Friday, March 27

Crunchy Roll rolling and rolling....

U.S. anime and social networking site Crunchyroll has ordered up a whole new wave of streaming animated imports.

What's new on horizon for CR...

* Black Jack, Osama Tezuka story of super surgeon.

* Fuji Creative Corp. anime titles such as Glass Maiden and Cat Man.

* Reborn!, based on the Akira Amano manga, from d-rights Inc.

* Munhwa Broadcasting Corp. partnership, for 30 complete K-Drama series.

* TV Tokyo Corp: Mainichi Kaasan, Saki – The Player and cat lover's heaven Chi’s Sweet Home, along with the continued simulcast of Naruto Shippuden (ugh), Gintama and Shugo Chara.

* GONZO latest anime offering, Shangri-La.

This entity has been making giant strides and as I asserted earlier, it is one of the best thing ever to come out to address current problem of anime industry profitability. The fact that Naruto Shippuden is now available on CR is a very strong endorsement of CR as viable serious idea for international anime market. Their appointment to Tokyo Anime Awards panel of judges is a testament to that.

In near future, fansubbing could be a fond memory/relic of the bygone past.

Source

New battle against anime piracy, ODEX story continues


The battle against the illegal downloading of TV anime has taken a new turn.

A new animated series, Tears To Tiara, is to become the first in the world to be broadcast simultaneously in Japan and across the rest of Asia, including Singapore.

Local anime distributor Odex says the same-time broadcast is to help combat the problem of illegal downloads.

Tears To Tiara, which depicts the epic struggle against a powerful empire set in a fantasy mediaeval world, will premiere on April 6 on Animax (StarHub Channel 84) in its original Japanese soundtrack with English and Chinese subtitles.

The series is based on a popular role-playing game available on personal computer and Sony PlayStation 3 platforms, and therefore is something many anime pirates would be keen to get first dibs on.

Odex managing director Peter Go says of the simulcast: 'This is a breakthrough because this is the first time that the Japanese side has allowed this.'

He notes that episodes of anime such as Naruto and Bleach are uploaded onto the legal website www.crunchyroll.com an hour after broadcast 'but the resolution is lower and hence easier to transmit'.

Pirates download the shows as they do not want to fork out big bucks for the genuine DVDs of the shows, which can cost $100 or more for a season and are often available only several months after being broadcast.


ODEX Story and Source

Again, what ODEX don't grasp is their mode of business is outdated in hi tech Singapore and if they want to make proper profit from current generation of anime fans instead of suing them is using 3rd Wave concepts. Streaming and simulcast is something they should invest in instead of preparing lawyer letters to sue individual fans which in the end angered the community to the extent that most of them refuse to consider ODEX products anymore. Dramatic and headline grabbing at first but counterproductive in the end.

Not helping is their inferior quality in video and subbing with excessive pricing that turn off most potential buyers off. Most people if given an affordable monthly fee with simulcast (quality subtitles too) will pay for it, instead of going into a troublesome effort downloading the digital copies off the Net. This is why Crunchyroll has my high regard and I do believe strongly that they will weather the recession and emerge stronger than ever.

ODEX is gasping rather pathetically, IMHO.

The History of ODEX effort to combat downloaders in Singapore


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