Special Announcements:
FUNimation has a deal with Toei to get Toei shows like Air Master and Captain Harlock online. Offline, they were going to get Viz shows like NANA and Monster onto the FUNimation Channel. It seems like a curious thing, to have other companies hosted on their channels and websites. But as Adam said to the audience, “Anime only grows when everyone wins.” For myself, hearing these sorts of things have really changed my impression of FUNimation Entertainment as just the big corporate anime behemoth.
FUNimation also picked up some new acquisitions set for release next year:
Linebarrels of Iron – Mecha series from Gonzo.
Strike Witches – Young battle girls with propellers for legs (if ever there was a hook…).
Finally, the special announcements settled on Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Again, there was a big crowd reaction from the excited audience members.
The Fullmetal Alchemist simulcast serves as the culmination of tons of progress in getting legal, official anime releases online and in a timely fashion. New episodes show up on FUNimation’s website four days after the Japanese airings. For the leading issues in contemporary anime piracy, this should be a major step in the right direction for the industry.
So is it working?
For people who watched the first episode on FUNimation’s website, there was a noticeable buffering issue that they have since been working on, and at the time of this panel they were in the process of fixing that. Now, a week later, the rougher loading problems have been ironed smoother than not, which is definitely a step in the right direction. As for why there was a major buffering issue, well… the first episode of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood on FUNimation’s website had 22,000 views within 24 hours.
That’s massive support for the new service. Adam thanked the fans extensively for that. Time and again, people would say that they only do X because of Y; for FMA, people are coming through. So they have a working model now, and hopefully it stays that way.
They then touched on the Fullmetal Alchemist OVA (which looked cracked out)… but more news on that will come soon…
