The platform Crunchyroll just announced its fusion with service catalogs wakanim and Funimation. Thanks to this absorption, it stands out as the first provider of anime in the world, ahead of Netflix.
Only one banner: Crunchyroll
This impressive merger, however, was expected. The society Funimation Global Group (property of sony), and which has wakanimhad bought Crunchyroll in August 2021. Since then, each service had operated independently, each with its own catalog and subscription model.
A separate operation that was done to the chagrin of anime fans, as Colin Decker points out, Crunchyroll CEO : “For years, anime fans have had to pay multiple subscriptions to watch all of their programs simulcast, subtitled or dubbed. When we brought together Wakanim and Crunchyroll last year, our absolute goal was to put fans first, and so that had to change. Today marks the first step in fulfilling that promise and I’m extremely happy to say that finally the fans are winners! ».
Today, the Funimation and Wakanim catalogs therefore come together under the one and the same banner Crunchyroll. Thus, the new anime will be offered exclusively on the streaming platform from April 1. In addition to 12,000 episodes subtitled and dubbed available on Crunchyroll in France, a fifty new seriesfor 1000 hours of content, will be added by spring.
Fans of Japanese animation will thus be able to find cult series like The attack of the Titans, Demon Slayer, One Piece, Jujutsu Kaisenor Sword Art Online at the same location.
In addition, this merger allows diversify and enhance the offerparticularly at the level of subtitles and dubbing series, as confirmed again Colin Decker in the press release: “Uniting all of our brands and services under the Crunchyroll brand globally allows us to deliver more value than ever before as we bring together subtitles, dubbing, simulcast, catalog, music , movies, manga, all in one subscription. The new Crunchyroll is a dream come true and we are grateful to the anime creators and millions of fans who have joined us in making this community what it is today”.
However, this change will not affect subscription price without ads on Crunchyroll. These remain at 4.99€/month (Fan pack) and 6.49€/month (Mega Fan pack), at least for now.
Until then, Netflix had an advantage in the animation sector, in terms of investment and catalog diversity. But the cards have just been redistributed with this merger, and Crunchyroll is now establishing itself as a serious rival to the American firm on animation in general, and on the anime industry specifically.
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