Sony Pictures Has Acquired Funimation
As of today, Funimation Productions has been acquired by Sony Pictures TV. Funimation, known for bringing anime like Dragon Ball Z, Hunter x Hunter, and most recently, Your Name to America, the UK, Australia, will now be receiving ongoing support and funding from Sony for its licensing and distribution.
The deal, which gave Sony 95% of Funimation for $143 million, allows the current founder and CEO of Funimation, Gen Fukunaga, to remain on as CEO. Current deals that Funimation has with Toonami and CrunchyRoll are also expected to remain the same. Whether this will effect Aniplex, the anime production company Sony already owns, is to be announced.
According to Funimation, Sony’s role is to help solely in distribution:
“Where Sony can help us be more efficient and get anime to more people around the world across devices and countries, we will work together to make that happen and are excited about the opportunity that presents to both serve our fans, and introduce anime to a new audience.”
For now, details on how Funimation will change are to be seen, but current anime fans and subscribers have been promised to not see any differences in their current plans.
Source: Funimation
