Crunchyroll

Crunchyroll is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service that specializes in the distribution, production and licensing of Japanese anime, manga, and (some) dorama. Crunchyroll was a subsidiary of AT&T's Otter Media, and from 2016 to 2018, the company partnered with Funimation, which would eventually merge into its brand in 2022 after Sony acquired Crunchyroll in 2021. The company is currently owned by Sony through a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Aniplex.

Crunchyroll has offices in California in San Francisco, Burbank, Culver City, &amp; Los Angeles; in Texas in Dallas; Tokyo, New York City, Melbourne, Montreal, Paris, Roubaix, Lausanne, London, Berlin, Chișinău (?), and Coppell (?), and is a member of The Association of Japanese Animations (AJA). "Crunchyroll-Hime", also known as "Hime", is the official mascot of Crunchyroll.

Crunchyroll offers over 1,000 anime shows, more than 200 East Asian dramas to users, and around 80 manga titles as Crunchyroll Manga, although not all programming is available worldwide due to licensing restrictions. Crunchyroll passed one million paid subscribers in February 2017, and has over 5 million paid subscribers as of 2021. Crunchyroll also releases titles on home video either directly or by having select anime titles released through its distribution partners (Aniplex of America, Sentai Filmworks, Viz Media, & Discotek Media in North America and Anime Limited in the United Kingdom).

History
It started as an American website and international online community focused on streaming East Asian media including anime, manga, and electronic entertainment. Founded in 2006 by a group of University of California, Berkeley, graduates, Crunchyroll's distribution channel and partnership program delivers content to over 100 million registered users worldwide.

In late December 2020, Sony (who owns Funimation) had announced it had acquired Crunchyroll from AT&amp;T (via subsidiary WarnerMedia) for just under $1.2 billion. However the acquisition was delayed by an extension of a U.S. Department of Justice anti-trust investigation.

On August 9, 2021, it was announced that Sony had completed its acquisition of Crunchyroll.

On March 1, 2022, it was announced that the Funimation catalog (along with VRV and Wakanim) would be merging into Crunchyroll and implying anime availability on those other services would effectively end.

On March 24, 2022, Crunchyroll announced that Sentai Filmworks licensed anime would be leaving on March 31. Sentai Filmworks licensed their anime to Funimation, but apparently decided to end the license once Funimation was merged into Crunchyroll. Sentai Filmworks anime will still be available for streaming on the HIDIVE service.

On March 26, 2022, it was reported that Crunchyroll would be ending ad-supported, free viewing for all new seasonal anime starting in the Spring 2022 season (roughly late March). This includes new episodes of continuing series. Spring 2022 anime will allow free viewing a week after the anime episode premieres for the first 3 episodes of the series as long as it happens before May 31, 2022. The trend ending ad-supported, free viewing is likely to extend to all its catalog at some point.

In September 2022, ANN noticed several older titles which had been available as ad-supported, free viewing became premium-only, so in response, Crunchyroll (unhelpfully ) updated their advertising video-on-demand (AVOD) policy.

On April 3, 2023, VRV was merged into Crunchyroll.

Crunchyroll Anime Awards
The Crunchyroll Anime Awards are awards given annually by the anime streaming service Crunchyroll to recognize the best anime of the previous year. Announced in December 2016, the awards were first presented in January 2017. Crunchyroll describes it as a "global event &lt;that&gt; recognizes the anime shows, characters, and artists that fans around the world love most."

Crunchyroll Originals
Crunchyroll Originals is a sort of brand or label that are a mix of animated features that are either co-produced or directly produced by the company. Most are co-produced and animated by Japanese studios, but some are animated by their in-house Crunchyroll Studios.

Partner animation studios through Spring 2022:
 * Brain's Base for In/Spectre (2020)
 * Telecom Animation Film for Tower of God (2020) and Shenmue the Animation (2022)
 * MAPPA for The God of High School (2020)
 * Lunch Box and Studio Elle for Gibiate (2020)
 * Seven Arcs for Tonikawa: Over the Moon for You (2020)
 * Production I.G for Noblesse (2020) and Fena: Pirate Princess (2021)
 * Millepensee for So I’m a Spider, So What? (2021)
 * Platinum Vision for Dr. Ramune Mysterious Disease Specialist (2021)
 * Visual Flight for Ex-Arm (2021)
 * Sola Digital Arts for Blade Runner: Black Lotus (2022)

Crunchyroll Studios
As mentioned above, some Crunchyroll Originals are animated in-house by Crunchyroll Studios. Reception has been slightly negative to very negative, but partly due to significant stylistic differences from most anime. So far, most of the Crunchyroll Studios shows have had a more American cartoon look which contrasts to most of the co-produced works.

Works as of Spring 2022:
 * Onyx Equinox (2020)
 * High Guardian Spice (2021)
 * FreakAngels (2022)
 * Meiji Gekken: Swords &amp; Guns (TBA)