Macross streaming on Disney+ (under the "Star" label; Star/Hulu of D+)

[kajnrig]

Don't mean to double-post, but I have a question for everyone:

After listening to some of the M7 songs on Youtube, it's as I suspected and the M7 music is actually fine, just the audio quality in the show was incredibly crap. Mylene's vocals especially were barely audible, and everything overall was pretty muted and flat. Was this the case for anyone else, indicating that's just what to expect from the stream, or is there perhaps a problem with my setup? (All other shows/movies were fine, BDs sound fine, games sound fine, etc.)

[DarkNousjadeul]

On 12/5/2024 at 12:21 PM, SSK said:

Talk about a failure. About 20 countries got something (high estimation) when Disney+ is active in more than 120. And a deafening silence from both the service and Big West.

What would these 20 countries be?

[SSK]

23 hours ago, DarkNousjadeul said:

What would these 20 countries be?

Australia, New Zealand, UK. Ireland, Canada, the US, and some Asian countries. I don’t know how many exactly, but I believe it’s between 10 and 20 countries overhall.

Edited March 18 by SSK

[Big s]

On 2/26/2025 at 9:36 AM, kajnrig said:

Don't mean to double-post, but I have a question for everyone:

After listening to some of the M7 songs on Youtube, it's as I suspected and the M7 music is actually fine, just the audio quality in the show was incredibly crap. Mylene's vocals especially were barely audible, and everything overall was pretty muted and flat. Was this the case for anyone else, indicating that's just what to expect from the stream, or is there perhaps a problem with my setup? (All other shows/movies were fine, BDs sound fine, games sound fine, etc.)

Hadn’t checked on this thread in a bit, but I think Mylene got the Jason Newsted treatment. She tends to be low in some mixes, especially the early episodes before they found their groove. but other episodes she seems a lot louder. I kinda wonder if they were trying to show a difference in sound from when the show first started to when the band kinda got its groove going.

[jvmacross]

https://time.com/7282543/trump-foreign-film-tariff-international-movie-production-us-hollywood-china/

So how would this even work?

So if Disney is paying X to BW to make Macross available on their D+ streaming service....would it now cost double the amount of X to be able to do so?  If so....I doubt it would be worthwhile for Disney to continue offering it on D+.....

[Big s]

2 hours ago, jvmacross said:

https://time.com/7282543/trump-foreign-film-tariff-international-movie-production-us-hollywood-china/

So how would this even work?

So if Disney is paying X to BW to make Macross available on their D+ streaming service....would it now cost double the amount of X to be able to do so?  If so....I doubt it would be worthwhile for Disney to continue offering it on D+.....

It’s a 100% mark up on China, but Japan would probably fall under their other foreign tariffs for films. But I really don’t know how all this would work on something that isn’t physical, like a toy from a different country. A lot of the tariff stuff seems very up in the air, more like a concept and I don’t think that the majority in our government (doesn’t matter which side of the political spectrum) understand that anime doesn’t come from America and that the vast majority of animation is done overseas.

I also don’t know if they’d consider stuff already released here free of the tariffs or how they’d really enforce something that could be sent over digitally. I also don’t really know what the effect of a movie trade war would be. Some of our films have to be altered to be shown in other world markets, like China and they could just start outright banning our films altogether. Our big budget films might need to make all their money back from U.S. box offices if things get really rough and pretty much every comic book movie would never make their money back. Same could be possible with streaming. Like if Netflix couldn’t get that last season of Stranger Things out to foreign countries.

[jvmacross]

24 minutes ago, Big s said:

It’s a 100% mark up on China, but Japan would probably fall under their other foreign tariffs for films. But I really don’t know how all this would work on something that isn’t physical, like a toy from a different country. A lot of the tariff stuff seems very up in the air, more like a concept and I don’t think that the majority in our government (doesn’t matter which side of the political spectrum) understand that anime doesn’t come from America and that the vast majority of animation is done overseas.

