Funimation ("You Should Be Watching")

I have severe issues with Funi doing this. They're helping to legitimize some horrible legal fuckery to keep these rights hostage against the wishes of the original creators.

Watched the dub and the answer is yes.

We'll have to see if Iron Blood get German accents.

Is it at all possible for Funi to just buy HG and do with the licenses as they please?

HG is, primarily speaking, a real estate company, which is considerably bigger than an anime distributing company, so Funimation might not have so much luck in outright buying them.

And since I'm here, holy crud, Funimation will be distributing Robotech stuff.

I could never see this coming, but it already looks like people are less than confident about what it means for a proper release of Macross...

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Oct 23rd 2019 at 11:41:45 AM

FU Ni is owned by Sony, who got roped into this whole mess because they bought the rights to make a Robotech film, a film that will never see the light of day.

But that goes back to my “HG is holding the rights out of pure spite” observation. There was no profit based motive to renew the rights.

Edited by Beatman1 on Oct 22nd 2019 at 4:12:19 AM

HG burned up cash trying to screw over the Battletech rightsholders.

Need to re-fill the coffers and Sony wants to make that movie.

Time will tell if Overshadowed by Controversy is too much for Robotech.

Honestly the only way anything comes out of this is if Funi actually bought the full rights to it and actually work with Studio Nue to actually bring Frontier and Delta to the west.

But its HG and fat chance in HELL of that ever happening.

I certainly aint touching 'Robotech' until HG is out of the picture.

Edited by Memers on Oct 24th 2019 at 7:28:14 AM

It’s often said one should not mistake incompetence or cold logic for malice. The problem is with HG, their actions feel malicious. They could have taken a payoff numerous times but continue to spend time and money keeping Macross from being released outside of the Robotech hodgepodge. Heck, the reason the first time HG worked with FU Ni during Shadow Chronicles’ release fell apart was because FU Ni wanted control of the property and HG told them no way.

So it's entirely possible that HG is not so much evil but really, really, stupid?

I don't know enough about this specific instance, but I would assume stupidity before malice. What exactly is going on? All I really know is that Robotech is an old anime.

Robotech is less an old anime and more a creation of multiple anime blended together to create one show...Harmony Gold is the rights holder and there's a long, complicated set of legal fuckery involved where they've been holding the rights to Macross itself hostage.

Once upon a time, there were three sci-fi animes: Macross, Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada.

Back in the 80's, when America was starting to get into anime. One guy found Macross and thought "I want to show this to the world!" Problem was that cartoons needed to be 65 episodes long for the sake of syndication, so the guy grabbed Southern Cross and Mospeada, spliced footage from all three and made Robotech.

And it was well-received. But then people discovered Macross and thought "Holy eff, this kicks so much ass! Why isn’t this in English?"

But then legal BS happened.

Pretty sure someone else can tell the story better though.

EDIT:

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Oct 24th 2019 at 7:38:04 AM

You forgot the massive amounts of COCAINE that fueled 80's era Hollywood.

Harmony Gold thought that with Carl Macek's help they could cash in on Japanimation as it was known back then.

Robotech was in syndication, the toys and model kits were in stores by X-mas. And for a short time in the 80's, there was Anime on after school that was cool.

But Robotech became the pogs of 80's cartoons. The Transformers, GI Joe and the juggernaut that was Star Wars pushed them aside.

Not helping HG was that the stations they were on were the UHF stations with short range. I saw Robotech in between lots of static as I lived in rural NM. I saw Transformers and My Little Pony clear as day, Robotech came in like a scrambled porn channel. I had to read the toy boxes to get what it was about.

Ahem

So the Wall comes down and anime invades the US in The '90s. Robotech is fondly remembered by those who did see it and the tapes make the round of college anime clubs.

Along comes Macross. FASA gets screwed by Harmony Gold (lookup Battletech to see that clusterfark). Palladium Books is given the RPG rights to Robotech. Their attempt to sue or harass anyone posting anything about their books online makes them as popular as Donald Trump with college age RPG players. Harmony Gold kept messing with the fans until the 2001 DVD release, not helping matters.

