Naturally, the existence of dozens of new shows to watch and discuss in the Weekly Roundup is very exciting to me. It's also a very busy time for me. At this time of writing, I have 8 shows with notes prepared for the Weekly Roundup, with 5 more planned, starting the season with 13 shows to cover altogether. That's a lot of content to cover! And that's without me taking time out to watch new episodes of Captain Tsubasa and Mob Psycho 100 Season 2, which because I haven't covered them in the Roundup in previous seasons, could not be part of the new season's Roundup.
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| But I will talk about this in its own post soon... |
But, wait! Those of you with better memory or a strange desire to go through old posts of mine would remember that I originally announced a total of 15 titles in the Winter 2019 Weekly Roundup! What happened? Is Patrick getting lazy, or are these two shows so terrible that they weren't worth including in the roundup at all? Well, while I certainly am lazy, I like to pretend that I have professional integrity. However, due to reasons outside of my control, I do not have the ability to cover Circlet Princess or Revisions in the roundup. Circlet Princess wasn't picked up by a single North American streaming platform, which really worries me. With four different websites all fighting for exclusive rights to big shows so as to make their platform be the most appealing to anime fans and their wallets, it is really worrying that nobody wanted Circlet Princess, even with the premise I thought could be mildly interesting. I mean, just remember, out of the worst anime I watched last year, the only ones that Crunchyroll didn't pick up for their ridiculously huge lineup was Magical Girl Site, which still was an Amazon exclusive. Think about that. Crunchyroll thought a show about nothing like Tachibanakan Triangle was a good investment, but that a fantasy e-sports anime like Circlet Princess would have no appeal. Who knows? Maybe we dodged a bullet here. I mean, I really only picked it because I thought 14 shows was an awkward number.
As for Revisions? Well, I was actually very interested in what that would be like, if for no other reason than it is an original mecha anime directed by Goro Taniguchi, aka the creator of Code Geass. And, in case you didn't know, I love Code Geass so much I wrote an entire blog post dedicated entirely to two characters from the show. But you know who picked it up? Netflix. And do you know what happens when Netflix picks up a show? They hold onto it and refuse to release it until after the show's run is already concluded. And while their bombastic releases of Devilman Crybaby and Violet Evergarden made quite the splash in 2018, other great shows like Sirius the Jaeger and Baki the Grappler 2018 flew under the radar of anyone who wasn't already interested in the show already, and they most likely just pirated the show and watched it for free while it was airing.
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| And why are only half the episodes of Baki on the damn site, Netflix!? |
I said before that I thought that the competition that platforms like Amazon and Netflix brought to the table is a good thing, and I stand by that. In theory, more streaming platforms competing for attention and subscription fees means more anime for everyone to watch, and for the most part, that is what is happening. But while I have virtually no complaints about Crunchyroll and Hidive, aside from Crunchyroll's disturbingly more frequent subtitle errors and Hidive's ugly yellow font, Amazon and Netflix are consistently messing things up for everybody, including themselves.
First, let's talk about Netflix, since I already sort of touched on the issue. Presumably, these anime are being picked up because Netflix thinks people would want to watch them, and they would like to those people to pay for the privilege. Otherwise, why spend so much money on licensing, translating, and, in some cases, translating and dubbing series? With this end goal in mind: why won't they actually sell their products? Why, when Seven Deadly Sins Season 2 aired from January to June of 2018, did Netflix wait to release it until fall? This isn't the 90s anymore. We live in an online world. People know that shows exist, and if Crunchyroll and Hidive are any indication, it's not that difficult to release official subtitled versions of new episodes within a timely manner. By withholding the shows, you alienate the very customers you are trying to court, and that makes them that much more likely to ignore your next big thing, or worse, pirate it.
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| N is for "No." No simulcasts, no advertising, no communication. |
But at least you can't argue that Neflix just doesn't care about anime and is grabbing as many shows as they can. Some of these shows are Netflix-produced series. B: the Beginning, Devilman Crybaby, and Hero Mask were made exclusively for Netflix, with no broadcast run in Japan at all. These shows literally could not exist without Netflix. And with the ever increasing amount of high profile exclusive anime to the platform, it's safe to say that they are all in on anime. But their current binge-focused business model is not suitable for anime, and I fear that if they don't change their strategy soon, they might lose interest in the medium.
