Anime Licensing Practices: Too Centered on North America?

[Marcus H.]

Funimation has gathered several titles this Summer 2015 season.
Several new titles have been picked up by Yen Press, including Another and Oregairu.
The representative of the elusive Monogatari Series, Kizumonogatari, was confirmed for licensing by Vertical.

And after all of this, there's no news of an anime license for Asia, especially Region 3.
What fucking gives?

I'm pretty sure that Asia, especially Southeast Asia, is one of the biggest hubs of anime fandom, and it's closer to Japan than some may seem. And yet, America takes all of the series like it's Black Friday every quarter, leaving the rest of the world (yes, that includes every single country that's NOT covered by regional licenses) to suffer without any ways to get their fix. Oh, and before anyone could say Crunchyroll, they also have their region-restriction problems. And their 25 kph subs aren't as lovely.

The last straw is that Crunchyroll might have picked up Kekkon Yubiwa Monogatari and Angel Beats! Heaven's Door is picked up by Yen Press.

Oh yeah, I'm fucking mad.

So, what now for the rest of us? Wait for digital? Export at the expense of several times the price of a local release? Or just throw our hands up as Obama adds more titles to his MAL account?

[Irenicus]

How do licensing agreements between U.S.-based companies and Japanese companies impact the possibility of Asian companies making similar arrangements?

Not a leading question; I genuinely don't know. Do these agreements have restrictions against, say, a Singaporean licensing company creating a region-locked streaming website of its own? I'm assuming Funimation isn't buying the license "worldwide except Japan" here since there are local distribution companies doing business.

Another conversation would be about how English language anime fandom websites treat licensing status, since most of them follow the American status, including Animesuki back in the day. I remember many European and Asian members were understandably not too pleased about that.

[Marcus H.]

How do licensing agreements between U.S.-based companies and Japanese companies impact the possibility of Asian companies making similar arrangements?

Does any Asian company even become interested in handling sales of anime releases? The only entity I know is Odex, but anyone from the Philippines don't even know the company and the Wikipedia article mentions that among their notable releases are for really old series (complete list here).

From my digging around, all I found it is that (1) regional restrictions make worldwide licensing very expensive because it would cost a lot of money to secure licenses for each region and (2), multiple entities cannot license a single anime series. I call the latter bullshit because it feels like unfair competition against what appears to be just a handful of licensing companies.

Another conversation would be about how English language anime fandom websites treat licensing status, since most of them follow the American status, including Animesuki back in the day. I remember many European and Asian members were understandably not too pleased about that.

Many are still pissed to this day. Some Crunchyroll subscribers are unable to watch the series they want because it is restricted to a few regions, for example.

Also, seeing Funi release region-restricted trailers like what they did to Dimension W is always a slap to the face.

[Fizix]

Why not just use a vpn? That's how everyone watches US paced TV shows and it works on all of the sites/apps.

[TJR]

Anime licensing used to be quite extensive in Taiwan (and more limited in Hong Kong and Korea, although some market still existed). Last I checked though, the releases had really slowed, and DVD was still the main format.

[roxybudgy]

Have you looked at Australian releases? We're not that far from Asia

For streaming new and old shows, we have AnimeLab: https://www.animelab.com/

And for DVD/BluRay releases (and some manga), we have a variety of licencing companies:

Madman Entertainment https://www.madman.com.au
Siren Visual http://www.sirenvisual.com.au
Hanabee http://hanabee.com.au (they also stream shows online)

Heck, Australian companies have licenced a few series that even the US companies don't have yet, such as Chihayafuru, and some releases are cheaper than the US ones (but usually lack bonus content/features).

[Marcus H.]

Nah, I know a handful of people whose business involves ordering anime merchandise purchases from Japan, like buying song albums and stuff like that, for those interested. That's not the problem.

Quoting from the Oregairu LN thread:

YP having a license means they have the rights over all English translation of OregaIru. It isn't limited to "just NA" - you could host it all the way in Asia and technically, that would still be piracy. Fan translations of other language would still be fine, however.
Hosting on an Europe server is a slightly different issue. It's true that DMCA only applies to US. However, most of EU country have their own copyright laws. All respectable hosts know of these and would comply if there is a reasonable (i.e: this case) take down request. Don't expect it to be safe just by moving the host to Europe.

Bolded is my current issue with English licenses. They were designed for North America, but the issue eventually expands into any country that knows how to speak English (which is a majority of the world), preventing anyone who speaks English but isn't directly covered by the region-based license of Yen Press to make translations of a work that is supposed to be "unlicensed in their local region".

[ltendayte]

Last I checked though, the releases had really slowed, and DVD was still the main format.