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This Week in Anime
Anime Strike Out

by Christopher Farris & Coop Bicknell,

Chris and Coop discuss the patchy history of anime on Amazon.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.

GQuuuuuuX, Magilumiere, and Wotakoi are streaming on Amazon.
Tubi.

@RiderStrike @BWProwl @LucasDeRuyter @vestenet

Chris
Coop, I know you're still smarting over not seeing the Gundam GQuuuuuuX premiere in theaters, and I'm sure Lucas and Steve bringing it up the other day didn't help. But good news! The anime is already set to officially stream through Amazon when it dub! I'm sure it was received positively by anime fans all across the internet!
Coop
'Twas if the clouds had parted and Jeff Bezos said "Let them have Gundam." Then, the masses took this rare opportunity to pelt him with an unending volley of Mercury-grown tomatoes. This is all to say that potential viewers didn't exactly celebrate this announcement, Chris.
It's probably an odd occurrence to the average onlooker, but was wholly expected by anyone more steeped in English-streaming online anime fandom. In an era where almost every seasonal anime gets licensed, you know a new Gundam show won't get ed over, and it has to stream somewhere.
chris01
© Sotsu, Sunrise
So what gives? Everyone knows Amazon as the portrait of a villainous megacorp, but it's not like anime fans have a lot of love left for commonplace competitor Crunchyroll these days, either. Why the disappointment? As with motivations in so many Gundam anime, the answer is complex and layered.
No kidding. Like an onion, this conversation has layers.
coop-1
© Universal Studios, Dreamworks Animation LLC.
For starters, it's probably best to begin with Prime Video's anime-specific issues and go into the inner layers from there. Because when we start cutting into this onion, someone's probably gonna cry.
Amazon has been no stranger to streaming licensed and original programming for quite some time, as most services have over at least a decade and change. They'd gotten some simulcasts like Anime Strike channel.
chris02
It made sense. Dedicated streamers like Crunchyroll and My Hero Academia. That meant a new entrant like Anime Strike would have to come out swinging. So naturally, Anime Strike opted for "flailing" instead.
"Flailing" sounds like the most apt way to describe it, considering that Amazon Welcome to the Ballroom.

