Crunchyroll (company, Switzerland)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Crunchyroll

logo
legal form Joint stock company (SA)
founding 1995
Seat Lausanne
management Derek Hofer
Branch media
Website www.kaze-online.de

Crunchyroll SA (formerly Viz Media Switzerland and Anime Virtual SA ) is one of the largest publishers for anime and manga in German-speaking countries and is the Swiss branch of the US company Crunchyroll . In addition to anime and manga publisher sells from 2020 also board games . The company is based in Lausanne , Switzerland . In 2009 it was acquired by the Japanese companies Shōgakukan , Shūeisha and Shōgakukan-Shūeisha Productions Co., Ltd., which belong to the Hitotsubashi Group . accepted. WarnerMedias Crunchyroll has been the majority owner of the Viz Media Europe Group since 2019, while the Hitotsubashi Group has a minority stake. Crunchyroll SA acquires national and international licenses for feature films, series and manga directly from production studios and television stations. The company also commissions the implementation and synchronization of the titles in German. The company evaluates these in the cinema, home video area (DVD, Blu-ray , video-on-demand ), and literature (books and download ).

history

Anime Virtual SA was founded in 1995 by three students in Lausanne . In 1999, the Swiss company opened a German sales subsidiary, which was founded as a one-person company under the name Anime Virtual and was based in Frankfurt am Main , later the subsidiary was renamed Anime Virtual GmbH . In 2001, the company began evaluating its licenses on video, later also on DVD from 2002.

In 2006 the company and its French cooperation partner Kazé founded the joint, Europe-wide CD label Wasabi Records , under which anime soundtracks and CDs by Japanese artists are released. Together, the two companies also organize J-Pop concerts in Europe (e.g .: Kokia , Olivia , Akino Arai & Ra: IN ).

At the beginning of 2008 the company expanded its portfolio to include national and international real companies and founded its second main label Eye See Movies , under which Asian, European and American films are marketed.

On August 28, 2009, the Japanese publishers Shōgakukan and Shūeisha, as well as the company Shōgakukan-Shūeisha Productions Co., Ltd. announced the acquisition of Anime Virtual SA and the French distribution company Kazé SAS . Both companies are represented in Europe by Viz Media Europe . In order to harmonize the brands, the companies in Europe decided to appear under the same label Kazé (Japanese for wind). The individual companies still function independently of one another and carry out market-dependent co-productions with the same licenses.

In 2009, the DVD publisher Anime Virtual SA from Lausanne and the DVD sales company AV Visionen GmbH from Berlin became part of the Japanese publishing group ShoPro-Shogakukan-Shueisha, which operates in the USA and Europe under the name Viz Media and Viz Media Europe Group operated on. To seal the integration into the global media group, Anime Virtual SA was renamed Viz Media Switzerland on August 8, 2011.

Since March 2012, Viz Media Switzerland has also been publishing mangas in Germany under the Kazé Manga label.

After a large survey in the specially produced newsletter, Kazé Anime changed the yellow subtitles so that from April 2016 all new titles are subtitled in white.

In November 2017, Kazé Germany announced that it would be releasing real-life films that they had shown in cinemas under the new Kazé Movie label for home cinemas from 2018 .

Crunchyroll announced on September 6, 2019 that it had acquired a majority stake in the Viz Media Europe Group and its subsidiaries. Viz Media Switzerland, with its label Kazé Germany and its video-on-demand platform Anime on Demand, will also go to Crunchyroll for the most part. Hitotsubashi Group retains a minority stake . Viz Media Switzerland announced at the end of September 2019 that it would publish games in the future, and the sub-label Kazé Games was founded for this purpose. The label covers the classic leisure game market in the area of board games , card games and role-playing games . The offer is scheduled to start in spring 2020. The games Mangaka , Record of Dragon War , Zombie World , Liminal and ICRPG will appear as a starting point . On April 2, 2020, Viz Media Switzerland SA changed its name to Crunchyroll SA.

