It appears like the ultimate evolution of any streaming service is to begin producing content material to sit alongside the exhibits and motion pictures that already fill their libraries. Netflix has performed this to nice impact, with exhibits like Stranger Issues and Squid Video games turning into full-blown cultural phenomenons. Now it appears like Crunchyroll isn’t content material to simply stream the largest library of anime in the world; they’re going to begin making it by establishing their own anime studio with fellow Sony property Aniplex.
The announcement comes as both companies are working intently on a few of the largest anime in the world. Aniplex already owns A-1 Footage, which produces Solo Leveling, and licenses Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, each of that are huge hits for Crunchyroll’s streaming platform. The brand new studio, which is predicated in Tokyo and is headed up by workers from each Crunchyroll and Aniplex, might be called Hayate. It needs to be famous that each the CEO and COO of Hayate will come from Aniplex relatively than Crunchyroll.
As odd because it feels to see Crunchyroll in the enterprise of creating anime, the partnership with Aniplex makes plenty of sense. Each corporations are finally owned by Sony and have a superb working relationship. The announcement makes it clear that Aniplex might be targeted on producing new anime (presumably from Sony’s new stake in Kadokawa) whereas Crunchyroll might be chargeable for distribution and advertising and marketing, one thing they’ve confirmed to be superb at once they have a vested curiosity in the present. All of this exercise feeds into Sony’s ongoing mission to change into a dominant pressure in the anime trade, which has been a number of years in the making.
The implications of this new studio gained’t be felt for not less than just a few years, however we wouldn’t be shocked if exhibits which can be produced by Hayate get a really fast English dub in contrast to exhibits made by different studios. What we don’t need to see is Crunchyroll focus too closely on advertising and marketing and pushing Hayate-produced anime at the expense of different exhibits, which might harm each the firm and the trade in the long run.