But you know who really is half-assing it? Amazon. I mean, where do I even begin? I mean, to start with, I guess I should give a disclaimer. I know that Amazon Prime Video has an app that is a better user experience than watching on the actual Amazon website, but since I'm the only one in my home that actually watches anime regularly, I usually use my computer to watch instead so as not to bother other people too much. And Amazon Prime on the computer has one of the worst user interfaces I have ever seen. There's no good way to search for anime. If you type the anime title that you're looking for, you're more likely to find sales for manga volumes and DVDs than to find the actual streaming videos that's supposed to be a draw for anime fans to choose Prime over Crunchyroll. The best way I found to get around this is to click the drop down menu next to the search bar and scroll all the way down to Prime Video before searching. Which is inconvenient and annoying as hell. And if you don't know what title you're looking for and just want to browse? You just need to type "anime", click the link for anime on Prime Video, then scroll down a list of shows in a random and nonsensical order, with the very real chance of not finding what you're looking for since their anime library is pretty small. I mean, I don't understand any of it. If you want people to watch your videos, that you spent so much money on, why are they so hard to find?
Look, I get that Amazon isn't exclusively a video streaming platform. It's primarily an online shopping site. So, why not create a separate website that's just for Prime Video with the same interface as Netflix or your own Prime Video app? They can both use the Prime login information and everything would be fine. And even worse, Prime is easily the most expensive streaming option out there. A regular Prime membership is 13 dollars per month! Compare that to Netflix's 8 dollars or VRV's 10 dollars (which includes Crunchyroll AND Hidive, as well as other non-anime channels such as Boomerang, Rooster Teeth, and Nickelodeon Splat). And that cost is after the Anime Strike fiasco, which had additional charges on top of a normal Prime membership, totalling to just under 20 dollars per month! All this for a crappy user interface and episodes that are frequently uploaded late or, in Dororo's case, without subtitles. If you're going to charge that much, you should at least do your jobs right!
But you know who really is half-assing it? Amazon. I mean, where do I even begin? I mean, to start with, I guess I should give a disclaimer. I know that Amazon Prime Video has an app that is a better user experience than watching on the actual Amazon website, but since I'm the only one in my home that actually watches anime regularly, I usually use my computer to watch instead so as not to bother other people too much. And Amazon Prime on the computer has one of the worst user interfaces I have ever seen. There's no good way to search for anime. If you type the anime title that you're looking for, you're more likely to find sales for manga volumes and DVDs than to find the actual streaming videos that's supposed to be a draw for anime fans to choose Prime over Crunchyroll. The best way I found to get around this is to click the drop down menu next to the search bar and scroll all the way down to Prime Video before searching. Which is inconvenient and annoying as hell. And if you don't know what title you're looking for and just want to browse? You just need to type "anime", click the link for anime on Prime Video, then scroll down a list of shows in a random and nonsensical order, with the very real chance of not finding what you're looking for since their anime library is pretty small. I mean, I don't understand any of it. If you want people to watch your videos, that you spent so much money on, why are they so hard to find?
Look, I get that Amazon isn't exclusively a video streaming platform. It's primarily an online shopping site. So, why not create a separate website that's just for Prime Video with the same interface as Netflix or your own Prime Video app? They can both use the Prime login information and everything would be fine. And even worse, Prime is easily the most expensive streaming option out there. A regular Prime membership is 13 dollars per month! Compare that to Netflix's 8 dollars or VRV's 10 dollars (which includes Crunchyroll AND Hidive, as well as other non-anime channels such as Boomerang, Rooster Teeth, and Nickelodeon Splat). And that cost is after the Anime Strike fiasco, which had additional charges on top of a normal Prime membership, totalling to just under 20 dollars per month! All this for a crappy user interface and episodes that are frequently uploaded late or, in Dororo's case, without subtitles. If you're going to charge that much, you should at least do your jobs right!
All of this is really frustrating, since there are some great anime that are exclusive to Prime such as Re:Creators, Inuyashiki, Grand Blue, Land of the Lustrous, and Killing Bites, and this season's Dororo looks amazing. But with all the greed and incompetence, I have a hard time recommending any of these titles when the only legal way to watch them is to deal with Prime's nonsense. The only reason I'm able to afford Amazon Prime is because I work for a cable company and thus have free internet service. But as a whole, I'd argue that you stick with VRV and Netflix.
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