Trapezium is a movie that is about “A highschool girl who is determined to become an idol and faces obstacles pursuing her dream. Along the way, she befriends aspiring stars from all directions, learning what her shining ambition truly means,” according to the synopsis. It is an animated movie adaptation of the novel Trapezium. The novel is written by Kazumi Takayama, who is a former member of a famous idol group in Japan (Nogizaka46). This movie is directed by Masahiro Shinohara and Yuko Kakihara as the writer in addition to Kazumi Takayama.
This movie premiered in Japan on May 10th, 2024, but Canada and the United States didn’t get the movie until Sept. 18th, 2024. This was the only day that the movie was to be shown in theaters, as there were no other dates for people to watch it in theaters. This means that many people in the United States and Canada weren’t able to watch it in theaters as it was on a Wednesday and missed out on a well received masterpiece. This was organized by Crunchyroll, who has a big monopoly over anime streaming services.
As this is the case, I believe that people will pirate this movie and watch it on their own. Pirating is the act of making unauthorized copies of someone’s creative work, you are taking something of value from the owner without his or her permission. This means, it is illegal, but no action is being taken on individuals for privacy. Pirating could be an issue as it doesn’t support the people who had put in the work in creating this movie.
But, even if you were to watch it in theaters, it doesn’t really support the creators as Crunchyroll takes most of the profits from the ticket sales. I think that Crunchyroll has done a poor job in bringing the movie over to the United States and Canada since they weren’t able to get licensing rights to show the movie on more dates. Since poor management has been a big part of Crunchyroll’s history, I believe that people will resort to pirating. Piracy of anime, japanese movies, and other forms of media (like manga, books, etc.) is one of the most popular forms of getting any media from Japan. Crunchyroll has made it really difficult for people to watch anime without spending money on their services. They also have been losing really popular titles as their licenses expire every day. This movie is another example of Crunchyroll not being able to manage any event well.
