FUNimationNow Launch Review (incl. site and app)

Date: 2016 April 13 15:31

Posted by Eeeper

Well, it was a long time coming but US anime video and streaming label FUNimation arrived on the 7th of April in the UK and Ireland after hiccups and false starts. Was it worth the wait? Is it worth it?

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Something like five or six years ago, FUNimation had a break in on one of their servers and anime episodes that were supposed to stream in the coming days were illegally downloaded and streamed on video player sites and torrent sites. Needless to say, the licensor hit the roof and FUNimation had to take down all their shows and shut down the service to beef up security. When the service restarted Irish and British viewers who could watch some of the streams beforehand found themselves staring at the dreaded "We’re sorry but licensing restrictions mean we can’t stream this, blah, blah, blah" message on the FUNimation video pages. The video label’s reps promised that the restriction would only be temporary, that some of the content would be restricted and that fans should be patient.

Well, it’s been over half a decade so I’d say we’re in line for some sort of Nobel Peace Prize for fan loyalty. I know I was livid when it happened. Not a day went by when I wasn’t badmouthing FUNi on Twitter or Facebook. I’m sure my Twitter followers were sick of me talking about. I even created a widget on my site counting the days since the service had been cut off from Ireland and the UK. How’s that for pretentious? But time heals all wounds and in the end, I just let it go and got on with things. A lot of the shows I was buying through Manga UK turned out to be sub-licensed from FUNimation. How angry could I be with them if they were supplying me with anime? Anyway, with a lot of buzz around FUNimation and Manga UK no longer working together, the odds were that FUNimation was going to form their own UK home video label. Then they surprised us by announcing that they were launching a streaming video service. So what would it look like, how much would it cost and what would it have by way of content? After a failed launch date of March came and went, FUNimation announced that all the hurdles to the launch had been cleared and the site and service would launch on April the 7th. So it did and here we are.

The first thing I’ve got to say about the service is that it truly lives up to the label BETA in the top left-hand corner of the homepage. The Android app launched the same day as the site but it is hit and miss as to what works and what doesn’t. I won’t bore you with all the details but a lot of my problems with the app stem from backend stuff related to the file and fetching system for the file. While playing a file, if you backed out of the video and went back in you got this: