Crunchyroll and Kadokawa form an alliance

[DarkZedge]

It was announced on their Facebook aswell as the Crunchyroll site itself that they finally had formed an alliance that would give CR the exclusive worldwide digital distribution rights (not counting Asia) of Kadokawa's upcoming titles this year.

 

Here's what the press release said:

 

Crunchyroll and KADOKAWA Enter into Strategic Alliance

 

SAN FRANCISCO/TOKYO – Apr. 11, 2016 – Major anime streaming platform Crunchyroll, Inc. and major Japanese publisher KADOKAWA Corporation announced today the formation of a strategic alliance that will give Crunchyroll exclusive worldwide digital distribution rights (excluding Asia) for KADOKAWA anime titles in the upcoming year. The partnership will also involve a marketing collaboration between Crunchyroll and KADOKAWA’s publishing business in North America, among others.

Crunchyroll is the largest digital distribution platform in North America specializing in anime and other Japanese content, offering simultaneous subtitled distribution of Japanese anime and other content in 8 languages to its more than 20 million users worldwide (excluding Asia). The company’s majority investor is Otter Media, a venture formed with AT&T and The Chernin Group.

The strategic alliance between Crunchyroll and KADOKAWA involves, among other initiatives, (i) KADOKAWA’s licensing to Crunchyroll exclusive rights for the worldwide distribution (excluding Asia) for KADOKAWA’s slate of upcoming anime titles for the upcoming year, (ii) co-financing by Crunchyroll in KADOKAWA’s anime titles to be produced in the future and (iii) comprehensive marketing collaboration between KADOKAWA’s publishing business and Crunchyroll’s distribution platform business. Both parties regard the alliance as an important first step towards possibly further expanding relations in the future.

To bolster KADOKAWA’s planned formation of a publishing joint venture with the major U.S. publisher Hachette Book Group, specializing in manga and light novels (scheduled for May), Crunchyroll and KADOKAWA will seek to strengthen their relationship through a marketing campaign with the book publishing and anime distribution businesses, as well as joint efforts to expand relevant merchandising businesses, in order to maximize the growth potential of Japanese content in the North American market.

Masaki Matsubara, Representative Director and President of KADOKAWA said, “With their membership steadily increasing every year, Crunchyroll has established its firm position as the largest digital distribution platform specializing in Japanese content. Meanwhile, visitors at anime and pop culture events held in North America continue to rise year by year, demonstrating the increased popularity of Japanese content in the market. KADOKAWA considers the North American market as the most important international market for the company alongside the Greater China and Southeast Asian market where we have an existing business presence, and therefore look forward to our strategic alliance with Crunchyroll to secure an effective marketing collaboration system with our publishing business in the North American market, as well as contribute to the global growth of Japanese cool content as a whole, not limited to KADOKAWA.”

Kun Gao, GM of Crunchyroll, said, “The hunger for compelling anime, manga and light novel content is growing at an astounding rate throughout the world, and KADOKAWA has always been at the forefront of creating that content. We look forward to working closely with KADOKAWA to provide Crunchyroll fans with access to the anime, merchandise, and books that they have demonstrated they want time and again.“

 

About Crunchyroll:

Crunchyroll is the destination for the largest and latest lineup of anime, manga, merchandise, and exclusive content in the world. Crunchyroll brings hit shows to millions of viewers around the world and allows them to purchase related merchandise through its online store. Through its app on game consoles, set-top boxes, mobile devices and more, Crunchyroll delivers content from leading Asian media producers directly to viewers translated professionally in multiple languages. The service is available for free or through a premium offering that allows users to watch ad-free with access to simulcasts—top series available immediately after Japanese broadcast. Crunchyroll’s majority investor is Otter Media, a joint venture between AT&T and The Chernin Group. Crunchyroll has offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Tokyo, and is a member of the Association of Japanese Animations (AJA).

 

About KADOKAWA:

KADOKAWA Corporation is a leading diversified mega-content publisher in Japan with a wide range of businesses including publishing of books, e-books and magazines, production and distribution of anime and motion pictures, game development and sales, merchandising and digital media among others, centered on a media-mix strategy leveraging on its rich content IP portfolio. KADOKAWA is the subsidiary of Kadokawa DWANGO Corporation, which was formed in October 2014 intended to establish the world's leading platform for digital entertainment content.

