No! God please no!
Another aspect of this that I just realized is that the two most timely/thorough anime news sources I use for English language articles are:
- Anime News Network - Owned by Kadokawa
- Crunchyroll - Owned by Sony
I can imagine a scenario in which the news groups of these two companies are consolidated. There are other English news sources out there, but it doesn’t sit well with me if these two big players combine.
If the market authorities authorize this, Sony will actually have a near monopoly on Japanese media.
Between all the BDs they would have control over through this, they already also own Crunchyroll. That would be a huge market share.
Yes, it’s fucking insane they even think they stand a chance. Edit: as in, that the market is such, that they think they have the freedom to do this
Sorry 2nd comment, but Reuters’ heavy focus on FromSoftware is very harmful imo, because it makes it seem way smaller than it actually is
I hope this shit gets blocked like hell, this would mean a defacto monopoly on Japanese media for Sony and that means nothing good.
There’s no way this doesn’t get blocked right?
Japan doesn’t have antitrust at all
So we’re going back to zaibatsus?
God I hope market authorities aren’t sleeping on this
Important to know, but is this really relevant to anime?
It would pretty much give Sony complete control of the industry through ownership of Aniplex and Kadokawa. BD prices would skyrocket…
Sony also owns Crunchyroll for digital distribution.
CR falls under the Aniplex umbrella I believe.
Correct
https://myanimelist.net/anime/producer/1696/Kadokawa
Here is the list of anime that Kadokawa produced. I’m sure you would know many anime on the list.
Yes. Kadokawa has several anime studio subsidiaries, and also publishes manga.
