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NEWS: Aniplex USA to Stream The irregular at magic high school, Mushishi: The Next Chapter

So Aniplex did indeed to snag Mushi-Shi for themselves. Expected, but still very disappointing.

Just wait until they license the new Black Butler season themselves and put it out sub-only. The fangirl rage will be catastrophic.

SpacemanHardy wrote:

Just wait until they license the new Black Butler season themselves and put it out sub-only. The fangirl rage will be catastrophic.

I seriously doubt the latter would happen.

I don't believe Aniplex ever announced a Blu-Ray release of Mushishi season one. The Blu-Rays in Japan are just an upscale though, so you're not going to miss out on a huge leap in quality compared to the Funimation DVDs. I do hope that Aniplex releases the second season on Blu-Ray though, it would be a pity for it to only have a DVD release.

If Aniplex holds the international license (like they did with the first 2 series) then it's entirely possible.

Aniplex JP has pretty much stopped licensing to other R1 distributors since Spring 2012.
Everything that they've held the international license for past that point has been an AoA license.

I'm well aware that the BD box released in Japan is an upscale, but even an upscale will be a level up in quality, and i'm all for highest quality, especially with a series like Mushishi .

Yeah, I should have been clear. I referring to the fact the new Black Butler not getting a dub.

Didn't that series do well for FUNimation?

Just wait until they license the new Black Butler season themselves and put it out sub-only. The fangirl rage will be catastrophic.

Chalk up four more series to the IP protectorate masquerading as a licensor otherwise known as Aniplex of America.

AoA's primary objective is not to make money from the United States, that is merely a secondary objective. Their job is to prevent Aniplex's properties from being reverse-imported into Japan in order to protect the comparatively larger profits from the home country. Yeah, they'll go through the motions of being a licensor because they do want the sales they can get here. But their releases have gotten progressively worse and worse in audio and visual quality, even on BD, to the point Crunchyroll is offering better resolution and bitrates than the releases themselves.

In other words, effectively renting the product through a stream is a better deal for the consumer than buying the physical release. This doesn't make much sense until you realize what AoA is. Does it make any sense to release new seasons of Black Butler sub-only when the original dubbed sets by FUNimation by all accounts sold pretty well? Not from a profit perspective, no.

Many of AoA's dubs wouldn't have even been made without someone else footing the bill. Viz paid for Blue Exorcist, Fate/ZERO, and Magi to get dubbed. Only Madoka, DRRR!!, and possibly SAO had dubs intentionally made.

Will AoA gladly take your money? Of course. Plus without having a middleman like FUNimation releasing the product, Aniplex gets every penny of the sale. But that is not their primary objective. Their primary objective is to protect the home market of Japan. And they do that very well.

And yes, this rant is from a bitter Mushi-Shi fan who knows he won't have the money to afford buying the new season. So I admit there's some nerdrage going on here.