Despite all of FUNi’s success in really carrying a large chunk of the industry, even they were not immune to the recession. And while a few staff here or there isn’t that big a deal for them in the long run, it’s kinda a surprise (not really when you think about it, but still) to see them take a hit almost as quickly as they’d risen in acclaim.
Of course FUNimation wasn’t the only company affected, and some had to close down altogether. Definitely not good times. Thanks to the Recession it had become Geneon x10 (only worse).
In the meantime, someone was actually catching on to the digital distribution bandwagon. Yeah big companies like ADV & FUNimation & Viz were streaming anime, but this new contender, they def brought something new to the party. Crunchyroll was that new contender. Crunchyroll is an American online streaming site and international online community that has all sorts of Asian media. For the longest time they were…um, less than legit, to put it nicely. Then they got a financial backer and started legitimizing their business structure. Their business practices allowed them to garnish quite the fanbase, and their numbers have only risen since they sought out legal distribution routes. Enabling fans to see their favorite shows almost as soon (if not just as) as their Japanese counterparts, Crunchyroll is a definite favorite amongst fans. Some would even go as far as to call this the next evolution in the anime industry. Crunchyroll’s doing a lot of good things with online distribution, considering they haven’t been around that long it will be interesting to see where they go from here.
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