#elite press

[k-wame]

ARÓN PIPER & OMAR AYUSO via Élitǝ Press/Netflix [2018]

[cowboyshit]

[ghostpalmtechnique]

US media, What, and I cannot stress this enough, The Fuck?!

[groenendaelfic]

One day Simon will start uni*, only to realize that he's surrounded by people who think HE is the posh, privileged kid with no clue how the real world works, and that day will be hilariously glorious.

* or be conscripted��super unlikely, but a fic writer can dream

[elitehoe]

See Jay, this isn't the same cowboy you faced multiple times before. This isn't the same man you demolished verbally and physically before. You represent a past, you're the breath of a weaker time, you're a lesson right now. And that's why Hangman isn't just gonna kill you so he can advance, the devil is in the details babe.

[quietbatperson]

[arkus-rhapsode]

Sony wants to buy Kadokawa, what does this mean?

So this is a post I didn't think I'd ever have to make, but I guess I will because it concerns two things I'm invested in: anime and video games. And it concerns how we may potentially be seeing those industries get even more consolidated.

Yesterday on November 19th Reuters reported that Sony was in talks to acquire the massive Japanese media conglomerate Kadokawa. As of November 20th, we see that Sony has indeed sent a letter of intent for an acquisition.

Now look, I know we all tend to see Sony as a video game and technology company first and foremost, and I think that has led to a tendency for reports on this story to frame this story as "Sony wants to buy the parent company of FromSoft, what does this mean for Armor Core and Souls games going forward?" Now I don't necessarily blame gamers from focusing on the game aspect of this purchase, but its massively underselling that Sony is a multimedia entertainment company with plans outside of video games and Kadokawa's holding on other forms of media. For just a taste, here is just what Wikipedia lists as some of the subsidiaries of the Kadokawa Corporation.

As you can see, numerous light novel and manga magazine publishers, anime studios, and even news sites like Anime News Network fall under the umbrella of Kadokawa owned operations. And Sony themselves have been no slouches in the anime industry either. Having bought Aniplex, Funimation, Crunchyroll, RightStuff and more Sony has had a foothold on the distribution of anime outside Japan for quite a while. If this acquisition goes through there is no doubt that this will make their grip even tighter on the anime industry. Basically now controlling all the means of taking a work from the page to the screen to overseas to the merch to follow.

Obviously, I don't necessarily blame video game journalists and personalities for not going this deep into it, video games and anime fans may have overlap, but it's pretty clear there's a level of separation between the two in the same space. However, this focus on FromSoft honestly reminds me of the Microsoft-Bethesda purchase where most people talked about it like Microsoft only bought Bethesda. No, they bought Bethesda's parent company, Zenimax Media, which owns Bethesda and also numerous other studios like Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin, Obsidian, Roundhouse Studios, and Alpha Dog Games. Note that all those studios except Obsidian saw a closer this year. When dealing with a massive merger/acquisition like this its important to keep in mind the full scope of it.

Kadokawa and its video game sector which includes FromSoft, Spike Chunsoft and recent acquisition of Acquire being purchased by Sony would be pretty rough. Particularly Spike who have made a reputation for themselves as one of the still AA studios that are into developing and publishing niche games like Ai The Somnium Files, Master Detective Raincode, and Mystery Dungeon. So having Sony, who have spent basically the last decade and a half moving towards huge blockbuster AAA games and who have just incurred a massive loss and shuttered a studio like Firewalk after one disastrous game, makes me fear for a lot of the safety of any new company being brought on.

And of course, there's the very real possibility that one acquired Sony will make many of these games these studios make exclusive to their Playstation platform. Or at the very least require a PSN account to access these titles on things like the PC. I know there's a lot of people who like to turn stories of Sony and Microsoft acquiring companies into pissing matches for whoever's team is "winning" by buying up more, but setting aside the console wars nonsense, the adverse effects of the major third party publishers on the industry would be bad for all platform users.

However, even more worrisome is what will happen on the print entertainment side of things. Kadokawa isn't a small time publisher of works. When it comes to their Light Novel prints they include series like Sword Art Online, Haruhi Suzumiya, Irregular at Magic High School, Classroom of the Elite, Re:Zero, No Game No Life, and even Slayers

There's also Enterbrain, a much smaller publisher known for its cult fanbase and publishing of niche series like Delicious in Dungeon!

