Funimation’s Figures, Reading Between Eva Films
Namely via this and that. About the write-up on Navarre’s earning call from ICV2. Perhaps with a misleading title.
I don’t know, from what I’ve heard over the years, bidding on any given license wasn’t something particularly exclusive. You have the random deals that are more or less locked in (Naruto comes to mind) and that’s about it. Usually a discussion about bidding on licenses comes down to profitability, bidding wars, and uh, more profitability. Which is to say the earning call statement tends to suggest that Funimation is either implying something–namely, the ones they don’t license are the ones they don’t find profitable–or it’s just PR fluff that isn’t particularly meaningful, or suggest that they were able to lower the transactional cost on particular titles that they want to acquire regardless of any business alliances and connections.
After all, it’s an earnings call…
Especially when you think about the status between Funimation and whoever owns Evangelion 2.0. This year it’s a hot question at all the Funi panels, naturally, and they’ve dodged that repeatedly. Especially given how they are (and how they are) handling Eva 1.0, it’s kind of a suspicious thing. I guess that’s the nature of what a bid means, and being able to bid on it doesn’t mean very much until you win it, and I’m sure Funi wants to win it.
I think it’s a no-brainer to see Funimation, which represents about half or more of the home video market in the US for anime, doing well. It definitely suggests that anime on the whole is doing well during this time (lol recession) since I doubt it’s a fluke just for half of the market. From Funimation’s licenses, which are largely comprised of rescued titles, it would also say a lot about them being conservative and pushing for what sells, and not merely by what Author and I like. Maybe not the newest and greatest but what wins the bread and feeds the kids, amirite?
The logical thing from here, to me, is that all the more precious are the ADV23, Bandai and Media Blaster licenses. Because they license(d) a good number of my favorite titles and titles I care about. Simply put, these are the people who licensed CLANNAD, True Tears, and Simoun (among others). And if they’re less profitable than Funimation’s licenses, well, hey, then they need more help than our profit-min-maxing FUNi Overlords do. I for one wouldn’t mind a division of labor, between anime that sells to freaks like us and anime that do not, if the economics work out–although it rarely does. Whatever, that’s not our job.
Being a publicly traded company has its vices, I suppose. And not to dig on FUNi much, I think they’ve slowly drifted into the “2nd-gen otaku” stuff with pickups like Spice & Wolf and Oofuri. I think titles like those will be a litmus test towards their future licenses in the more “alternative” category of anime, away from the usual sit-com/fanservice romps, straight-up sci-fi, pulp violence, and the more “mainstream” things like Soul Eater. What’s important isn’t so much that you and I buy the anime we love and to support whoever or whatever, but it would be key to see that newer anime get a chance at being licensed, despite that they may look like high-risk, low-reward properties on a spreadsheet for merely being new and untested.
I mean, going back to the bid statement earlier–I doubt they can put a serious bid on Naruto and Death Note…even if they could. Evergreen titles are already taken up. It’s time to discover those new ones!
Don’t give up on Mari just because you have Misato!
So on the topic of “Funimation” and “figures”, real dragons have curves.
so i hear.
Don’t be so sure. Doing business deals with Gainax is a huge disincentive to ever doing additional deals with Gainax (not because they don’t want to deal with you… but you will not want to deal with them! ;p)
Of course Funi gets a look at all licenses. They’re the biggest company in the market. Excluding Viz’s inside deals, you’d expect the Japanese to troll every title they had past Funi; who else is going to buy it?
But that’s another important point - Funi probably isn’t experiencing a lot of competition for licenses at this point. Clearly none of the other competitors in the market have the financial backing to take a title away from Funi (nor are they wealthy enough to go finance a show up front). And, of course, you would expect the decrease in bidding competition to have an effect on the bottom line of the prices, no?
Touche! The price thing is p. obvious so I’ll just say that much.