FUNimation to Become Gonzo’s American Distributor
FUNimation has formally announced a “strategic alliance” with Japanese anime production studio Gonzo to distribute current and future Gonzo anime titles. FUNimation will coordinate with Gonzo on domestic DVD distribution and online commercial distribution via multiple online outlets. “Our eventual goal is to simulcast these series online in tandem with the Japanese broadcast debut,” said FUNimation president and CEO Gen Fukunaga. The new partnership officially began on March 20, although FUNimation has been handling online and DVD distribution of numerous Gonzo productions for several years.
March 23rd, 2009 at 2:00 pm
The obvious question is what this implies about an R1 release of Strike Witches.
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:22 pm
FUNimation has been apt to note that they acquire the digital rights to their titles as of recent; so I wonder if they are eventually planning online-only releases for some anime, and packaged-only for others…
My other thought is this: Does this mean FUNimation is obligated to option GONZO’s bad projects as well?
March 24th, 2009 at 1:01 am
They licensed Dragonaut. Does that answer your question?
March 24th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
“FUNimation will coordinate with Gonzo on domestic DVD distribution and online commercial distribution via multiple online outlets.”
Gonzo has already licensed Crunchyroll as an online distributor so what does this mean exactly? Will the videos FUNimation sell and stream on their own site (and presumably their other channels like hulu for example) be only the dubbed releases then or the subtitled ones as well? That’s ridiculously unfair. I’ll support Crunchyroll…
-moose