TheMisterManGuy
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In North America, the two biggest production/distribution companies for anime are Funimation Productions, and Sentai Filmworks, formally ADV Films. Based in Texas (Dallas and Houston respectively), these two are responsible for a large chunk of anime that gets licensed in North America. Besides being located close to each-other in the same state, the two are also similar in their hands-on approach to English dubs. Unlike other distributors, Funimation and Sentai do all their ADR production in-house, using local voice talent, many of whom regularly work for both companies. They also have adopted the practice of dubbing their shows within just 2 weeks of their original broadcast episode by episode (Funimation with their SimulDubs and Sentai with DubCasts). For the many similarities they have, they're also quite different.
I think the biggest thing that separates Funimation from Sentai/ADV is the types of shows they license. Funimation has a large, and diverse catalog of shows under their belt, but they've also always had a keen eye for picking shows that can be mass market hits. The Dragon Ball franchise is Funimation's signature title and perhaps the biggest cash cow in anime history. Even when a show from Funimation fails, the profits from Dragon Ball DVD/Blu-Ray sales, FuniNow Streaming, merchandise, and Toonami airings alone can offset the losses. But it's not just Dragon Ball, Funimation also has other mainstream Shonen hits like One Piece, Attack on Titan, Full Metal Alchemist (Formally), and My Hero Academia. Funimation usually knows how to turn a special anime, into a mainstream hit.
Sentai and ADV on the other-hand, focus more on quantity. Sentai doesn't care about making a hit, rather they focus on getting a large library of shows to offer a diverse lineup, regardless of quality. This can be both a good and bad thing. Sentai gets good shows, but most of its catalog is pretty niche, some of their shows are even complete shit, same with ADV before them. They focus more smaller titles that are easier to release rather than trying to make a popular anime huge in North America. Back in the pre-Sentai days though, ADV was notorious for its bad habit of paying insane prices for incredibly niche shows. They spent $100 on Kuaru: Phantom Memory, which I don't even think most casual anime fans ever heard of. Neon Genesis: Evangelion was the closest to a poster-child the company had, but ADV never had mass market monster like Funimation did with DBZ. This, combined with what I mentioned earlier, was what I think led to its downfall, and sub-subsequent re-organization. Sentai's learned from ADV's overpaying habits, but they still lack a big mass market title compared to Funimation.
One last big difference is that Funimation's dubs are usually of consistent quality with their weaker dubs typically being mediocre at worst, while Sentai is more hit and miss with some dubs good, and others flat out terrible.
TL;DR - What separates Funimation from Sentai/ADV IMO, is that Funimation focuses of marketing a select few mass market anime to help them promote and license a wide range of titles, while Sentai/ADV focus more on promoting and marketing anime as a whole. Simply put, Sentai/ADV knows how to sell anime, but Funimation knows how to sell a hit.
I think the biggest thing that separates Funimation from Sentai/ADV is the types of shows they license. Funimation has a large, and diverse catalog of shows under their belt, but they've also always had a keen eye for picking shows that can be mass market hits. The Dragon Ball franchise is Funimation's signature title and perhaps the biggest cash cow in anime history. Even when a show from Funimation fails, the profits from Dragon Ball DVD/Blu-Ray sales, FuniNow Streaming, merchandise, and Toonami airings alone can offset the losses. But it's not just Dragon Ball, Funimation also has other mainstream Shonen hits like One Piece, Attack on Titan, Full Metal Alchemist (Formally), and My Hero Academia. Funimation usually knows how to turn a special anime, into a mainstream hit.
Sentai and ADV on the other-hand, focus more on quantity. Sentai doesn't care about making a hit, rather they focus on getting a large library of shows to offer a diverse lineup, regardless of quality. This can be both a good and bad thing. Sentai gets good shows, but most of its catalog is pretty niche, some of their shows are even complete shit, same with ADV before them. They focus more smaller titles that are easier to release rather than trying to make a popular anime huge in North America. Back in the pre-Sentai days though, ADV was notorious for its bad habit of paying insane prices for incredibly niche shows. They spent $100 on Kuaru: Phantom Memory, which I don't even think most casual anime fans ever heard of. Neon Genesis: Evangelion was the closest to a poster-child the company had, but ADV never had mass market monster like Funimation did with DBZ. This, combined with what I mentioned earlier, was what I think led to its downfall, and sub-subsequent re-organization. Sentai's learned from ADV's overpaying habits, but they still lack a big mass market title compared to Funimation.
One last big difference is that Funimation's dubs are usually of consistent quality with their weaker dubs typically being mediocre at worst, while Sentai is more hit and miss with some dubs good, and others flat out terrible.
TL;DR - What separates Funimation from Sentai/ADV IMO, is that Funimation focuses of marketing a select few mass market anime to help them promote and license a wide range of titles, while Sentai/ADV focus more on promoting and marketing anime as a whole. Simply put, Sentai/ADV knows how to sell anime, but Funimation knows how to sell a hit.