 

Edit: After @Nosebleed mentioned it in the comments I decided to add this to the topic aswell, I had seen it but didn't want to mix both things but Oh well 

 

 

Japanese publisher Kadokawa Corporation announced on Monday via press release that it is entering into a joint venture with New York-based publishing company Hachette Book Group to publish manga and light novels in English. Under the new joint venture, Hachette's Yen Pressimprint will split off from being a completely-owned Hachette Book Group company, and will be jointly owned by Hachette and Kadokawa, with Kadokawa having a 51% stake in Yen Press. The new joint venture will launch in May, and Yen Press will be renamed Yen Press, LLC.

The press release mentions that Yen Press is the second largest English manga and light novel publishing company in North America. The press release also mentioned that sales of light novels have increased since Yen Press began publishing light novels in 2014. The announcement added that the new joint venture aims to establish light novels as a new content genre by using Hachette's existing production and distribution infrastructure, with Kadokawa providing leadership.

Yen Press vice president and publishing director Kurt Hassler will continue to lead Yen Press LLC under the title Managing Director and Publisher.

Yen Press previously collaborated with Japanese publisher Square Enix to release manga in English digitally.

Yen Press was founded in 2006 and aside from manga and light novels it also publishes Korean manhwa, Chinese manhua, original American comics, and original English graphic novel adaptations of existing properties such as Twilight and Maximum Ride.

 

 

Thoughts? Opinions about it?

 

[mitchhamilton]

this is pretty cool. good for crunchyroll for this. i hope to see more quality content from them.

[solidbatman]

What anime does Kadokawa do? I know they have Grasshopper Manufacture under their umbrella, but thats it. 

[Nosebleed]

25 minutes ago, solidbatman said:

What anime does Kadokawa do? I know they have Grasshopper Manufacture under their umbrella, but thats it. 

Kadokawa is mostly a publisher. They have worked with countless famous anime, including kill la Kill, Haruhi Suzumiya, Boku Dake ga Inai Machi, Neon Genesis Evangelion movie, and countless others. They also work on manga, video games, light novels, and other otaku related businesses.

My best guess is that this will just mean Crunchyroll gets more exclusives, which isn't a bad thing.

In other news, Kadokawa also purchased 51% equity stake in Yen Press, now this is the one I'm more hyped about, because it could mean we get a ton more Light Novels and Manga translated.

[DarkZedge]

26 minutes ago, Nosebleed said:

Kadokawa is mostly a publisher. They have worked with countless famous anime, including kill la Kill, Haruhi Suzumiya, Boku Dake ga Inai Machi, Neon Genesis Evangelion movie, and countless others. They also work on manga, video games, light novels, and other otaku related businesses.

My best guess is that this will just mean Crunchyroll gets more exclusives, which isn't a bad thing.

In other news, Kadokawa also purchased 51% equity stake in Yen Press, now this is the one I'm more hyped about, because it could mean we get a ton more Light Novels and Manga translated.

Yeah I saw that one too but didn't want to mix both things in the same topic haha, they're both good news how I see it 

[Dergonu]

30 minutes ago, Nosebleed said:

Kadokawa is mostly a publisher. They have worked with countless famous anime, including kill la Kill, Haruhi Suzumiya, Boku Dake ga Inai Machi, Neon Genesis Evangelion movie, and countless others. They also work on manga, video games, light novels, and other otaku related businesses.

My best guess is that this will just mean Crunchyroll gets more exclusives, which isn't a bad thing.

In other news, Kadokawa also purchased 51% equity stake in Yen Press, now this is the one I'm more hyped about, because it could mean we get a ton more Light Novels and Manga translated.

WOHOO! 

Bring me my official date a live translation already!

TAKE MAH MONEY!

[Kelebek1]

And here I am, still remembering the day when Crunchyroll was a place that listed IRC bots.

 

How times have changed.

[Arcadeotic]

This seems like neat news, but I definitely love the news about YenPress more

I do truly hope there'll be more mangas and LNs

As for this, it'll probably solidify Crunchyroll's place in this business, which is never bad

[sanahtlig]

Kadokawa is Big Anime.  Seems like they have their tentacles on half the shows coming out.

[DarkZedge]

1 hour ago, sanahtlig said:

Kadokawa is Big Anime.  Seems like they have their tentacles on half the shows coming out.

Yeah, not only that but I've lost count of how many anime series I've watched that were published by them...they truly are one giant company and seems they keep on growing steadily