This Week in Anime
SonyFuniCrunchyKadoRoll
by Coop Bicknell & Lucas DeRuyter,
Lucas and Coop dissect the SONY/Kadokawa deal and try to sort out what's going on with Crunchyroll.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.
@RiderStrike
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@BWProwl
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@LucasDeRuyter
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@vestenet
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Hey Coop! It looks like Christmas came early this year! Sony only bought 10% of KADOKAWA (our current corporate overlords) by increasing their stock shares. Some reporting came out of Bloomberg that suggests something is rotten in the state of Crunchyroll (which is also owned by Sony), which vindicates industry-minded otaku like us who have been concerned about the choices made at the go-to anime streaming platform.
However, getting to this point was a week-long ODYSSEY, that stirred up a lot of feelings, dread, and discourse. How are you handling it all, and are you ready to dig into these anime industry developments?
I'll tell you this, Lucas... The past month and change have been AGONIZING. Considering the wide-ranging, multiple industry implications of such a proposed buyout, it'd be a tall order for folks not to be on edge. Especially when it would directly impact most, if not all of our colleagues across the anime and manga industries (including both of us). Needless to say, the news that it was just a share increase was a breath of relief.
But with that specific sort of existential dread quelled for the moment, I'm ready to look back on this odyssey with you...including how it was covered by our colleagues from non-anime-focused outlets, where you've got a bit of experience.
Sony wouldn't have to buy all of KADOKAWA to get first dibs on the publisher's best IP. Sony always could have pitched the company on why their studios are the best fit to turn those words into anime or video games, but Sony buying up KADOKAWA shares and being able to vote on high-level company decisions makes that a more surefire and expedited process.
The second thing was actually a stellar bit of reporting from IGN, which revealed that Sony was likely too cash-poor to buy KADOKAWA outright. This means that I'll forever be able to joke about Concord costing Sony their chance at owning all of KADOKAWA's nerd shit.
A great nugget in that IGN article referred to Sony's alleged desire to carve out the gaming and anime parts of KADOWAKA's business. When you consider that KADOKAWA is a juggernaut in the world of book publishing, I could see someone at Sony saying, "We have no idea how to run a book business... We just want the anime adaptations of those books."
However, in that same nugget, another key factor was brought up:
"Sony, however, is reportedly only interested in 'extracting' assets related to anime and video games, which presumably includes the developer of Elden Ring."
Despite the due diligence of IGN's reporting, talk of Elden Ring, Dark Souls, and FromSoftware quickly dominated the conversation across many gaming outlets and influencers. It wasn't in a way that interrogated the potential effects on the studio either; it was more about potential products that could arise from the purchase. Like additional Bloodborne material and ports.
In fairness, the good folks over at the independent games outlet Remap Radio did sniff out pretty quickly that this potential buyout was more about the anime opportunities than the game possibilities, and the games journalists I talked to about this were pretty open in not knowing enough about the anime industry to write about that angle confidently.
However, I'm in a Discord server with at least a dozen writers who could cover the (pretty obvious) impact this acquisition would have had on the anime industry with immense confidence. The fact that every major gaming outlet that I saw cover this couldn't tap any prominent anime writer to tackle this story in a freelance capacity was a pretty constant source of frustration for me. I get they wanted to meet their gaming audience where they're at with this news, but we all know there's never been more overlap in the Gamer-Otaku Venn diagram, and I personally think a de facto monopoly developing in an adjacent industry is more interesting and important to report on than how this impacts FromSoftware.
More than anything else, it downright pisses me off to see SEO-focused content mills not even attempting to properly cover this. Hell, even after we learned that Sony's only upping their shares to 10%, more than one outlet reported that the rumored buyout was going through.
The biggest issue specifically lies in those misleading headlines.
Rise up, anime writers! Clearly, there's growing opportunity and demand for quality coverage in this space!
I'll also make this clear while we're here, our criticism (although admittedly heated at times) comes from a place of concern for the friends, family, and colleagues who have made this industry (and community overall) wonderful to be a part of. We're not trying to stir the pot for a pedantic reason.
The article notes instances of internal strife as new, top-level leadership at Crunchyroll is growingly less familiar with the global anime fan community, and that the anime streamer is unlikely to meet their subscriber goals by the end of next year. While I draw no pleasure from this news, I, and I think a lot of other anime pundits, feel a sense of vindication. After all, Crunchyroll has felt less and less like a platform created by anime fans, for anime fans since Sony's purchase of the competing streaming platform.
Bloomberg's reporting, combined with new stories from industry veterans, paint the current Crunchyroll as a company that has totally eschewed the balance between traditional business types and passionate professionals. It's important to have a handful of people around who aren't as attached in order to maintain an even keel, but walking in with a "we're the real adults in the room" approach to the entire business is stifling.
Not to mention the gross incompetence of those "real adults" who've ended up fracturing key business relationships in the process.
It's no wonder that companies like TOHO have said, "screw it, I'll do it myself."
I know a fair number of people who work at Crunchyroll, so I want to say upfront that I hope things at the company improve in a way that both allows them to keep having steady employment and for the overall anime industry and community to thrive. However, this confirmation of out-of-touch leadership really makes a lot of the baffling decisions at CR as of late click into place. Like their removal of adult goods and safe shipping considerations for collectibles following their purchase of Right Stuf. You only make those changes if you're more concerned with a balance sheet than meeting the needs of the community you cater to.
While this mentality does clash with pretty much all of my personal values, what makes it so frustrating for me is that people who do not care about this art form can make it more difficult for me to experience it by making dumb mistakes. I know that Crunchyroll's a long way from going belly up and that other distributors will scoop up most of CR's contracts if that does happen, but the fact that people who do not care about nor understand anime could easily stifle my ability to access the medium is kinda depressing.
Then again, there's still a bunch of time for Crunchyroll to course correct, and every professional anime opinion haver I know (pictured above) including myself has VERY reasonable consulting rates! If anyone out there wants to know anything about the anime community and how to make money off of anime fans, we got you covered!
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