Only yesterday Omo was talking about about Crunchyroll, Hulu, et al, and naturally he didn't mention ANN: they never were a player, even though they tried (the most interesting part of their video site was the trailers). Today, they opened streaming of Bamboo Blade. Omo's caution about doing streaming on …
read moreOmo on the streamed anime today
Amazon and anime remixes
I visit Amazon from time to time and check if any interesting J-pop appeared in MP3 store there (so far nothing except Hikaru Utada who I do not like much). What's notable though, there's a large number of cheap knock-offs and remixes. I always assumed that they were made by …
read moreThe intense suffering of dub watchers
I had an urge to rewatch Magical Play 3D and since Crunchy was dead, visited Youtube, where apparently remains of ADV made their last stand. The advertisements are not the worst part at all, but the horrible performance was a real pain. Spinning dots kept appearing even while the gauge …
read moreHulu to charge fees in 2010
A broadcast "industry" observer Claire Atkinson reports that Hulu is going to charge fees according to News Corp. Deputy Chairman Chase Carey (via).
I only used Hulu sporadically. Their anime content is extremely sparse. That they only offer the first half of Honey and Clover is utter madness. Their flash …
read moreRobert on sales of manga in 2009
In an unusually long post, Robert essentially discusses what's going to happen to manga market now that it goes out of print so quickly. This phenomena was known to DVD buyers for years, it's nothing new. Buy it now, or buy it never. Manga readers? Welcome to my world.
It …
read moreCrunchyroll's "simulcast"
Various people were making much out of the quantity or quality of anime that's getting available on Crunchyroll. Indeed the expansion is tremendous with the 13 new "simulcast" titles for 2009 Autumn season. However, my answer to this is: no DTO-minus-DRM — no deal. See this credit card, Crunchyroll? It's yours …
read moreSketchbook on Crunchyroll
John reports that Crunchyroll began showing Sketchbook (however, no DTO again: bad Crunchy, bad rights owner, no cookie!). My own experience with it wasn't good, but I can see a few people liking it and Crunchy is probably the perfect dumping ground for low-rating anime these days.
UPDATE: Damien comments …
read moreDIVX has taught Japanese nothing
Seen at Anime Nation with a reference to Variety:
Japanese DVD distributor Visionare has introduced its first anime DVD offering pay-per-view access. Consumers can now purchase Ashita no Joe DVDs from Visionare for 525 yen ($5.83) each, then unlock the ability to watch individual episodes on the discs for …
read moreAnime Almanac on digital distribution
Scott's latest opus reminded me that Funimation supposedly offers a DTO with the following off-hand remark: "After finding success in the “download-to-own” model of digital distribution, FUNimation entered the simulcast game last September blah blah blah". After the reprehensible move away from DTO on Crunchyroll asserted itself this season, this …
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