I also don’t know if they’d consider stuff already released here free of the tariffs or how they’d really enforce something that could be sent over digitally. I also don’t really know what the effect of a movie trade war would be. Some of our films have to be altered to be shown in other world markets, like China and they could just start outright banning our films altogether. Our big budget films might need to make all their money back from U.S. box offices if things get really rough and pretty much every comic book movie would never make their money back. Same could be possible with streaming. Like if Netflix couldn’t get that last season of Stranger Things out to foreign countries.

Dunno....but think it said 100% tarrif on all foreign produced material....not just China....

 

[Big s]

2 hours ago, jvmacross said:

Dunno....but think it said 100% tarrif on all foreign produced material....not just China....

 

If it is, those streaming charges are gonna go through the roof 

[jvmacross]

14 minutes ago, Big s said:

If it is, those streaming charges are gonna go through the roof 

...either that or fans can say bye-bye to Macross and anime in general on US streaming services...and that's just the Japanese anime stuff....I personally am not a consumer of anime or even Macross on D+ (I have all the shows on BD)....so if I have to subsidize D+ or any other streaming service to keep 'foreign' shows on their platforms, I will definitely be hitting the cancel button for several streamers...

[rsvictor1976]

25 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

...either that or fans can say bye-bye to Macross and anime in general on US streaming services...and that's just the Japanese anime stuff....I personally am not a consumer of anime or even Macross on D+ (I have all the shows on BD)....so if I have to subsidize D+ or any other streaming service to keep 'foreign' shows on their platforms, I will definitely be hitting the cancel button for several streamers...

Are we going back downloading fansubs again?

[Old_Nash_II]

6 hours ago, jvmacross said:

https://time.com/7282543/trump-foreign-film-tariff-international-movie-production-us-hollywood-china/

So how would this even work?

So if Disney is paying X to BW to make Macross available on their D+ streaming service....would it now cost double the amount of X to be able to do so?  If so....I doubt it would be worthwhile for Disney to continue offering it on D+.....

Disney can now buy HG and produce their version of Robotech. Or buy BW and make their version of Macross. Whatever the outcome, it will be a defeat.

[Big s]

1 hour ago, jvmacross said:

...either that or fans can say bye-bye to Macross and anime in general on US streaming services...and that's just the Japanese anime stuff....I personally am not a consumer of anime or even Macross on D+ (I have all the shows on BD)....so if I have to subsidize D+ or any other streaming service to keep 'foreign' shows on their platforms, I will definitely be hitting the cancel button for several streamers...

I doubt it would affect older stuff, but as far as the new series or other anime, then it could be a problem 

 

35 minutes ago, rsvictor1976 said:

Are we going back downloading fansubs again?

Maybe 

 

23 minutes ago, Old_Nash_II said:

Disney can now buy HG and produce their version of Robotech. Or buy BW and make their version of Macross. Whatever the outcome, it will be a defeat.

unfortunately, the animation budget would be way too high that way. Even at the height of the 80’s when there were tons of American Awsome shows, they were almost all actually animated either in Japan or some other Asian country to keep the costs down. I’m all for America giving animation a go again, but it’s definitely not gonna be something doable for a few years.

[Shawn]

If any of this stuff actually gets implemented and it increases the costs of watching foreign films on streaming services, they will of course do what cable tv did-
break things into subscription packages.
For each of services we'll have a US streaming package, then a foreign streaming package as an additional cost for the users that want it.
Just hope each service isn't too expensive with those extras fees. I watch a lot of the cool stuff on TCM.
Guess we just need to wait and see.
 

[Big s]

2 hours ago, Shawn said:

Guess we just need to wait and see.

Pretty much. This all may just blow over

[Beko Pharm]

On 3/18/2025 at 8:18 PM, SSK said:

Australia, New Zealand, UK. Ireland, Canada, the US, and some Asian countries. I don’t know how many exactly, but I believe it’s between 10 and 20 countries overhall.

I don't even remember when I gave up searching for it in the app 😩

International Release they said. What a joke.

[SSK]

2 hours ago, Beko Pharm said:

I don't even remember when I gave up searching for it in the app 😩

International Release they said. What a joke.

