Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

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Re: Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

Post by Dbzfan94 » Sun Oct 29, 2017 5:11 pm

KBABZ wrote:
More on-topic, a redub of Z doesn't make much financial sense atm. Anyone who has supported Funimation's releases of the show thus far has no problem with it, and Z is an enormous show to go back and redo something, even if it's one facet like the dubbing. Funimation has a large enough task as it is trying to sell all sixteen "seasons" of the total show (DB, Z and GT). Kai at least was a new product and release from Toei and it was half the length of the previous Z content, and the editing of the scenes means that dialogue won't make much sense, either from a pure script perspective or a "this character is performing like he didn't just say the last sentence" perspective.

I consider Kai to be a re-edit of Z because Z is the base format and is what the footage and the majority of the script originates from; you wouldn't consider the Final Cut of Blade Runner to be as different to the original as G1 Transformers and Prime are. This is why I much prefer FUNi's name scheme of adding the Z, just that one letter helps contextualize what Kai is to nearly everybody without having to spend two paragraphs explaining what it is in its absence. Plus, I honestly don't think any scriptwriter would want to have to put filler into what they're working on, so I view Kai almost as a "if Toei didn't have to do filler and then FUNi dubbed it with authenticity" version of Z.

(on a personal note, I heavily disagree with Toei's insistence on treating Kai like a new show in regards to the presentation like the music and re-animated shots. It's an old show and they should have embraced that)
My thoughts exactly. :thumbup:

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Re: Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

Post by Theophrastus » Sun Oct 29, 2017 7:28 pm

KBABZ wrote:More on-topic, a redub of Z doesn't make much financial sense atm. Anyone who has supported Funimation's releases of the show thus far has no problem with it, and Z is an enormous show to go back and redo something, even if it's one facet like the dubbing. Funimation has a large enough task as it is trying to sell all sixteen "seasons" of the total show (DB, Z and GT). Kai at least was a new product and release from Toei and it was half the length of the previous Z content, and the editing of the scenes means that dialogue won't make much sense, either from a pure script perspective or a "this character is performing like he didn't just say the last sentence" perspective.
Pretty much. It's not as if they aren't physically capable of going back and re-dubbing all 508 episodes of DB+Z+GT, but the sheer amount of time, money, and effort that would be required to do that makes it an unattractive option.

Like...it took them 8 years to dub and release that many episodes of One Piece on DVD. Granted there were some licensing delays involved there, but even removing that factor you're still probably looking at 5-6 years minimum. That would be a huge commitment for a re-dub that most of the modern audience probably wouldn't be interested in to begin with (especially not at the $40 per 13 episodes that they would almost certainly charge for such a release in stores).

Even if it was just DB+GT, that's still 217 episodes. They could dub 10-15 brand new series in the time it would take to do that.

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Re: Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

Post by KBABZ » Sun Oct 29, 2017 8:17 pm

Theophrastus wrote:Pretty much. It's not as if they aren't physically capable of going back and re-dubbing all 508 episodes of DB+Z+GT, but the sheer amount of time, money, and effort that would be required to do that makes it an unattractive option.

Like...it took them 8 years to dub and release that many episodes of One Piece on DVD. Granted there were some licensing delays involved there, but even removing that factor you're still probably looking at 5-6 years minimum. That would be a huge commitment for a re-dub that most of the modern audience probably wouldn't be interested in to begin with (especially not at the $40 per 13 episodes that they would almost certainly charge for such a release in stores).

Even if it was just DB+GT, that's still 217 episodes. They could dub 10-15 brand new series in the time it would take to do that.
Yeah. DBZ is probably quite inconvenient for Funimation in some ways: it's too big to let go since it's their premiere product, and yet it's extremely hard and costly to actually capitalize on all of it, which is probably why the Orange Bricks and the Blu-Ray sets exist. They must have been praising their lucky stars when Super came out so that they had new, more piecemeal content to work with!