This leads me to another salient point: I'd almost completely forgotten about Anime Strike's existence until this GQuuuuuuX announcement.
Barely ing a blip is fair when a service is so unpopular that it only lasts a year. For anyone else who didn't it, I cannot overstate how badly anime fans friggin' hated this thing. Even if they had a desirable show or two each season, nobody would be happy about a double paywall, no matter how much we liked Made in Abyss.
chris03
© Akihito Tsukishi/Takeshobo/Made in Abyss "The Golden City of the Scorching Sun" Production Committee
I was at an anime convention the weekend Amazon announced they were killing Anime Strike, and the mood could only be described as jubilant. People going around the floor waving to each other going, "Anime Strike's dead!" "Anime Strike's dead!" like the Same Hat meme.
"Ding dong, the witch is dead!" indeed!
But if there are any silver linings to be found, I heard most subtitle tracks were generally all right. Because if we jump to today, it's all over the place.
coop-2.png
© P.I.C.S. / ODDTAXI partners
Chris and I exchanged some wonderful anime presents back in December, and the delivery guy was a little rough with the subtitles on my gifts.
The translations coming through for titles in Amazon Strike's year-long tenure (many of them through Sentai) were generally acceptable, and their video player was nicer than what Crunchyroll was working with at the time. It was the setup and pricing that annoyed so many fans. Still, even after folding their anime offerings into their general Prime Video service, the stench of Anime Strike seems to follow them even after its corpse is cremated. Those stanky subtitles are just one symptom of that.
chris04
© P.I.C.S./ODDTAXI partners
I don't know that we ever got to the bottom of what was happening there. Still, it seems to be a result of Amazon experimenting with AI-powered closed-captioning—something Crunchyroll is also doing, and oh boy, are there already several more layers to be uncovered in those tangents.
I'd guess that a bulk of the titles offered on the Crunchyroll and HIDIVE Prime channels probably need a subtitle once over at the very least. With how elaborate streaming subtitles are these days, Amazon's caption options are not robust enough to handle them. Some series might be all right with a simple, dialogue-only subtitle file , but not so much for titles with translated phone screens, dense signs, and the like...
coop-3.png
© YORIMOI PARTNERS
To simplify it a little, subtitles aren't always plug-and-play.
As a point of comparison, it's worth noting that recent Amazon-exclusive licensed simulcasts, like Magilumiere, seem to have gotten through with more proper translation and subtitling jobs.
chris05
© 岩田雪花・青木裕／集英社・株式会社マジルミエ製作委員会
So fingers crossed that GQuuuuuuX ends up more like this and less like whatever the hell was happening with ODDTAXI and A Place Further Than the Universe there.
I hope GQuuuuuuX will look crisp, especially when considering Shin Kamen Rider, they've all ended up on the service with fairly solid subtitles. It's been a while since I last saw them, but I don't having any issues with Thrice Upon a Time or Shin Rider.
With a lineup like that, GQuuuuuuX will be in good company (not to mention competing with 3.0+1.0 for "Goofiest Subtitle"). That also neatly leads to why this new Gundam went to Amazon for simulcasting: Khara's got a good thing going with them and seeks to maintain it.
chris06
© Sotsu, Sunrise
Pretty open-and-shut as far as reasoning goes, but still not enough to placate the fans who have other reasons for being frustrated this series wound up there and not on, say, Crunchyroll.
This is true because "What about Bandai Namco's role in all this?" is the next question you'll likely hear. That question has become even more interesting given the recent arrival of Gundam X and Gundam AGE on Tubi.
coop-4.png
© Tubi
Not to mention the company's countless Gundam-related partnerships with Netflix over the past few years.
Gundam streaming has been all over the place for a long time, with several not being available at all points. That makes the arrival of X and Age on a platform like Tubi all the more notable, even if the series themselves aren't as much.
chris07
© SOTSU • SUNRISE
chris08
© SOTSU • SUNRISE
You should still check Gundam X out. It's got Meme Doctor and Space Yuffie; it's an underrated good time.
I was just about to mention that, especially now that I'm staring at the assuredly soon-to-be-out-of-print Gundam X Blu-ray set sitting under my TV. Seems like a real gem in the wider Gundam jewelry box. However, I wouldn't be surprised if Bandai Namco has felt a bit of the same frustration experienced by Toei, and the many other companies that have been unhappy with Crunchyroll's treatment of their titles. And now that Bloomberg's got the story out there, why not the club? Disney and Netflix are expanding in the popular Japanese cartoon medium.
There's a reason a lot of collective eyebrows raised when GQuuuuuuX's U.S. theatrical run was absent any Crunchy branding, even though they'd be the natural expectation after the last Gundam TV series, The Witch From Mercury, streamed there.
Oddly reminiscent of that alleged Crunchyroll memo to avoid any DAN DA DAN talk, eh?
Given the issues some companies are taking with Crunchyroll's treatment of their material, the streamer might not be the no-brainer it once was. This is the company that sat on GKIDS would opt to just cut out the middleman for something as big a deal as the new Gundam.
chris09
© 円谷プロ ©2023 TRIGGER・雨宮哲／「劇場版グリッドマンユニバース」製作委員会
Especially when you've got a creative team involved that's sure to put butts in seats...and a whole product line you want to sell without a disinterested partner mucking it up.
It's not like they wouldn't have other options even if the Amazon thing hadn't happened. Bandai has streamed several new Gundam anime (mostly from the Build Fighters subsection) officially through their own YouTube channel. Ironically, given how much chatter I saw about Build Fighters back in the day, that actually might've been better for GQuuuuuuX's word-of-mouth than releasing on Amazon.
chris10
© SOTSU, SUNRISE
That's a good point! Build Fighters was a great week-to-week viewing experience for chatty Gundam sickos and casual fans alike. However, I think this might be a sort of "the devil you have a good working relationship with" situation on the whole. Amazon has all of its problems, but this is seemingly a better arrangement for all involved than CR. Then again, your average viewer isn't thinking about this at all—they just want to go to the place with all the anime on it.
Right, this gets into a deeper struggle, in that Crunchyroll, for all its current issues, is still Crunchyroll. Your casual anime-viewing co-workers who mostly just like keeping up with Attack on Titan and Solo Leveling are gonna stick to it and Netflix and aren't even going to think about looking at Amazon's offerings. This goes for a lot of the general online viewing and social media discussion that drives seasonal engagement with new shows like GQuuuuuuX!
chris11
© 岩田雪花・青木裕／集英社・株式会社マジルミエ製作委員会
I mentioned Magilumiere, an anime based on a well-liked manga with a slam dunk of a concept, but had barely any of the larger public talking about it because it streamed on a service that most people forget even has anime!
Speaking of Netflix, we've got to mention that they've upped their game since the days of Stone Ocean and cosplay photos have scrolled across my feed in the past year. Folks can't get enough of it!

