THE HISTORY OF FUNIMATION[]
Funimation was originally an american television and film company in Flower Mound, Texas. The public have mostly heard about Funimation from anime, braodcasted around America. Where as FUNimation was started in 1994 by a person called Gen Fukunaga and his lovely wife Cindy as FUNimation Productions, the funding of the company was handled by Daniel Cocanougher and his family, whom had eventually became investors in the company. Funimation was later sold to a group called the Navarre Corporation on May 11, 2005.
When this was done the company decided to rename it to FUNimation Entertainment. Fukunaga later bought the company for $24 million of Navarre Corporation in April 2011. At the same time as this, the company decided to get rid of the old logo, and was changed in the FUNimation logo we know and love today.
FUNimation and ADV[]
This next part will explain the relationship and fall out between FUNIMATION ENTERTAINMENT and A D VISION INC.
Funimation and ADV have been at odds ever since they were playing a game of he said / she said in their legal briefs, allegations of illegal activity have been passed around about each other due to these events. Of course there are more then one side to the story though.
ADV claimed that ARM was in debt and that the debt was assigned to Sojitz-sama, ADV searched for ways to pay it off to Sojitz-sama and to repair their reputation. When they were done talking to the creditor and other third parties not mentioned they had a plan to reorganize. While organizing Gen Fukunaga-san told them they also had Parts of ADV’s debt which was purchased from ARM. It was decided that FUNimation would forgive ADV if it was given to FUNimation. From what ADV told us FUNimation has tried this more than once, it was 2006 when FUNimation had first tried to buy them out because of the debt.
ADV didn’t believe what Fukunga had told them because Sojitz told everyone he was assigned the debt but ADV says that there is no evidence of this being true. ADV says that they never saw the agreement to the debt Sojitz had till April 20, 2012, when FUNimation told everyone that they haven’t seen evidence yet on this.
So what is this assignment agreement that ADV brings up?
As submitted to the court, the assignment agreement has two parts: the original agreement, entered into on June 25th, 2008 in which FUNimation gains the ARM titles, and an amendment, entered into on June 25th, 2008 in which FUNimation acquires part of the ARM debt. The original agreement gives FUNimation the rights to the titles and the existing localization materials, but does not assign any of the debt to FUNimation. For the titles, FUNimation must pay approximately 94% of the licensing fee on select titles:
| Title |
Total License Fee in Assignment Agreement |
Amount Listed by ARM as Owed
from ADV's License Agreements |
| 5 Centimeters Per Second | $50,000 | Not listed |
| Devil May Cry | $610,000 | Not listed |
| Kanon TV | $75,000 | Not listed |
| Kurau Phantom Memory | $192,000 | $960,000 |
| Wallflower | $300,000 | $500,000 |
| Air TV | $90,000 | $145,000 |
| Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora | $30,000 | Not Listed |
| Magikano | $39,000 | $65,000 |
| Murder Princess | $120,000 | Not Listed |
| Project Blue | $84,000 | $180,000 |
| Pumpkin Scissors | $468,000 | $780,000 |
| Red Garden | $396,000 | $660,000 |
| Sgt. Frog | $622,000 (S1 & S2) | $408,000 (S1 only) |
| Shin Angyo Onshi | $100,000 | $130,000 |
| Tokyo Majin | $390,000 | $780,000 |
| Venus vs Virus | $180,000 | Not Listed |
| Welcome to the NHK | $144,000 | $240,000 |
| Xenosaga | $24,000 |
$120,000 |
(Note: Titles licensed after 7/2007 were not listed in the ARM lawsuit.)
The amendment to the assignment agreement states that ARM has had to pay various fees to transfer the titles to FUNimation and ARM wants FUNimation to pay up to $36,399 as a "Settlement Fee." However, in exchange, FUNimation acquires 4 million dollars in debt as accounts receivable from ADV to ARM as part of the Strategic Alliance Agreement. FUNimation is also given the option to purchase any remaining accounts receivable at 1% of the value after all litigation between the companies has completed.
Now, FUNimation's amended petition tells a somewhat different story. FUNimation claims they had acquired 4 million dollars in debt from ARM on June 25th, 2008, in the amendment to the assignment agreement. At the time, in looking into how, and whether, to collect on this newly acquired debt, ADV was in ongoing litigation and they decided ADV was insolvent, which would impede them from collecting. After the lawsuit between ARM and ADV was dismissed, they decided ADV was likely to disappear and take the debt with it.
But in early May 2009, ADV showed signs of life as they announced new content, and on May 15th, 2009, FUNimation contacted ADV CEO, John Ledford. FUNimation claims that Ledford told Gen Fukunaga and their General Counsel that ADV was about to file for bankruptcy and told them to talk to ADV’s bankruptcy attorney, but ADV never filed for bankruptcy. FUNimation claims that ADV secretly formed the shell companies in response to the original inquiry, and transferred all of ADV’s assets to the shell companies on June 1st, leaving ADV with only the ARM debt.
Meanwhile, FUNimation says they made repeated attempts to contact the bankruptcy lawyer, but received no answer. Due to the way that bankruptcy law works, FUNimation did not think it could collect or sue for the debt with bankruptcy looming over ADV, so they chose to take no further action at the time. FUNimation claims that they were stone walled until August 31st, 2009, when ADV’s lawyer finally sent a letter by standard mail informing them that ADV had sold everything, ceased doing business, and that he no longer represented ADV. On September 1st, 2009, they learned for the first time that ADV had reorganized. Thus, FUNimation never collected on the debt, which they claim now stands at $7.3 million, not including interest and penalties, with ARM having sold the titles to cover a little over 3 million dollars of the debt.