Toei Adds Anime to Crunchyroll

[dragoon]

Toei Adds Anime to Crunchyroll: Digimon Adventure 02, Fist of the North Star, Pretty Cure, Slam Dunk

Toei Animation is the latest company to work strongly with Crunchyroll in the streaming and download to own business as they've signed a significant deal with the company as announced today.
“A partnership with Toei Animation is fantastic for Crunchyroll and the anime industry in the U.S. and international markets,” states Mr. Kun Gao Crunchyroll CEO, “it is great validation to have one of the oldest, largest Japanese animation studios using our platform to bring anime to a much larger audience and monetize through new digital channels.”

Toei Animation Co., Ltd.’s Mr. Kanji Kazahaya, Director of International Department, states, “we are excited and thrilled to be working with Crunchyroll on developing our digital business. We believe that digital distribution holds the potential to improve the economics of our studio rather than weaken it and Crunchyroll is a great company to work with because of its reach and unique approach to end users.”

Full Press release: http://www.mania.com/toei-teams-up-c...le_110734.html

The video-sharing website Crunchyroll and Japan's Toei Animation studio have announced that four Toei anime titles will be available on the site in streaming, subscription, and downloading options starting today. The titles are Digimon Adventure 02, Fist of the North Star, Pretty Cure, and Slam Dunk (pictured at right). Currently, the first episodes of all the titles except Pretty Cure are online. Toei posted these same four titles to IGN's Direct2Drive online video service.

Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news...-website-today

[bci110]

Well if this is the only legit way for me to resume watching Slam Dunk, then so be it.

[Tofusensei]

These titles have been up on Direct2Drive for months. Surprised people never noticed :D

-Tofu

[dragoon]

Originally Posted by Tofusensei

These titles have been up on Direct2Drive for months. Surprised people never noticed :D

-Tofu

I believe they noticed, especially the $1.99/episode price tag -- then most went back to pretending it didn't exist. LOL

[Tofusensei]

I think you might be right

This is the third forum I've seen people go "OMG I can finally watch it online legally!".

-Tofu

[LordGeo]

OK, so now they're streamed online...

How about some DVDs now, Toei?

[Shiroi Hane]

Originally Posted by dragoon

I believe they noticed, especially the $1.99/episode price tag -- then most went back to pretending it didn't exist. LOL

Toei on D2D was noticed and reported here, and I was interested in Digimon. They weren't interested in me however, as I'm not from their neighbourhood.

[Mafty Allegro]

Originally Posted by dragoon

I believe they noticed, especially the $1.99/episode price tag -- then most went back to pretending it didn't exist. LOL

There's always that first free episode on IGN Anime, though I imagine fans or those interested want a little more than that...

It's almost baffling that so many companies are flocking to CR, despite their profit-making on fansubs and overall shadyness(sp). Almost, in that they also have a massive userbase, popularity, and are well-funded. From a business sense, it clicks, but from a moral sense (and on a detrimental level below the veneer), it also is self-defeating on some level. At least none of those partners have harped about the "evils of fansubbing on the industry" recently...

[Tofurkey]

Kind of sad that a company worth millions in Japan has to give away its content here.

[godofchaos]

Originally Posted by Tofurkey

Kind of sad that a company worth millions in Japan has to give away its content here.

As someone who bought a few episodes of their stuff on D2D, and knows the quality of the 'buy' versions on Crunchyroll, trust me when I say... they need to give it away.

The video is shoddy at best, the audio is acceptable, translations are generally good but with some questionable decisions in stuff like Digimon along with some stupid errors that decent QC would have checked (or at least corrected before putting them up on Crunchyroll after the mistakes showed up on D2D).

Been told by people I trust that sales on D2D weren't good at all, and a big part of that is because the product was shoddy and word of that went around on day 1 of the episodes being up.