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Posted on by Theo J Ellis

AnimeLog Is NOT The Death Of Crunchyroll Or Funimation, That’s Nothing But Clickbait

AnimeLog is the “replacement” for KissAnime after its recent death. Or at least that’s what some people are calling it.

And unsurprisingly – clickbait YouTubers and publishers claim it’s “the death of Crunchyroll and Funimation”.

It doesn’t get anymore clickbait than that, not to mention ridiculous and out of touch.

Some anime fans seem to agree with it though but to a less exaggerated degree.

Nah f*ck it, they ARE exaggerating just as much….

As you can see with these Tweets, some fans either:

  • REALLY believe AnimeLog will kill Funimation and Crunchyroll.
    • Which also means smaller anime streaming services.
  • And some believe AnimeLog is the “future”.
  • Or a good replacement for KissAnime.

This is the kind of stuff I have to laugh at.

I get it, fans are DESPERATE for anime streaming to improve. And they’re desperate for a service that gives them what they want.

But… AnimeLog is not your knight in shining armor I’m afraid.

It’s just not.

 

AnimeLog isn’t good enough to “kill” anything

AnimeLog is a result of 30 anime studios coming together to make sh*t happen. It’s about time, I’ve always said collaboration is the best approach.

Studios like:

  • Toei Animation
  • Kodansha
  • Nippon Animation

And so many more, they plan to offer 3000 anime titles for FREE on their YouTube channel.

They plan to achieve this by the year 2022. So don’t get too excited yet.

 

if they achieve their goal by 2022:

 

They’ll have more content than any paid streaming service

This should be obvious to anyone, it’s the reason people are getting overly excited thinking it’ll get rid of paid streaming services.

Crunchyroll has over 1000+ anime titles in the USA. in other countries it’s anywhere from:

  • 800
  • 600
  • 500
  • 300
  • 100
  • 50

Depending on which country or part of the world we’re talking about.

This is true for Funimation as well but the numbers will be different since they have less anime on their platform.

In this scenario AnimeLog will dominate and it will do some damage.

 

But that’s not realistic

Everyone who thinks AnimeLog is the great savior of anime is forgetting one thing: money.

  • How will FREE be funded?
  • How will it be sustainable?
  • How will it make financial sense?
  • How will anime studios profit?

YouTube ads is absolute suicide. All those anime studios sharing that small piece of pie between each other is stupid.

If they decide to monetize it this way they’ll soon learn it’s bad business. Not because ads don’t make money, but because it’s incompatible with the industry’s business model.

Toei Animation and everyone else, big or small, can provide as much “free” anime as they want. They can fill up the YouTube channel until it explodes with anime if they choose.

At the end of the day – money needs to be made, or else it stands NO chance of displacing anime streaming companies.

And playing within the realms of YouTube’s system isn’t the smartest idea.

If anime studios built their own WEBSITE together and took this approach I’d be more impressed. They’d have control and more leverage that way.

That’s more of a long term investment, and I see the “YouTube” thing they’re doing as a short term investment.

They better have planned further ahead for their own sake.

 

The only way AnimeLog could hurt CR/Funi:

  1. Withhold licenses and refuse to sell them.
  2. Supply anime for free for 5 years straight.
  3. Keep everything within Japan.
  4. Move from YouTube to their own in-house platform.

But the reality is Toei Animation and the other 29 anime studios aren’t built like that.

They don’t have that level of cash and assets to keep them going to pull it off. This is the “Amazon pulled it off because it had investors.

Japanese anime studios don’t have support like that. So it’s nothing but a dream.

It’s a nice dream, but anime fans need to stop and think about the foolishness of what they’re assuming.

I love the idea of AnimeLog but it’s the wrong approach unless they have something in store for down the road. Because it’s not a practical long term investment.

 

Let’s end this with a set of relevant Tweets:

–

News source: Twitter.

 

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