A message to Funimation

Dear Mr. Fukunaga et al.

Recently it has come to my attention that some of your employees took it upon themselves to insert their ideology into your product.  In case you are not aware by now, I am referring to their decision to insert a shot at gamergate in the latest episode of Prison School.  Not only was this an extreme deviation from the original script, but a completely unnecessary way to insert yourselves, whether intentionally or not, into a controversial and divisive issue.  So now not only have you made enemies of the translation purists, but a good chunk of your paying customers overall.  Whether or not Tyson Rinehart's views represent those of Funimation as a whole is irrelevant at this point, as they are out there with your stamp of approval on them.  The writer/translator wrote the line, someone up the chain approved it, the voice actress read it, the voice director allowed it, the director/producer signed off on it, and perhaps most importantly someone in Japan signed off on it as well.  Did they even know what gamergate was?  How would they feel if they were informed of this fiasco?  Either way, hardly just the views of one person, and definitely leads me to believe that this is in line with your views.

As I mentioned, did you guys really need to insert yourselves into such a divisive issue?  You may as well have openly taken a stance on abortion or gun control.  No matter what your stance is, you will alienate a good chunk of your customers.  And since anime is such a niche industry, I doubt you will get any new ones to replace the ones you have lost.  And that you chose to do this in a show all about the titties of all places?  I could understand if it were a show trying to make a political point, but ruining our fanservice with this ideological drivel is a bit much.  We watch shows like Prison School to laugh and get excited about, not to be preached at and talked down to.

If these views are NOT your own then please make some effort to regain our trust, first by making the involved parties publicly apologize (no need for anyone to lose their jobs over this, we are not SJWs/anti-gamergaters and we don't want to ruin anyone's life, we just want to be left alone to enjoy our entertainment without constant harrassment and being told how evil we are for just wanting to enjoy ourselves), then by fixing the dub, and then by publicly promising to never push an agenda again.  At least not with normally translated shows.  I saw your localization of Shinchan, and honestly the constant and desperate attempts at political humor completely ruined what was otherwise a hilarious show.  Even all of my hardcore left wing friends had enough after 2 episodes or so.  Hell, so did Bamboo Dong over at ANN.  But as horrible as it was, I was OK with it because I knew ahead of time it was a complete rewrite and if you guys chose to take it in that direction, I didn't care.  Still a shame though, most of the non political humor and the voice acting was very well done.

If these are your views (and that will be the assumption if you choose to stay silent or give canned political responses) then I am sad to say that while I respect your right to take a stance, I can no longer support you.  Anime was one of the few remaining entertainment media in the west that we could just watch and be entertained without having someone's ideology rammed down our throats, and if you will no longer provide that for us then we must look elsewhere.  A huge chunk of my disposable income has gone towards anime, and Funimation being such a huge licensor you guys were seeing most of it.  I will miss all the blurays of the great shows I have been looking forward to, and the One Piece dub releases, but as it stands now I can no longer trust you guys to do your jobs and provide me with the best entertainment possible without ramming your ideology into it.  I have already canceled my website subscription and will not be ordering any more physical media sets until you guys clear this up.  So it looks like Space Dandy will be the last Funimation release I buy.

Once again, if this is all a misunderstanding then please clear it up, make those involved apologize, and fix the dub.  If you do that, I will be more than happy to resume my support of you.  If this is not a misunderstanding, then I respect your right to push whatever agenda you want on your platform but must inform you that you have lost more customers than just me.  I will be encouraging everyone I know with similar views, in person and online, to instead give whatever money they have for anime to Sentai or Crunchyroll.  You have right to push your views, and we have the right to respond by no longer financially supporting you because of it.  If this is the case, I wish you the best of luck with your new audience.  However, I do hope this is all a misunderstanding that will soon be corrected, because I truly WANT to support your otherwise great work, and gladly will do so again once I know you can be trusted.

Sincerely,
A former customer