Logos

AV visions

AV visions

logo
legal form GmbH
founding 1999
Seat Berlin
management Mathias Nowoczin
Branch Media distribution and film rental
Website www.av-visionen.de

The AV visions GmbH (formerly Anime Virtual GmbH), the media distribution and film distribution of Crunchyroll SA and is based in Berlin . The company commissioned the implementation and synchronization of the titles in German for the labels Kazé Anime and Eye See Movies. The company evaluates these in the cinema and home entertainment sector on DVD, Blu-ray and video-on-demand . The most successful publications include the films The Last Glow Worms with over 50,000 and The Girl Who Jumped Through Time with over 25,000 DVDs sold. TV series such as Ouran High School Host Club and Vampire Knight also proved successful. In addition to titles by Kazé, the company also sells titles by Peppermint Anime , Anime House and Nipponart.

In 1999, the Swiss Anime Virtual SA founded a German sales subsidiary as a one-person company . The sales subsidiary was based near Frankfurt am Main . By 2002 the company had grown into a smaller company and the name was changed to Anime Virtual GmbH . In 2003 the headquarters were relocated to Berlin. In 2007 it changed its name to AV Visionen GmbH , as over the years sales have expanded to include non-Japanese DVDs and products from other companies. In 2007, AV Visionen set up the video-on-demand platform Anime on Demand and founded the subsidiary Anime on Demand GmbH , which was responsible for running the site.

In 2007, AV Visionen started distributing films and made its debut at the Fantasy Filmfest with the award-winning anime The Girl Who Leaped Through Time . The official start of the distribution took place in September 2007. With Brave Story (2008) and Summer Wars (2010) further anime films were evaluated in German cinemas. In addition to anime and films from Asia, America and Europe, the film distributor also offers documentaries. In 2009 the two subsidiaries Anime on Demand GmbH and Mangakultur GmbH were re-integrated into AV Visionen GmbH. Since then, AV Visionen has been responsible for the Anime on Demand platform . Until 2019, AV Visionen sold mangas from the Kazé Manga label in cooperation with Egmont Verlagsgesellschaft . The distribution partnership was terminated on May 31, 2019 and AV Visionen is now selling the label's titles on its own. The delivery of the mangas will continue to be carried out via the United Publishing House . AV Visionen GmbH is currently in the phase of changing its name to Crunchyroll GmbH.

Anime on Demand

Anime on Demand is the in-house video-on-demand platform of Crunchyroll SA and is operated by AV Visionen GmbH .

Kazé Germany

Logo of the main label Kazé

Kazé Germany is one of the main labels of Crunchyroll SA . It is divided into several sub-labels. The label has its origins in the Anime Video label .

Kazé anime

Under the Kazé Anime sub-label , Crunchyroll SA publishes animes in German-speaking countries on physical discs. The portfolio includes the anime series Sailor Moon , My Hero Academia and Fairy Tail .

Kazé Movie

The sub-label is used to publish real film adaptations of anime and manga products and has been active since 2018.

Kazé manga

Kazé Manga is the sub-label for Manga publications. This label has existed since 2012. The mangas are evaluated in book form.

Kazé Games

Kazé Games is the youngest of the Kazé sublabels and is used to publish board games. The portfolio will include board games, role-playing games and card games and is expected to be launched in spring 2020.

Kazé Anime Nights

Since 2016, annual cinema events have been held in Germany and Austria under the event name Kazé Anime Nights . Anime and its real film adaptations are shown in the cinema throughout the year. While almost 40 cinemas took part in the beginning, there will be over 200 cinemas in 2019. The participating cinemas include the cinema chains Cinemaxx , Cineplex and UCI . The Kazé Anime Nights are also open to other publishers, for example the film Human Lost was added to the Universum Film portfolio in 2019 and the film debuted on November 26, 2019 at the Kazé Anime Nights. Because of the corona pandemic , the cinema event has been canceled since March 2020; instead, the event is shown as special programming on the video-on-demand platform Anime on Demand .

