Funimation Using VR And Other Methods To Diversify Anime Distribution
Funimation is not going down without a fight. Today, they are the only anime streamer (that includes Netflix and Crunchyroll) who is producing English dubs during the COVID-19 crisis, or at least making an attempt. They may not be at full capacity yet, but the effort is both noted and should be appreciated. Moreover, the streaming service is trying different things to get their English dubs out there.
We reported earlier this year that Matt Shipman was teasing more English dubbed episodes of One Piece, and now Funimation has announced that One Piece episodes 575-587 will be released via Microsoft and Amazon store fronts with streaming soon to follow.
Even bigger news, Funimation is teaming up with Bigscreen to offer VR streamers the opportunity to watch a number of English dubbed anime movies starting May 1st. Bigscreen will already have a slew of films available on demand, but they will also stream English dubbed adaptations of films at various times that will be listed here.
It’s an interesting diversification of Funimation’s services, it will be interesting to see what else is on the horizon.
Do we know if Hulu will be the only entity to have the dub, or if it will be on other platforms, too? The show in general is definitely going to be on multiple platforms.