When it comes to streaming services, exclusivity and “originals” have been the keywords of the decade, but as the streaming model is beginning to fray, something unexpected has happened.Vinland Saga’s second season is being streamed on both Crunchyroll and Netflix in the United States, with new episodes, added weekly, which… seems oddly significant.
Vinland SagaSeason 1 aired back in 2019 to great critical acclaim but remained somewhat dormant until the summer of 2021 when a second season was announced with a powerful teaser. LikeAttack on Titanbefore it, the production teamswitched from WIT Studio to MAPPA, but unlike withTitan, much more of the creative team carried over. The long-awaited sequel has kicked off 2023 with much hype and anticipation felt throughout the community, and with more ways to watch than ever before it seems. Whereas other mainstream releases would be fought over by big streaming services, both Crunchyroll and Netflix are sharing this series, with Netflix streaming the series internationally as well.
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The Significance
Of course, as anime streaming services in the west tend to be more distributors than producers, they tend to secure exclusivity through bidding wars.Crunchyroll attempted to follow in the footsteps of Netflixby creating Crunchyroll Originals, but that is considered a failed experiment in retrospect. Still, they tend to have a seat on production committees and fund many shows.
Other services like HiDive have amassed large libraries through their connection to companies like Sentai Filmworks, ensuring that if there is a Sentai release, it’s streaming on HiDive. RetroCrush tends to tackle niche and - as the title suggests - retro titles that are lesser known. But when it comes to big names in anime, the playing field gets a lot more competitive (at least in streaming).
You can still find mainstream anime likeAttack on TitanandMy Hero Academiaon plenty of servicesto rent or own digitally, though you’ll likely have to wait until after the current season is done. Even with streaming though, Hulu has over 300 anime on their service, albeit with the caveat of ads, once again making Hulu the sleeper giant of mainstream anime online.
Now that Funimation has been absorbed by Crunchyroll, the two biggest competitors for hot anime exclusives are it and Netflix, the latter already having issues withits handling of animation, especially recently. So for both of them to be streaming such an anticipated show feels like a rare blessing that - perhaps viewed cynically - has to be a fluke… right?
A Streaming History of Vinland Saga
It was called Anime Strike, and it did not last long in the slightest but even after this colossal failure, they still had a go at it. The selection was made accessible within the wider Prime Video subscription library, and they even secured a few choice series now and again, likeWelcome to the BallroomorBanana Fish.
But one of their biggest shows by far wasVinland Saga, and it was critically acclaimed, but one could argue that its reach was most certainly limited on account of Amazon securing it. See, Amazon has a problem with advertising its selection that is arguably worse than even Netflix. Added to that, theyalmost never dub their anime,Evangelionbeing the exceptionbecause obviously, they weren’t going to screw that up.
When an anime got out of “Amazon Jail” fans would wait for Sentai or GKIDS to pick up the distribution rights so that it could get a Blu-ray and an English Dub. It could be said that it was as long and arduous as awaiting the release of a loved one from an actual jail, and nowVinland Saga’s first season is available on Blu-ray, HiDive, Crunchyroll, and Netflix.
But anime that are freed from the shackles of one service have been known to become exclusive to another as soon as a new season comes out or some company’s licensing agreement runs out.Jojo’s Bizarre Adventureused to stream on Crunchyroll every new season, but after Part 6 theshow is exclusive to Netflix for better and worse(better: every season dubbed, worse: no weekly releases).
Vinland Sagaleaving Amazon and showing up everywhere else doesn’t necessarily explain the current situation. Why didn’t one o the big services didn’t get greedy and try to take the whole thing? Even if it was only one of them releasing it, it would be infinitely more successful than when Amazon held onto it. A clue might lie in the complicated dubbing of the series.
A Tale of Two Dubs
When Sentai Acquired the rights to distributeVinland Sagaon Blu-ray, they dubbed it themselves and also made it available on HiDive, where the first season is streaming. But in the same year, Netflix alsogotVinland Sagaadded to their library, and it seems they weren’t keen to wait to use the Sentai dub, so they used another dub by VSI Los Angeles.
There have been comparisons between the two and fans can decide which dub is better, but this all gives the impression thatVinland Saga’s licensing is far more relaxed than a lot of anime releases. These days, people expect one service to get everything. This kind of multi-dub fiasco hasn’t happened since the old days of anime localization when Dragonball had several different dubs depending on the distributor.
Put that way it seems somewhat cluttered and messy, but it’s hard to shake this feeling thatVinland Sagabeing on both Crunchyroll and Netflixcan only be good in the long run. Firstly, Netflix seems to finally understand that audiences want weekly releases of anime. More importantly, fans don’t have to worry about missing out as much, at a time when streaming services are hiking up their prices, making the choice between subscriptions harder.
Most times when trailers say that an anime is streaming on multiple services, one tends to be the international distributor while Crunchyroll or Hulu are streaming it in America. But this is a rare time when that exclusion doesn’t happen, andthe trailers forJigokuraku: Hell’s Paradisesuggest a similar thing could happen with that series come springtime.
So maybe, just maybe, fans can look forward to fewer bidding wars that end with shows being poached by other services and see more anime available on multiple services. And of course, there’s a chance this is just one isolated incident. But for as “too-good-to-be-true” as the former sounds, it sure does sound lovely.
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