Hey, we’re back. Hope all you guys are hanging in there!
@Demon:
This is a good question for how things work with Aniplex using FUNi's dub of FMA for sure, I do wonder how that works.
But again, Netflix isn't "Using their Dub".
So far the way everything looks, Netflix is just acting as a platform here, not the rights holder. FUNi probably makes money on this.
Here’s how the FMA situation works from my understanding. First and foremost, once a third party company like Funimation produces a dub for a title, the assets and rights to said dub get sent straight back to the original Japanese production companies (Don’t quote me on this, but I think the impetus for this type of stipulation is due to issues that have happened in the past where the Japanese side didn’t request the requisite rights and assets, and led to a slew of legal troubles over the years, such as dubbing companies folding and nobody knowing who owns dub rights and who doesn’t).
Anyway, Aniplex (Japan) produced FMA, which they then sold the right to Funimation to distribute. Since that agreement took place (2009 for FMA:B), Aniplex had started up their own American arm (Aniplex USA), and decided they wanted to distribute the show themselves. So when Funimation’s contract with Aniplex expired, the rights defaulted to them, dub and all. The same happened for other previously-owned Funimation titles of Aniplex shows like Black Butler and Baccano.
That means, if Toei so wished to, at the end of their term agreement with Funimation, the rights could default back to Toei and they could have Toei USA distribute the show themselves. That would be a stupid move, because Toei USA has failed hard with self-distribution in the past, like with World Trigger and some of the Pretty Cure series, because they had no idea what they were doing. Aniplex seems like they know what they are doing (though their $300 box sets say otherwise) and are confident in their abilities to do things themselves, so there you go.
On the subject of OP on Netflx, they most assuredly have the Funimation dub, because as Rin said, they have plenty of Funi dubs up there that are sub-licensed titles. Though if there’s one minutia of a chance that there’s some loophole in OP’s contract that Toei could (and for whatever reason want to) commission a new dub for Netflix in tandem with the Funi dub, I can’t say it would be unprecedented, as you guys have mentioned with there being dueling dubs of Dragon Ball, DBZ, DBGT (albeit recorded outside the U.S. and for non-U.S. distribution), and even most recently DB Super which had a dub of the first 27 episodes produced in L.A. (again, airing outside the U.S. though). And even though the humongous episode count in and of-itself would make it the whole thing seem unprofitable from the get-go, they did recently have all 100+ episodes of the original 1980’s St. Seyia redubbed, so who knows.
Remember, this is Toei we’re talking about, the company which spent significant resources commissioning a Canadian dub of DBZKai before getting a station to run it on, only to have 98 fully-produced episodes locked away, sitting on a hard drive somewhere to this day. And also the people who demanded that Funimation have the dub of DBZ Kai Final Chapters get a TV deal on Cartoon Network before being able to put it out on DVD/BR, despite the entire season being fully dubbed two or three years beforehand. And not to mentioned, the people who put us in the strange situation we’re currently in for why it took so long to release freaking Punk Harzard. Truly bizarre folks running things over there
[[My series COMIXSCAPE!](