Now, all of these series in Japan are typically protected by much stronger creators rights laws in Japan. With the series creators owning their work and not the publishers. But it doesn't change that now Sony will essentially have ownership of their publishing outlets and a seat at everyone of their production committees I regards to adaptations of their work. And then we get into how those products might leave Japan. Yen Press and Book Walker aren't small outlets, they are a big deal in making several of these series legally accessible to non-Japanese readers. Yen Press has even taken it upon themselves to bring over series from other magazines like Oshi no Ko, which Viz Media had failed to bring over for years.

And speaking of Oshi no Ko, this acquisition would mean Sony would now own the studio that makes it, Doga Kobo. Along with Cinema Citrus, the studio behind Made in Abyss, Rise of the Shield Hero, and as I was writing this, just was announced for Star Wars Visions Vol 3. Now lets add onto the fact Sony currently owns Crunchyroll which is one of the three main players in the North American anime streaming and distribution game along with Netflix and Hi-Dive. Sony could in theory now cut out the need to bid for airing certain anime overseas and instead just have a pipeline that leads directly from Kinema Citrus all the way to Crunchyroll's servers.

And speaking of Crunchyroll, we haven't even talked about how Sony has been acting in regards to this one streaming platform. Initially, Sony had acquired Funimation and infamously we had a neck and neck streaming war with Crunchy and Funi, but eventually Crunchyroll would be sold off to Sony where they proceeded to fold Funimation into Crunchyroll's brand. Erasing years of Funimation's own identity and most egregious of all, shuttering the Funimation website which deleted loads of digital content. Especially annoying when one of the perks of purchasing a Funimation Blu-Ray was offering a free digital copy that could be used on their website. So all those purchases? Gone. Hope you saved the physical media.

Crunchyroll themselves have also been no shortage of controversies lately, from the implementations of AI subtitles that are not only inaccurate, but also a pretty transparent attempt to eventually phase out subtitle writers. Then there's the allegations by actors as recently as a few weeks ago that Crunchyroll Studios has acted unprofessionally and illegally with their treatment of staff. But I think the most controversial of all was what happened to RightStuf. RIghtStuf was an anime merchandise outlet that would be shut down after purchase by Sony and then redirected users to go to the Crunchyroll merch store. If that doesn't sound like an attempt to monopolize a hobby, I don't what does.

I know this post has been very alarmist sounding, I legit was shaken when I heard the news, but there is some small silver lining to this dark cloud. Kadokawa hasn't made any decision either which way to go with this intention to acquire. They are capable of doing they're due diligence and seeing if this acquisition is opportune for them or not. Do I think they are going to reject it? I don't know. I'd prefer to not have this go through, but its out of my hands.

Once again, we must unfortunately watch more consolidation in the animanga and video game spaces. Which in the year 2024, we've seen full display of what has happened with the shrinking AA space of developers and publishers as they've been eaten up by guys like Tencent, Embracer Group, Microsoft, and Sony. We've had so many lay-offs and shut downs in this year alone its disheartening. Combine that with how this will effect how many people outside of Japan's accessibility to the pass time that they are passionate about and how this will inch us closer to only a few big players making all the choices for the anime industry is also disheartening.

There's a very tangible future where corporations like Sony own so much of our art and entertainment.

[rjcity1]

Matt Sydal | Hey!(EW)

[three-headed-monster]

you know the sabres vibes are so rancid because i'm genuinely considering watching kevin korchinski's season debut on the CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS instead of the red wings game tonight

[cmarie13]

[k-wame]

MIGUEL BERNARDEAU via Élitǝ/Netflix Press [2018] 

[cowboyshit]

[lovespowermoved]

  thinking about 𝑚𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑒'𝑠 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 𝑖𝑝ℎ𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑠ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑔𝑜𝑡 & how confused she was, that she 𝑠𝑛𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑛 ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑓; she's so used to flip phones, she thought it was 𝑠𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑑 to close shut & you can 𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑘 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑦𝑒𝑒'𝑠 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑠ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑢𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑜��ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑛𝑒 that same day 👁️👄👁️

[dameronswife]

sometimes i think.........people would be less strange about gifmaker's role in the fandom..........if gifmaking seemed accessible to most people like it actually is.

[eiiskonigin]

I feel like Winter's bisexual awakening is seeing Robyn in formalwear.

Just at some fancy event and she stands there like ".........well, we don't have time to unpack this right now."

[catboii]

((Look at this complete menace

He likes to sit on the mouse pad