Insight: MAX’s Anime Streaming Focus Is Going The Wrong Way

In August of 2021, AT&T’s then owned WarnerMedia sold off Crunchyroll for just north of $1.1 billion which sounds like a lot for a streamer that only gets 13 million paying users a month but when you factor in that anime is by far the fastest-growing segment of the animation industry in the world in parts like India, the Middle East, China, and Europe, the acquisition will look a lot better in the coming years ahead. One of the big reasons for Crunchyroll’s success started when they opted to purchase Funimation, a competing anime streaming service made famous by always offering the English dubbed adaptations of anime series that Crunchyroll would typically only subtitle, clearly showing that English-speaking audiences is a clear and obvious growth industry for anime and because of that you’re going to want to make sure you have a bevy of English-language content available.

Now, this isn’t a subtitle vs dubbed argument, one that seems silly if you ask me. Whenever the United States ships series like Family Guy or The Simpsons to India or other non-English speaking native countries, typically the localization services gear up and make sure to adapt those series to those localities. So when Adult Swim VP Jason DeMarco touts the fact that “more people watch anime subbed than dubbed” he might be right in whatever reports he’s getting, but to think that this is a strategy to help with growth of a streamer, is short-sighted. Check out these graphs that showcase the costs of the different streaming services and how much content you get via each streamer:

Note that the cost of MAX puts it second only to Hulu in most expensive streaming services on the market compared to what you’re actually getting in the amount of content. For its heftier price, Hulu offers a bunch more bang for your buck in terms of content and that includes English dubbed anime stalwarts like Undead Unluck, Zom 100, and back catalog from Crunchyroll. Add in the fact that with ads, you can get Hulu and Disney+ for $10 a month and that Disney has also been premiering anime series featuring franchises like Marvel and Star Wars, and you can see why the combined streamers have 200 million subscribers compared to MAX’s just under 100 million subscribers. Disney knows there’s a value here and it’s why they are continuing to invest in original anime with English dubbed audiences, they aren’t interested in just placating existing subscribers, but growing them. Jason Demarco’s recent comments saying, “More people watch things with subs these days” isn’t a statement from someone interested in growing and adding an audience to their platform, it’s one of placating to an existing audience and, possibly shrinking, audience.

In a recent story from Variety, James Gibbons, WBD president of Asia-Pacific notes that WB Anime Japan wants to increase output to ten series a year all-the-while touting the likes of Suicide Squad: Isekai and Rick and Morty: The Anime. That’s all fine and dandy, but so far there hasn’t been any announcement as to whether either will get an English dubbed adaptation, the latter of the two almost confirming that it won’t. Despite how horrific the new voices of the latest season of Rick and Morty have been received by audiences that has already sunk that once reputable brand into a ratings hell hole, it still would behoove WB Discovery to make sure that if your goal (according to the aforementioned Variety report) is to expand original anime penetration in the U.S., parts of Europe and Latin America, doing so with only Japanese language isn’t going to help spur your growth. Furthermore, add in the fact that having English language tracks to audio is helpful to those who have certain reading or neurological disabilities like dyslexia, autism, and others, the MAX streaming service can be on the receiving end of a DoJ investigation for not complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act. This would certainly be a black eye in addition to the other black eyes the streamer has received in recent months such as for canceling heavily-advertised movies before they stream, changing the name of the streamer in the first place, and removing catalogs of original content from its library. This also goes for WB Discovery’s strategy of adding content made with Latinx audiences in mind such as Batman: Azteca and Women Wearing Shoulder Pads. I’m totally fine with Espanol being an option for these series, but if you’re a media company not willing to dub those series to local English language for everyone to enjoy, a lot of trouble and money into making these new original series and spin-offs are going to literally go out the door and MAX will be nowhere near in overtaking the dominance of platforms like Hulu and Netflix, both of which offer multiple language track options for all audiences.

In the long run, making sure your original animated content always has the English dubbed language option is just good business sense. Heck, McDonald’s is doing an anime campaign right now in their recent advertisements and knew to make sure that their shorts are in English, so they must know something, right?