Monday, April 6, 2009

Why all the hate on Crunchyroll?

Why do people hate Crunchyroll so much? See the comments here, or just about any blog post on HnG2. I'm going to copy and paste a comment from THAT anime blog:

"I dislike Crunchyroll and their licensing. It didn’t affect me before…but now that CR has taken HnG in, I’m slowly realizing how much I hate them. But I am not here to say i hate CR, but rather my adoration for HnG. Anyways, I’m surprised that JC staff actually used plot material(compared to Synergy SP’s style of using fillers and given the fact of how they changed Shakugan no Shana S2, Zero no Tsukaima S2 & S3 and Tsukihime). The animation, in my opinion has changed dramatically, with similarity to the drawing style used in Zero no Tsukaima and sharper colors. Overall, I am hoping forward to HnG S2 and really want the part where Hina started realizing she fell for Hayate."
So this commentor doesn't like CR because they have the license to the show and are streaming it for free (albeit in lower quality and delayed than if you paid for a subscription), and because of their license, most fansub groups won't sub it? *shakes head*

You'll even notice a lot of anime bloggers are using the ripped from Crunchyroll softsub! (I can understand that for some of the bloggers outside the US, Crunchyroll doesn't work, but I can't believe there aren't ANY US anime bloggers!) I guess I just don't understand why people don't want to spend $5 a month to support their hobby, it's not like Xam'd which cost $5/episode...

And I'm not really a Crunchyroll fanboy, it has it's share of problems, but the main thing is, I can legally watch anime very shortly after it airs in Japan in decent quality.

While I'm ranting, what happened to only fansubbing shows that weren't licensed? I see two groups subbing Fullmetal Alchemist 2009, even when Funimation already has the license and plans to stream it free.

Lest you think I'm just a prude that only watches legal stuff, I watch lots of fansubs for shows that aren't licensed yet or aren't made available legally within a reasonable amount of time -- for example, K-ON. But when you can watch stuff legally and in 720p for $5 a month... why not support the industry a little? It's like a value meal at McDonald's!

I'll end with a Crunchyroll pro-tip: to enable full screen HW acceleration, you right click the video before you full screen it, then select the option, THEN full screen the video. It doesn't work otherwise.

2 comments:

Dégel said...

I have to agree with most of what you said. However, most licensed shows are unfortunatelly only allowed to airwithin certain regions, like FMA. Me, not being from any region where it was licensed, actually hated Funimation insistance in shutting down fansubbers. Sure, they went only after english fansubbers (as far as I know), but the internet does work in a global scale, so just because there are fansubs in english doesn't mean only people in the States are going to watch those. I for one prefer them in english than in spanish, and something just doesn't click with certain things. Funimation also did the same with Soul Eater, minus the free streaming, and basically made watching the last ~10 episodes a pain to watch for lack of a steady fansub.

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