Anime News Round-Up

Ahoy Captain Cats here and here is another edition of the anime news round up.

Sony made news this week besides the Spider-Man deal, but this time in anime. Sony has announced that they are consolidating Aniplex and Funimation and making them into one anime streaming service. First reported by Variety that both anime studios along with Madman Anime Group (Australia) and Wakanim (France) will be under and operating under the Funimation umbrella.

HIDIVE and MyAnimeList or MAL for short announced via press release that they will be entering a strategic partnership. John Ledford, Founder and CEO of HIDIVE had this to say in the press release:

“By teaming strategically with MyAnimeList, we can couple instant delivery of exciting anime content via Internet streaming with highly relevant, peer-generated ratings, reviews and other data about that programming and much more. We are pleased to embark on this collaboration that is intended to promote deeper exploration by anime fans and other viewers of the near limitless capacity for delight and diversity offered by Japan’s anime creators.” – John Ledford, Founder and CEO of HIDIVE

MAL rating system is already available on HIDIVE and HIDIVE’s video player will be on MAL’s website very soon.

Sad news to report that visual effects studio Picture Elements has filed for Bankruptcy. According to Anime News Network that the studio owes 64 creditors 194 million yen, which is about 1.80 million in US dollars. Some of the company’s created works were Stand By Me Doraemon, Dragon Quest Your Story, live-action Kiki’s Delivery Service, Princess Jellyfish, and Shin Godzilla.

Lastly some Beastars news. Toho animation quietly released a 9-minute promo video with a summary of the first 3 episodes! The animation looks beautiful and the music is spot on with the series. You can look at the 9-minute promo here.

There you go that’s you anime news round-up!