What's going to happen to anime?

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news...gh-crunchyroll

I found this article just recently, and I'm sure alot of people might have already read this. But I couldn't find a thread about it, so I just want to ask : Where is the future of our anime heading?

To me it seems sort of bleak. One day we will probably no longer enjoy the flexibility of being able to download and watch whichever anime at our discretion. Everything will be filed, and probably have a price tag attached to it. Or probably my worst nightmare, commercial ads every 10 minutes.

Or maybe there will just be all free anime with subtitles, from the production companies, for us in the future.... yah, I really don't see that happening at all whatsoever.

ps. not sure if this was the right sub forum to place this thread. move to general talk if doesn't belong here. thxs.

its just naruto.

i dont see this happening to quality non mainstream anime

I like the idea of free after 7 days, it means the production companies actually get their dues, we (legally) get our free anime and shitty western crap merchants get sidelined.

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Originally Posted by Ferozban

its just naruto.

i dont see this happening to quality non mainstream anime

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It might not remain for the mainstream stuff, there is obviously a market.

And yes you are right the good stuff is most non-mainstream, since in the west all the mainstream stuff, is mainstream because its aimed at sugar addicted 14yo kids (which means its usually crap).

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The Japanese broadcaster TV Tokyo has announced that it will begin streaming English-subtitled episodes of the Naruto anime series, about one hour after their Japanese broadcast, to paid monthly subscribers worldwide on the Crunchyroll video service on January 8, 2009.

Crunchyroll will then provide free Internet streaming of the episodes seven days after the paid subscribers see them. This coincides with when the online video services Joost and Hulu are providing their own free streaming of the same episodes via Viz Media. Viz Media announced earlier today that it will also begin hosting free streams of the new episodes on the official Naruto.com website on January 15.

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free subtitled animes after 7 days of airing them in japan? Good news for me ^^

Engrish or not. I'm happy ;)

Yeah, considering that 7 days isn't much longer than what we wait anyway and that so far translations from the production companies are actually fairly good. My only problem is that I currently use library computers, so streaming anime is not easy for me (I can download an episode in 10 minutes while doing something else), plus I'm self concious about watching anime.

I like your sig BTW.

While I'm glad to see so many Japanese companies coming on board and taking active steps in digital distribution partnerships, actually what concerns me most about this article is the first line of the third paragraph:

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On January 8, Crunchyroll will stop accepting user-submitted videos and other content from individuals, and only host videos approved by copyright holders.

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This means that Crunchyroll will stop users from uploading fansubs from Jan 8 onwards, and (depending on how you interpret it) will wipe their database clean of anything which is not sponsored by the anime studios directly (i.e. all past and present fansubbed anime will be deleted).

So, for the works of those studios who did not enter into partnership with Crunchyroll (or one of the other now-legal video streaming sites), what will happen to the fansubs of those series? It'll be interesting to see if there's a huge popularity/hype divide after a season or two between those studios who follow this model, and those who still are not willing to embrace digital streaming, and leave it to fansubbers to distribute using the other methods. We might end up with popular series becoming more popular, and niche series becoming more niche.

-Dizzy-

It's seems like a smart move to me.

Are fansubbers okay with their subs on Crunchyroll? One thing I've been noticing in the drama-subbing community is that many subbers (soft and hard) really don't want their releases uploaded to streaming sites like that - they even have messages in the subs themselves! It might not be that way with anime, but I wonder if some subbers will be happy about that.

I'm still dubious to all this. If I recall Blassreiter and Tower of Duraga were both subbed and released to Gonzo. Tower of Duraga was good blassreiter not so much. They are also currently releasing Linebarrel of Iron, and some older anime like "Slam Dunk".

This concept is intresting and all, but what I'm worried about is if it get really popular, are they going to start commercializing everything?

As long as I can still get anime I want, I honestly don't care. I almost never watch any streaming videos nor do I read manga online for that matter. Unless this'll have that huge of an impact on anime it's not going to bother me.