexual assault trial. They had better pray they made zero mistakes in their process.
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Scion Drake



Joined: 25 Nov 2017
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 4:43 am Reply with quote
Puiu wrote:

You are confusing public PR statements with what people actually do in court.


I don't know, considering the words used in the "pr statement", it gives a good idea of what they are planning to do.
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Mad_Scientist
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 5:57 am Reply with quote
bennyl wrote:
Hopefully some of these lawsuits will end the practice of extra judicial trials in the media and in the workplace. These companies and institutions who have bowed to social pressure to try to accumulate internet brownie points should not be taking sides in these matters. If a crime was committed, call the police. It is their job to sort it out. Not Funimation, not Oberlin College, and not the Daily Telegraph. Funimation had a perfectly legal response, they could have let him serve out his contract and never hired him again. They wouldn't have even had to give a reason. Instead they set themselves up to be judge, jury, and executioner in a sexual assault trial. They had better pray they made zero mistakes in their process.


A few points.

-The issue with Vic is a civil issue, not a criminal one, and if you had been following the case, or even bothered to simply read the article you are responding to, you'd know that.

-Funimation's statements regarding Vic never even mentioned sexual assault, and Vic is not on trial for anything. You are engaging in absurd hyperbole and misrepresenting what actually, factually, happened.

-Given that the reason you registered an account here was because a preview guide entry pissed you off so much you decided to make an account just so you could call the previewer mentally unstable, I'm somewhat disinclined to assume good faith from you. So I think it's very likely that you're not ignorant about the above two points, but deliberately lying and misrepresenting things.

-I'd strongly, strongly advise against doing that in the future.
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Vaisaga



Joined: 07 Oct 2011
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 6:13 am Reply with quote
Bennyl does have a point though. A lot of people supporting Vic aren't really his fans, but people who hate how our current culture is one that can ruin some one's life based on unsupported claims on Twitter. If Vic did such terrible things, his victims should have taken him to criminal court instead of posting about it on the internet. Everyone is entitled to due process but instead it's the court of public opinion that decides everything these days.
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ranran-001



Joined: 25 Oct 2018
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 6:37 am Reply with quote
Vaisaga wrote:
Bennyl does have a point though. A lot of people supporting Vic aren't really his fans, but people who hate how our current culture is one that can ruin some one's life based on unsupported claims on Twitter. If Vic did such terrible things, his victims should have taken him to criminal court instead of posting about it on the internet. Everyone is entitled to due process but instead it's the court of public opinion that decides everything these days.


Bennyl's "point" is outdated and comes from a mentality that victims never stay silent, or if they did, they deserve their attackers going unpunished. Bennyl's "point" has zero understanding of the nature of sexual assault.
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Vaisaga



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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 7:05 am Reply with quote
Trust me, I know all about that. A family member stayed quiet for 50 years about his abuse. But when it finally came out he didn't go public with it over social media. He got a lawyer and started the proper legal procedures to get compensation. Unfortunately his assailant has long been burning in hell so we can only go after the church now.

It takes a lot of courage to come forward and if you can muster the courage to post it publically you have the courage to go to the proper authorities. Yet despite all the stories of Vic's guilt no one has pressed criminal charges.
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Key
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 7:07 am Reply with quote
bennyl wrote:
Hopefully some of these lawsuits will end the practice of extra judicial trials in the media and in the workplace. These companies and institutions who have bowed to social pressure to try to accumulate internet brownie points should not be taking sides in these matters. If a crime was committed, call the police. It is their job to sort it out. Not Funimation, not Oberlin College, and not the Daily Telegraph. Funimation had a perfectly legal response, they could have let him serve out his contract and never hired him again. They wouldn't have even had to give a reason. Instead they set themselves up to be judge, jury, and executioner in a sexual assault trial. They had better pray they made zero mistakes in their process.

Pretty sure he wasn't under "contract" to begin with.

And I wouldn't get your hopes up. With the proliferation of social media over the past few years, what you're calling "extra judicial trials" is only going to get worse.
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Mad_Scientist
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 7:43 am Reply with quote
Vaisaga wrote:
Bennyl does have a point though. A lot of people supporting Vic aren't really his fans, but people who hate how our current culture is one that can ruin some one's life based on unsupported claims on Twitter. If Vic did such terrible things, his victims should have taken him to criminal court instead of posting about it on the internet. Everyone is entitled to due process but instead it's the court of public opinion that decides everything these days.


So, a few points.

