FunimationNow Should Steal Animelab

Posted on by catalogueback

Disclaimer:

Some of the individual complaints about FunimationNow’s apps and website have been tweaked or fixed since I originally wrote this script. However, I believe my original point still stands. FunimationNow is a broken mess that needs to be replaced. In regards to Animelab there is a carousel for new episodes its just not on the front page – which is a more intuitive design in my opinion.

Sony recently announced that it is going to merge all its anime brands under the one banner of Funimation. For now, Sony’s international anime brands like Australia’s Madman are likely to continue as is. But I expect within the next five to ten years we will see these distributers disappear as they rebrand into Funimation.

Though the announcement of this merger has me worried about the future of Madman the leading and longest-running distributor of anime in Australia, there is one thing I think Sony should do right now if it plans to dissolve its international brands in favour of a unified Funimation brand and streaming platform.

And that is FunimationNow should steal Animelab.

The FunimationNow app is a frustrating, inconsistent and unusable experience. Except for a few shows I can’t get elsewhere I’ve switched the majority of my viewing to either Crunchyroll or Animelab. FunimationNow’s entire subreddit r/FunimationNow is dedicated mainly to complaining about the platform. And, on the day I wrote this script, the first post on r/Funimation was “The app is garbage and needs a lot of work.”

My personal list of complaints about the service – mainly about the apple tv app and website – include the following.

  • The video player is buggy.
  • The button mapping on apple tv is different than every other app.
  • The back button opens the menu instead of going back a screen. As far as I know, there is no way to go back one screen. You have to reload entire sections and re-navigate to your previous position.
  • There is no clear all or easy management for the queue and history. Which means you have to remove each episode or show manually. This becomes frustrating when removing more than 20 shows or the list is just long in general.
  • The interface on the website for the queue or history is also inconsistent when loading data. I had to refresh to page multiple times when deleting a large list to ensure it got everything. As shows or episodes don’t appear or weren’t properly deleted.
  • Shows remain in your currently watching carousel unless you remove every episode from your history. You cannot remove them from the carousel nor does it take into account whether the show is in your queue or not.
  • The Play/Pause button – the button which on every other app plays and pauses the video – doesn’t work.
  • Sometimes it stops recording how far into the episode you are, and there is no way to mark the episode as watched manually.
  • I also regularly get emails about DVD releases. But Funimation doesn’t directly sell DVDs in my region. Most anime is distributed by Madman Entertainment in Australia.
  • The download function on IOS is buggy and incomprehensible. There is no background downloading and no page that shows all downloaded episodes in one place.

That’s ten complaints, and I could probably compile twenty to thirty more just by searching the r/FunimationNow. Do you know how many complaints I have about Animelab? Two.

The first has to do with login. When I login to the website or the app, it signs me out of the other client. This is annoying, but I can understand this is probably a security feature. I don’t watch a lot of anime on the website, but I do use it to manage my library. So having to log back into the app just because I wanted to add or remove a couple of shows or check if a new episode is up is a bit annoying to me.

The last complaint has to do with new episodes. Unlike FunimationNow new episodes aren’t added to a carousel at the top of the page where they are easily accessible. Episodes you are currently watching have a carousel, but new episodes or the next episode in a series don’t. However, because they integrated the Apple’s API into their app, they do show up outside of Animelab in the Apple TV app. Still, going in and out of the app to start new episodes is a bit annoying.

The fact is Animelab is just a neater design with better usability. This why I want Sony to take its design and backend software and transfer it to the FunimationNow platform. Animelab works, and exceptionally well across many different platforms. No one is saying the same about FunimationNow. Even Crunchyroll and the newbie to the anime streaming game HiDive have better cleaner, and consistently functional websites and apps compared to Funimation.

The merger of Sony’s anime divisions under the brand Funimation likely means that the company will push for a unified brand and streaming platform internationally. Regional services like Animelab are likely to disappear and be replaced by FunimationNow. However, before getting rid of these services, Sony needs to take a hard look at their regional alternatives and competitors and make sure FunimationNow is competing at the same level. Because currently, it is the worse streaming service for anime on the market.

References

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