Wrapping Up:
I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to ask my question of basically how they felt in terms of their last year claim of “Don’t Panic” and all that. The answer to that was already more or less peppered throughout the panel, but I kinda just wanted the definitive sound byte or something… ah well.
Probably of all the questions, the one that really stuck out in my head was the one about how they felt now that FUNimation essentially dominates the market now. They’re most definitely the big fish now, and people want to know if this is good or safe for the industry.
Adam basically described the situation as FUNimation fearing market saturation, as that was more or less the big reason why previous big name distributors are now in less than ideal situations. As such, they try their best to only release so much at a time, so they aren’t overextending beyond what people can handle. Again, he reaffirmed his previous statement that the anime industry only grows when everyone wins, so they know that all the different companies need to work together and make sure everyone can get in on the market for new shows and the like.
One of the last questions Adam received was more of a comment. Essentially, the guy wanted to say that last year FUNimation had made a whole slew of promises – thus far, his feeling was that FUNimation has made good on pretty much all of them so far.
It’s a sentiment I’m more willing to believe than not.
FUNimation Entertainment is the big fish in the sea right now. I gotta say, they’ve been earning it pretty well so far. People say the market needs to change to survive, and FUNimation has been changing to accommodate that. For us as anime fans, that’s extremely reassuring to hear.
I’m excited to see how things look next year…