I also can't help but envision the businessmen who were upset because international viewers couldn't see their company's logos (many of them Bandai's) every week due to the old drop strategy.
Old Netflix, whose "Jail" model practically parallels Anime Strike's hated status, seems to have been inherited by Hulu.
chris12
© UCKY LAND COMMUNICATIONS/SHUEISHA,JOJO's Animation SO Project
This all leads to the biggest reason, I think, why GQuuuuuuX going to Amazon disappointed people. tl;dr: Watching anime by yourself is fun, but watching anime that a lot of other people are having fun watching is even more fun. The mass of weekly chatter around the aforementioned Witch From Mercury was a huge driving factor in that show's success.
chris13
© SOTSU・SUNRISE・MBS
It's why I was hoping that, given GKIDS' involvement, the series would've found a home on multiple platforms like DAN DA DAN did. It might not be on "the platform," but having multiple options is a boon to viewers (and business). Unfortunately, it looks like that is not meant to be with GQuuuuuuX. But who knows from there? Even Frieren's recently gone multi-platform with its arrival on Netflix.

This oddly reminds me of all the "This is an Xbox" chatter with Microsoft's video games going to other consoles. "This is an Anime?"
coop-5
© SOTSU・SUNRISE・MBS
I want to reconfirm, as I always must, that I've got no love lost for Crunchyroll myself. It's not like their handling of G-Witch itself was sterling all the way through.
chris14
© SOTSU・SUNRISE・MBS
Plus, they still owe me a Dirty Pair Blu-ray set. Still, I can understand the disappointment of those who had so much fun with Suletta Sundays, thinking that the new Gundam series starring a funny little redhead girl might not get the same draw. The hype cycle can make it all too easy to Suletta Forgetta as it is.
chris15
© SOTSU・SUNRISE・MBS
I'm reminded of why I haven't nabbed those Blu-rays yet because CR didn't bother with on-screen text for those. Again, another one of those "not taking amazing care of a partner's product" situations... Our many Suletta Sundays were a real special treat. To think we might not have something like that for GQuuuuuuX is a bummer.
It's not something we, as consumers and commentators, have control over when it comes to the promotional whims of these massive megacorporations. But it can help, especially for onlookers, to understand why something seemingly benign as "a show streaming on Amazon" would draw these kinds of annoyed reactions. Though the good news is that GQuuuuuuX's theatrical push here indicates that someone back there gives a shit.
chris16
© Sotsu, Sunrise
The positive spin I can land on then is that some anime achieve escape velocity from the confines of Amazon to find their audience anyway. Made in Abyss is an excellent example from the Anime Strike days. Anything's possible.
And if you do happen to ever find yourself perusing the Prime Video catalog, Wotakoi is a wonderful little show about working a-dorks falling in love.
It would also be funny for a Gundam series made by Khara to wind up with the sort of "hidden gem" cred held by Wotakoi there. This means I can look forward to the adventures of Machu and pals either way. Besides, even streaming on Amazon is a more convenient release method than a limited theatrical run.
chris17
© Sotsu, Sunrise
You got that right! As you said at the top, the lack of any screenings in my neck of the woods smarted me so badly. But fingers crossed that GQuuuuuuX ends up being more than a "Prime Video hidden gem," as funny as that idea might be.
Just , kids, it could always be worse. In an alternate universe, GQuuuuuuX could be streaming on Daisuki.
chris18
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