More labels

Eye See Movies logo
  • Eye See Movies : Used for Asian, European, and American real-life films / series and documentaries. The label focuses on films and series for teenagers and young adults.
Former labels

  • Anime Video : Old main label. Has been used for most of the anime releases and has been absorbed into Kazé Anime. In addition to Germany, the label was also active in Poland.

  • EVA ( Erotic Video Animation ): For soft hentai publications. It later became part of Kazé Anime.

  • Ikasu : For publications especially for an older target group. The label was operated in collaboration with Egmont Manga & Anime . The label was discontinued and the label's re-released title was carried out under the Kazé Anime label.

  • AV2 : For publications that are more intended for older audiences. It later merged into anime video .

Wasabi Records logo
  • Wasabi Records was the joint music label of Viz Media Switzerland and Kazé France . It was founded in 2006 and served for the European publication of Japanese music. The portfolio ranged from anime soundtracks to J-Pop and J-Rock. The name Wasabi Records is derived from the Japanese horseradish Wasabi . As things stand, the label is dead. It is no longer advertised by Crunchyroll and the trademark's protection status has expired since 2015. The label has not published any more for a long time.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Anime Virtual SA becomes VIZ Media Switzerland SA. In: kaze-online.de. Anime Virtual, August 8, 2011, accessed October 13, 2019 .
  2. KAZÉ publishes German manga. In: kazé-online.de. Viz Media Switzerland, May 13, 2011, accessed on October 13, 2019 .
  3. Subtitle Showdown: Yellow vs. White. In: kazé-online.de. February 21, 2016, accessed October 13, 2019 .
  4. KAZÉ Movie invites you to Asian cinema nights. In: kaze-online.de. November 20, 2017, accessed October 13, 2019 .
  5. a b kayserlein: Crunchyroll and VIZ Media Europe Group start new partnership. In: Crunchyroll . September 6, 2019, accessed October 9, 2019 .
  6. Robin Hirsch: KAZÉ Games: New label for games starts in 2020. In: anime2you. September 29, 2019, accessed September 30, 2019 .
  7. Endymion: Viz Media Switzerland changes its name. In: Anime Sushi. April 2, 2020, accessed April 2, 2020 .
  8. AV Visionen GmbH (company) - description. In: AniSearch . Retrieved October 9, 2019 .
  9. AV Visionen - About us. In: av-visionen.de. Retrieved October 9, 2019 .
  10. AV Visionen sells Kazé-Manga in bookshops. In: book report . Harenberg Verlag, February 3, 2019, accessed on October 5, 2019 .
  11. AV Visionen - About us ( Memento from April 19, 2020 in the Internet Archive )
  12. Kazé Germany (company) - description. In: AniSearch . Retrieved October 9, 2019 .
  13. Rolling Sushi Special: In conversation with Kazé. In: sumikai.com. October 12, 2019, accessed October 13, 2019 .
  14. Kazé Anime Nights 2019. In: kaze-online.de. Viz Media Switzerland, archived from the original on September 23, 2019 ; accessed on October 8, 2019 .
  15. Kazé Anime Nights 2019 - Movie List. In: kaze-online.de. Viz Media Switzerland, archived from the original on October 8, 2019 ; accessed on October 8, 2019 .
  16. Human Lost with Universum Anime. In: kaze-online.de. Viz Media Switzerland, October 13, 2019, accessed on October 13, 2019 .
  17. Endymion: "DanMachi" film in May as a Virtueles event on Anime on Demand. In: Anime Sushi. April 29, 2020, accessed April 29, 2020 .
  18. ^ EUIPO - Trademark Wasabi Records. In: European Union Intellectual Property Office. Retrieved April 8, 2020 .