-Did you miss my comment about how this is a civil issue right now? To clarify, a lot of what Vic has been accused of is behavior that is inappropriate, but not criminal. There's a difference. For example, if I'm at the grocery store checkout, and the checker suddenly starts screaming at me because they don't like the color of my shirt, and they insult me, belittle me, call me a piece of excrement, well that's extremely bad behavior. It probably warrants them being fired, or at least seriously admonished. And if it turns out this is repeat behavior, in fact they've been screaming and swearing at customers because they don't like the color of their shirts for DECADES, then yes, the NEED to be fired. And if, over the decades of them doing this, sometimes their victims had talked about it on social media, well, it's their own fault. But despite all that, they haven't committed any crime. Reporting them to the police would be meaningless.

-Some of the things Vic has been accused of could potentially be criminal, but you have to consider what accusing someone of criminal sexual assault entails. There are a LOT of reasons why victims are hesitant to accuse someone of that, such as the massive harassment that they'd be opening themselves up to.. And some of the stories would, if they went to court, be pretty much the definition of a "he said/she said" situation. The burden of proof in criminal court is "beyond all reasonable doubt", it's hard to meet that burden if you're talking about an incident that wasn't recorded and literally has only two witnesses to it, you, and the person you're accusing. And if you're pretty much certain that reporting the person will not result in any guilty conviction, it's easy to understand why you just wouldn't want to have to deal with the hell that would follow if you did report them.

-Vic's life wasn't ruined due to unsubstantiated claims on twitter. People have been making claims against Vic on Twitter and other social media sites for years and years, and it didn't ruin his life. It didn't result in him being dropped by Funimation or Rooster Teeth. The reason he was dropped, the reason his "life was ruined", was because eventually years worth of accusations against him led to some folks actually seriously investigating them. It led to substantiated claims against him, it led to articles on major sites like ANN, it led to voice actors publicly calling him out, and it led to internal investigations. And as a result of all that, some companies dropped him and he lost out on some conventions. But it wasn't just because someone happened to accuse him of something bad in a tweet. That badly distorts what actually happened.

-You are, though, in fact right that a lot of the folks supporting Vic now are not Vic fans. But I don't think that makes quite the point you think it makes. Some bad faith actors have co-opted the Vic case and used it as fuel in their "cultural war". That doesn't show the case has any merit, though, just that it's good fodder for generating outrage.
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Sad Petal



Joined: 17 Mar 2017
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 7:54 am Reply with quote
Vic may not have a future in voicing anime ever again but what's stopping him still getting work else where? Correct me if I'm wrong but Vic is a Non-Union actor. Say for example commercials for pepsi, restaurants or prescription drugs... I know non-union sessions usually offer lower pay but he'd still be lending his voice else where.

I wouldn't say his career is totally over. I'm not sure about taxes and legal stuff but can't he setup a bank account and work under a pseudonym and receive checks under that name legally?

Nevertheless, he has an uphill battle against Funimation.
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Spastic Minnow
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 8:27 am Reply with quote
Vaisaga wrote:
CelestialEmpress wrote:
So like, best case scenario is he's just an innocent middle aged man who repeatedly kisses underage girls without permission. That is...also really not a good thing. I'd argue that kind of thing absolutely should get someone blacklisted from attending cons, especially as a guest who's being paid to be there and interact with fans. "Keep your mouth off of the teenage girls, Vic!" seems like some common sense that shouldn't need to be explained to a grown adult. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


Maybe I'm just old but I remember a time when it was "common sense" that a hug and a peck on the cheek was a purely innocent gesture. Times change, and he should have gotten a warning to stop rather than jump straight to "let's cut all ties."

(Removed the "jelly bean" stuff. --Crisha)


But it IS a different time. And I'm a bit old myself so I remember quite clearly the decades of warnings I and everyone else has gotten over the years. Every job training I've had from Hardees fry cook to my yearly professional training for the State of Florida includes clear warnings and rules against sexual harassment and improper behavior.

Vic has been warned, you have been warned, EVERYONE has been warned. All that's really happening in the #metoo era is that people are finally actually backing up those warnings and the zero tolerance is, in my opinion, well justified. the ladies simply should not have to stand for it any more.
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faboo95



Joined: 28 Dec 2014
Posts: 94
PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 8:36 am Reply with quote
ZiharkXVI wrote:
Am I alone in thinking the lawsuit is a good thing? I'm tired of random accusations without any court proceedings to actually determine if one side did something they shouldn't have done. Now we can follow the lawsuit and see what happens. Takes a bit more than accusations to make it through a court case. And lest anyone think I have a side - I don't. I just really hate these things being tossed into the realm of social media justice for either side.


Amen to this, I couldn't agree more.
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