HG hold on to Robotech because they keep thinking that it's the 1980's and they can squeeze more money out of anime fans. They have to do something to hold on to those rights and there are enough Robotech fans to keep interest in it.

The problem for them is that they have pissed off most of the fan base. Mecha and manga fans have other franchises (or Macross itself) to go to. Transformers and Battletech fans wouldn't pee on Frank Agrama or Jehan F. Agrama^note  the founder and current CEO of Harmony Gold respectively if they were on fire.

Funimation is a business and their Sony overlords need to drum up fan buzz for a Robotech movie (if they can get it made) and HG needs to replenish their nest egg after being the Butt-Monkey in court so, so many times.

I hope Funi can steer clear of Harmony Gold's "winning" strategy with Robotech.

Sadly, until HG goes out of business, sells or loses the rights it, Macross will be out of our reach.

Because of the legal fuckery the actual Japanese company that made Macross cant even bring Frontier or Delta over to the west because some judge was convinced that HG owns it forever.

I suppose the next question is how come nobody's brought a truck full of money to HG's door and asked for the rights?

ADV tried once IIRC trying to get Macross Seven released but Harmony Gold said no and sent cease and desist letters to the company that actually made the series and ADV.

they have also repeatedly banned toys and basically almost everything else

They are even holding the series hostage world wide despite you know only being a US company.

And Funi is working with these guys... literally working with hostage takers. Yeah No.

With this legal mess that whole Robotech movie Sony is trying to make probably wont get a Japanese release which will be flat out hilarious.

Edited by Memers on Oct 25th 2019 at 1:47:00 AM

In short, it's a minor miracle that Macross Plus got an official dubbed release. But HG's stranglehold on the Macross rights is a large part of the reason that the odds of "official" western releases of non-OG SRW titles is pretty much "ahahahahaha no".

This whole thing is fucking bizarre.

Yeah, the story goes that Banpresto wanted to bring over SRW Alpha to capitalize on the massive success of Gundam Wing in the US and then Harmony Gold sent their lawyers to stop that. A similar situation happened with Super Robot Wars W running afoul of the creation of Voltron Force which is why I hate that show forever.

So I just watched the 2nd dub episode of Azur Lane and they did indeed gave the Iron Blood characters German accents. And then there's Belfast, who despite being named after a city in Northern Ireland, speaks with an English accent. Wait, what?

I can guess this will unite Northern Ireland anime fans, both Nationalist and Unionist, over their anger that a US company couldn't bother getting one shipgirl's accent right.

Britain Is Only London, what can I say?

They also pronounced "Eugen" wrong.

Edited by PhysicalStamina on Oct 25th 2019 at 3:11:37 PM

To provide an update on the Vic case, the defendant's lawyers have submitted their legal fees and requests for sanctions. They are as follows;

Funi $268,941 attorney fees $7,504 court costs $25,000+ minimum sanctions

Rial / Toye $375,963 fees $11,980 costs $100,000+ sanctions

Marchi $130,637 fees $354 costs $50,000+ sanctions

The fees include about $100k conditional on Vic appealing (basically they are estimating that if Vic appeals all the way to the Texas Supreme Court they will spend about that much to defend). All used the fact that Vic hasn't paid any legal fees to date, his lawyer saying on stream that winning the lawsuit was never the goal it was to raise awareness and get the defendants documents and depositions out, and Nick constantly talking about how there would be a second round of lawsuits.

So assuming the judge goes with the minimum the defendants asked for and Ty Beard appeals all the way to the Supreme Court as he aid he would, Vic is looking at paying $970,379 when this is all said and done (not including his own legal fees when the GFM runs out).

I would be shocked if we see a higher court grant cert after this appeal is over (phrase meaning to take the other appeal).

This stuff is over. It's just a matter of how many cuts are left. Even Rekieta is seeming more subdued lately. Guy probably realizes how horrible he looks in the news at large.

This stuff is over. It's just a matter of how many cuts are left.

Tell that to YouTubers

Touché

Edited by Awesomekid42 on Nov 6th 2019 at 4:04:30 AM

It's hard to make a man realizing he's wrong when he gets paid for it.