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NEWS: Bandai Channel to Stream Anime in U.S., Eurasia at Start of 2010

Gundam as a whole has been dead for years.

bayoab wrote:

Gundam as a whole has been dead for years.

Is this the same Gundam that monopolises Newtype covers, multi-page articles and character polls with annoying regularity?

Quark wrote:

It's good that these fans are now getting a chance to watch anime online, for free, and 100% legally. Let's hope this catches on with other companies.

Who said it would be free?

Desperate move by a company on the cusp of collapse?

I love how it doesn't specify if America, means North America, or the United States Of America (considering the News Title, I suspect it'll be the later). So, once again Bandai flips the bird to Canada?

[Therefore if I do your thinking for you, you'll shut up then?

That means only the latest anime series deserve the Blu-ray treatment from Bandai, even when they're not that good.

Did I sound like I care for what's new from the Gundam franchise to you, when what's new in the Gundam franchise from Bandai doesn't automatically means it's gonna be good?

Show me someone who can convince another person using the internet without them actually knew each other in real life, and I'll show you two people who don't get out much.

Is that a lot of English-speaking people by a majority, or just anime fans who prefer voice acting of a foreign language?

So Bandai's best effort at managing their contents online, is the worst case scenario that a Gundam fan like yourself can ever hope for. That's you putting a lot of faith into Bandai wasting everyone's time.

Do they also come with localization like official language dubs, or is this strictly anime fans' only due to the sub-only treatment?

Words alone don't carry human emotions, especially when Japanese aren't known for being emotional.

You can read my words in this post, but you can't tell my emotional state when I wrote this reply. That's the single weakness of all text based communications, and subbed only anime is no exception.

I want Bandai to put more care into their contents by putting some real effort in post productions, not just treat them like some internet rental peep shows. The rest is all up to the fans on how they interact with the said contents. If they don't facilitate interactions among people outside of the fan base with the medias, then that's their loss.

samuelp wrote:

Quark wrote: It's good that these fans are now getting a chance to watch anime online, for free, and 100% legally. Let's hope this catches on with other companies. Who said it would be free?

Not according to him at least, but it's typical that someone just jumps to conclusion when he's not listening and therefore closed-minded.

DomFortress wrote:

Therefore if I do your thinking for you, you'll shut up then?

It's unfortunate that you take offense at me asking you to defend your own opinions, but I won't apologize for that. Well, the rest is relatively civil, so I'll try starting fresh.

I happen to think Gundam 00 is one of the best installments in the franchise. Unicorn, meanwhile, is in the midst of UC continuity but could stand fairly well on its own. We'll see. Though now that you mention it, actually, it's the newer shows that have been broadcast in HD and would really shine for a Blu-Ray release. Besides, what's the alternative? Mobile Suit Gundam or Zeta Gundam on Blu-Ray? I like older shows like those, but good luck selling that in the U.S. Maybe if they remastered the MSG movies and did something about licensing the Zeta movie trilogy, something could be done ideally. But not for an old series.

I'm honestly always amused at comments like that, as if some futile attempt is being made to forbid anyone ever changing their opinion online. If that's your point of view, why bother reading or writing anything online?

Actually, the worst case scenario would have been them doing nothing, continuing on with an old status quo.

We may have a misunderstanding here in that you may think I'm a sub-only guy who will take anything so long as it's subbed. Not really. I prefer dubs and I discovered anime through 1990's dubs that would make purist otaku cringe, but I digress.

As for localized dubs, well, we simply don't know if Bandai Channel will ever have any yet. In the case of a future simulcast like Unicorn, however, subs are the option you take if you want the world to see it ASAP. Dubs can come later, but one of the biggest advantages to the online streaming venture is the potential to bring shows to viewers in little to no time. If your point is that all this is meaningless without dubs then I disagree, and that kind of thing is just about impossible to do. No one expects FUNimation to have episodes of FMA Brotherhood dubbed four days after it's aired in Japan.

But if this venture is a precusor to dubbed releases in some or all those different languages, then there you go. Everybody wins. We'll see.

I'd have to disagree. I prefer dubs, and I'd agree that usually your average fan can't appreciate the quality (or lack thereof) of Japanese acting and therefore isn't well equipped to elevate Japanese acting above English acting. But to me the issue with subs isn't the inability to interpret emotion, far from it--unlike most text-based communication, we watch subs while also hearing the Japanese voice acting and viewing the expressions of the characters. For me it's about being able to devote 100% attention to what's happening on the screen, and also the fact that I identify with my native language. But if there's something I want to watch and it has to be subtitles, then I don't let that stop me and I can follow it fine if I need to.

I think it's far too early to criticize the amount of effort being put into this. And as I said before, the minimal amount of effort would have been not doing this at all, having people not living in Japan wait at least a year before having the chance to watch shows via any legitimate means. I wouldn't call that any sort of victory. Ultimately, you may be right that this isn't perfect. But we may yet see news of dubs, and either way fans shouldn't make the perfect the enemy of the good. At the least it's progress, and I'm glad to see it.

Further chasing down the ANN article on Bandai's streaming of the Tamagotchi thing suggests that Dutch and Portuguese are possibilities, and that English dubs are not necessarily out of the question.