Thank you for your comment, I feel less alone since barely no one cares about this. I even got blocked on social media by some great experts who want to convince themselves that everything's fine.

Yup, so far it's hard to call the Macross worldwide take off a success. If you take a closer look, you'll notice that almost everything's happening in Asia and English-speaking territories only and it's more and more difficult not to draw suspicious parallels with Creative Sphere, Big West localization partner which is supposedly promoting and licensing the franchise outside Japan. CreSphe core members seem to be... Asian and English guys in first place. I guess that's just a coincidence if it matches the take off.

Summarizing the Macrosss worldwide roll out so far (2021~2025) is pretty simple and significant. I won't bother about toys or music, considering the core stuff is series and movies.

Disney+ is currently streaming content in more or less 20 countries (and it's a wide range) when the service is active in more than 100. I think we can agree the fact that it's a terrible ratio. Last roll out was for the US on Hulu in January this year. Nothing since then. No statement about what's going on, no road map, no answer. Disney+ and Big West remain silent as a grave. Only 3 languages are available : English, Chinese and Korean. Subtitles were provided by Creative Sphere and not made in-home by the service. Coincidence again.

France could be a curious case since we're surprisingly getting Blu-ray releases. Well, actually not so surprising since English publisher Anime Limited got a French branch it often works with for common releases. That was the case for Plus and Zero and will be the case for Frontier and Delta next year. So I'd rather call this pure luck. If Anime Limited didn't have a French branch, pretty sure we wouldn't have had anything.

The very first step of Big West and CreSphe outside their comfort zone (non Asian, non English countries or companies) could be in Latin America, where some countries are about to screen Macross Plus movie edition. Lord, it's a miracle ! It took them "only" more than 4 years for that (and that's not even a wide release). It's great of course, but at this rate we can wonder how many more years it will take to bring the same movie to other countries with other languages. Not talking about the hundred episodes and other movies left.

And that's all. So yup, so far the Macross worldwide take off is at best a joke  at worst a failure. And that's very concerning for the next entry, unless Sunrise takes care of the global release in addition to animation production. Gundam GQuuuuuuX was simulcasted (and is still streaming) in more than 200 countries in about 30 languages, including a dozen of dubs. The comparison with current Macross and its tons of content is not fair, but will be totally relevant for the new project.

As for what went wrong in the global process, only assumptions : either targeting Asian and English territories only was the plan from the beginning or Big West and CreSphe are lacking resources and partners for other territories and languages. Or they got screwed again, by Disney+ this time. I don't believe there's any legal issue considering French Blu-ray releases and the fact that they can work in the US with Harmony Gold in ambush, Big West can release Macross sequels anywhere, just like they claimed in the worldwide agreement statement back in April 2021.

Edited yesterday at 01:54 PM by SSK

[Old_Nash_II]

I inquired about the franchise on D+ here in Brazil about 2 months ago, and received no response; I even canceled my subscription promising to renew it only when the franchise premiered in my country.
But so far, nothing.
Not even the most recent films.

[Beko Pharm]

At this rate my kids will be old enough to get along with subtitles from… uhm… my secure backup 🤷

[SSK]

Since nothing was coming, I also cancelled my subscription to Disney+.

Surprisingly the Disney+ Help account on X is responding to inquiries, but only for Latin America and only to say that they have no news about any Macross content.

During the Macross panel at Anime Expo 2025 back in July, Big West international representative said that he heard requests for more countries and languages and kept working on it. But dude, it's been more than 4 years since the worldwide agreement announcement and more than a year since Disney+ streaming announcement. Your statement is a bit flimsy and not very convincing. Of course localization takes time but such delays are unusual, unless you're still living in the 90s.

At least a clear statement about what's going on for the rest of the world (or should I say most of the world ?) would be appreciated. But well, companies...

[Big s]

I guess they meant around the world in a splotchy Jackson Pollock sort of way

[Seto Kaiba]

Probably owes a fair bit to how most anime licensing flows through the US, and the US distribution situation immediately screwed it up by splitting the license up among multiple companies.