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Re: Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

Post by Bardo117 » Tue Oct 31, 2017 11:14 am

Say goodbye to streaming episodes on XBOX Live lol
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Re: Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

Post by Robo4900 » Tue Oct 31, 2017 3:56 pm

KBABZ wrote:Yeah. DBZ is probably quite inconvenient for Funimation in some ways: it's too big to let go since it's their premiere product, and yet it's extremely hard and costly to actually capitalize on all of it, which is probably why the Orange Bricks and the Blu-Ray sets exist. They must have been praising their lucky stars when Super came out so that they had new, more piecemeal content to work with!
Except they spent a lot more on the Orange Bricks than they needed to; they could have easily just re-released the DVD single footage(Maybe with better encoding), boxed them up into "Seasons", priced them similarly to the "Season" DVDs we got, but maybe even lower given the fact it'd be a much cheaper release to put together, and the fans would have loved it. Instead, they went through the hassle of transferring film, cropping it, filtering it, etc. all in high-def, despite DVD only being a standard-def format, and commercial attitudes on releases shifting away from cropping around that time. It was terrible.

And don't even get me started on the Blu-Rays.
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Re: Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

Post by KBABZ » Tue Oct 31, 2017 7:19 pm

Robo4900 wrote:Except they spent a lot more on the Orange Bricks than they needed to; they could have easily just re-released the DVD single footage(Maybe with better encoding), boxed them up into "Seasons", priced them similarly to the "Season" DVDs we got, but maybe even lower given the fact it'd be a much cheaper release to put together, and the fans would have loved it. Instead, they went through the hassle of transferring film, cropping it, filtering it, etc. all in high-def, despite DVD only being a standard-def format, and commercial attitudes on releases shifting away from cropping around that time. It was terrible.

And don't even get me started on the Blu-Rays.
Well ya got me there. Maybe they figured it was worth it simply for the marketing of how much "better" the show is after they "removed" all the grain and cropped it to widescreen from an HD master. Unfortunately, they were right.

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Re: Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

Post by Robo4900 » Tue Oct 31, 2017 7:26 pm

KBABZ wrote:Well ya got me there. Maybe they figured it was worth it simply for the marketing of how much "better" the show is after they "removed" all the grain and cropped it to widescreen from an HD master. Unfortunately, they were right.
I mean, they don't even really have that going for them; there was very little grain on the DVD single masters anyway, and they could have easily degrained that and just said "DIGITALLY REMASTERED!" to the same effect. Again, DVD is standard definition, and a lot of people still had 4:3 TVs back then.
Let's face it, though -- the only reason the Orange Bricks sold at all was because of the price.
There was also the fact that, since Ultimate Uncut was cancelled, it was the only way to own the whole run, but even if that had been completed, again, the price would have meant everyone would still have bought at least season 3 onwards.
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Re: Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

Post by KBABZ » Tue Oct 31, 2017 7:34 pm

Robo4900 wrote:I mean, they don't even really have that going for them; there was very little grain on the DVD single masters anyway, and they could have easily degrained that and just said "DIGITALLY REMASTERED!" to the same effect.
Unless those versions were in a rights snarl with Pioneer? Maybe? (not that knowledgeable on the subject, sorry)
Robo4900 wrote:Let's face it, though -- the only reason the Orange Bricks sold at all was because of the price.
That and the release format. Even for a series only seven episodes per season like, say, Red Dwarf, having to buy it two episodes at a time feels like a massive pain in the butt. At least with a Season by Season format (or as close as Dragon Ball can get to that) it takes a lot less time to actually get everything and is overall much more convenient.

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Re: Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

Post by Choujin Daizenshuu » Wed Nov 01, 2017 1:15 am

KBABZ wrote:Yeah. DBZ is probably quite inconvenient for Funimation in some ways: it's too big to let go since it's their premiere product, and yet it's extremely hard and costly to actually capitalize on all of it, which is probably why the Orange Bricks and the Blu-Ray sets exist. They must have been praising their lucky stars when Super came out so that they had new, more piecemeal content to work with!
For a show that was hard and costly, it sure had quite a steady stream of singles releases from '99 to '06. I'm sure FUNimation was accustomed to the struggle and the costs but then decided it was just better to release the show in Orange Brick sets anyway.

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Re: Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

Post by KBABZ » Wed Nov 01, 2017 5:31 pm

Choujin Daizenshuu wrote:For a show that was hard and costly, it sure had quite a steady stream of singles releases from '99 to '06. I'm sure FUNimation was accustomed to the struggle and the costs but then decided it was just better to release the show in Orange Brick sets anyway.
Probably. With a big Season Set you can make a big deal about each one, rather than trying to hype up single episode releases.

