Pratfall ahoy!

Late yesterday evening, this quiet little news story appeared on Anime News Network. It indicated that the second episode of OreImo had been leaked online, one day prior to its Japanese broadcast and one week before ANN was scheduled to begin streaming it. What the story doesn’t tell you, however, is that the episode was leaked by ANN itself, who uploaded it to their servers and made it publicly available by accident.

Apparently, the URL for watching the first episode of OreImo in ANN’s video player contained a “1,” denoting episode 1. Somebody got the bright idea of changing that digit to a 2, and found the second episode available for public viewing in full HD 720p quality. Within a few hours, the episode had been uploaded to various filesharing sites and even fansubbed. ANN has since removed both episodes from their servers, but the damage has been done. They are in hot water with Aniplex, and the future of their OreImo simulcast is in doubt.

Aside from the bare-bones news story linked above which conveniently omits any mention of their role in this leak, ANN has not made any sort of public statement at the time of writing. Some speculate that they will do so at their New York Anime Fest panel later today, or that they’re waiting until after the Japanese broadcast in order to minimize public relations damage. However, since this story has already propagated across 4chan and 2chan, their culpability is something of an open secret. I’ll leave the question of whether or not this constitutes a breach of journalistic integrity to Dustin, as that’s his field of expertise.

Now, I love the guys at ANN… but this represents a huge lapse of basic competency on their part. I’ve been rather disillusioned since they announced an overpriced (some would say exploitive) subscription fee of $5 per simulcast…. a simulcast that, I might add, was scheduled to air nearly a week after the Japanese broadcast. The reason Crunchyroll has cut down on piracy is because they offered a better alternative: on-demand anime released simultaneously with the Japanese broadcast. They made these shows available legally faster than any speedsubber could, at a low all-you-could-eat price that even the most cash-strapped otaku could afford. ANN’s simulcasting just didn’t have the same level of appeal, especially for an absurdly popular show like OreImo. If the speedsubbers can have the episode available two hours after the Japanese broadcast, why would anyone wait a whole week and pay $5 when they could be spending that cash on a Crunchyroll subscription instead? It seems to me like their simulcasting model was doomed from the start, and this leak is just another nail in the coffin.

I’ll wrap this up by quoting this delicously ironic comment from the ANN forums:

I’d feel sorry for you guys but my sympathy is region locked.