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Re: Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

Post by Choujin Daizenshuu » Wed Nov 01, 2017 6:07 pm

KBABZ wrote:Probably. With a big Season Set you can make a big deal about each one, rather than trying to hype up single episode releases.
Yeah. Just make sure you're not one of those unfortunate "supporters" who believed that singles releases were the only releases that will ever be for something like DBZ.

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Re: Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

Post by KBABZ » Wed Nov 01, 2017 6:49 pm

Choujin Daizenshuu wrote:
KBABZ wrote:Probably. With a big Season Set you can make a big deal about each one, rather than trying to hype up single episode releases.
Yeah. Just make sure you're not one of those unfortunate "supporters" who believed that singles releases were the only releases that will ever be for something like DBZ.
Not exactly sure what you're referring to here...?

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Re: Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

Post by Theophrastus » Wed Nov 01, 2017 6:57 pm

I think they're implying that they bought the DVD singles back in the day and felt burned when the Season box sets started coming out.

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Re: Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

Post by Choujin Daizenshuu » Thu Nov 02, 2017 1:13 am

Theophrastus wrote:I think they're implying that they bought the DVD singles back in the day and felt burned when the Season box sets started coming out.
Bingo!

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Re: Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

Post by Robo4900 » Thu Nov 02, 2017 12:07 pm

I don't think the DVD single fans would feel quite so burned if it wasn't for Funimation's handling of Ultimate Uncut.

If they'd finished Ultimate Uncut, you'd have the entire 291-episode run with both Funimation's uncut dub, and the original Japanese audio with Steve Simmons subtitles, all in the full 4:3 frame.
As it is, they cut the DVD single-buyers short with only episodes 1-27 and 68-291... Not a very nice thing to do, TBH.
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Re: Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

Post by Choujin Daizenshuu » Thu Nov 02, 2017 6:07 pm

Robo4900 wrote:I don't think the DVD single fans would feel quite so burned if it wasn't for Funimation's handling of Ultimate Uncut.

If they'd finished Ultimate Uncut, you'd have the entire 291-episode run with both Funimation's uncut dub, and the original Japanese audio with Steve Simmons subtitles, all in the full 4:3 frame.
As it is, they cut the DVD single-buyers short with only episodes 1-27 and 68-291... Not a very nice thing to do, TBH.
Here's a little known fact:

There is no mandate to being "nice" in business. The job of a businessman is to make money and save money. Even if such business methods prove to be controversial and polarizing to the customers, if the business makes money, that's all that matters. Who cares if your feelings get hurt?

That's how FUNimation operates with the Dragon Ball property. Gen Fukunaga doesn't give a damn about what the humble anime fans think. He knows he has a powerhouse property that can give his company money and that is what Dragon Ball Z will be seen as for the foreseeable future.

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Re: Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

Post by Robo4900 » Thu Nov 02, 2017 8:13 pm

Choujin Daizenshuu wrote:Here's a little known fact:

There is no mandate to being "nice" in business. The job of a businessman is to make money and save money. Even if such business methods prove to be controversial and polarizing to the customers, if the business makes money, that's all that matters. Who cares if your feelings get hurt?

That's how FUNimation operates with the Dragon Ball property. Gen Fukunaga doesn't give a damn about what the humble anime fans think. He knows he has a powerhouse property that can give his company money and that is what Dragon Ball Z will be seen as for the foreseeable future.
Okay, but they would have spent less if they'd used the Digibeta footage like they did on the singles and Ultimate Uncuts instead of doing a new film transfer, meaning they would have made more money, so it would have been a better decision.
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Re: Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

Post by Choujin Daizenshuu » Fri Nov 03, 2017 3:22 am

Robo4900 wrote:Okay, but they would have spent less if they'd used the Digibeta footage like they did on the singles and Ultimate Uncuts instead of doing a new film transfer, meaning they would have made more money, so it would have been a better decision.
Keyword here being "if".

Long story short? FUNimation + semantics = Questionable business decisions.

That concludes my 300th post.

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Re: Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

Post by SHINOBI-03 » Fri Nov 10, 2017 3:45 am

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Re: Sony To Acquire Majority Stake in Funimation

Post by Basaku » Fri Nov 17, 2017 9:26 pm

I wonder if could signal Sony may be interesed in purchasing Toei sometime in the future. Would rather make sense for the company as sort of a counterpart to WB/Disney animation divisions

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