Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll, Inc., alternatively spelled Crunchy Roll, is an American distributor, publisher, and licensing company focused on streaming anime, manga, and dorama. Founded in 2006 by a group of University of California, Berkeley graduates, Crunchyroll's distribution channel and partnership program delivers content to 50million registered users worldwide. Crunchyroll is a subsidiary of Otter Media, which is a subsidiary of AT&T's WarnerMedia. Crunchyroll has offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chișinău and Tokyo, and is a member of the Association of Japanese Animations. "Crunchyroll-Hime", also known as "Hime" is the official mascot of Crunchyroll.
Crunchyroll offers over 900 anime shows, more than 200 East Asian dramas to users, and 50 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 2million paid subscribers as of 2019. Crunchyroll also selects some anime titles for release on Blu-ray/DVD through its distribution partners.
History
Crunchyroll started in 2006 as a for-profit video upload and streaming site that specialized in hosting East Asian video content. Some of the content hosted on Crunchyroll included fansubbed versions of East Asian shows.In 2008, Crunchyroll secured a capital investment of $4.05 million from the venture capital firm Venrock. The investment drew criticism from anime distributors and licensors Bandai Entertainment and Funimation as the site continued to allow users to upload illegal copies of licensed titles.
However, Crunchyroll eventually began securing legal distribution agreements with companies, including Gonzo, for an increasing number of titles. On January 8, 2009, after announcing a deal with TV Tokyo to host episodes of Naruto Shippuden, Crunchyroll stated that it was committed to removing all copyright-infringing material from its site and to hosting only content to which it had legitimate distribution rights.
In 2010, Crunchyroll announced its acquisition of the North American DVD rights to 5 Centimeters Per Second. This was the first DVD release licensed by Crunchyroll.
On October 30, 2013, Crunchyroll began digitally distributing 12 different manga titles from Kodansha – series such as Attack on Titan and Fairy Tail were part of the manga that was available initially – through Crunchyroll Manga.
On December 2, 2013, The Chernin Group, former News Corp. president Peter Chernin's holding company, announced that it has acquired a controlling interest in Crunchyroll. A person with knowledge of the transaction said the price for the acquisition was close to $100 million. The Chernin Group said that Crunchyroll management and existing investor TV Tokyo will maintain a "significant" stake in the company.
On April 22, 2014, AT&T and The Chernin Group announced the formation of a joint venture to acquire, invest in and launch over-the-top video services. Both companies committed over $500 million in funding to the venture. The new company was named Otter Media and became the majority owner of Crunchyroll. On August 3, 2015, Variety reported that Otter Media will unveil Ellation, a new umbrella company for its subscription-based video services including Crunchyroll. Ellation's services included VRV, which debuted in 2016, a video streaming platform described as targeting "geeks, gamers and lovers of comedy, fantasy and technology."
On October 22, 2015, the Anime News Network reported that Crunchyroll has 700,000 paying subscribers. In addition, the company announced that Crunchyroll and Sumitomo Corporation had created a joint venture to produce and invest in anime productions.
On April 11, 2016, Crunchyroll and Kadokawa Corporation announced the formation of a strategic alliance that gave Crunchyroll exclusive worldwide digital distribution rights for Kadokawa anime titles in the upcoming year. It also granted Crunchyroll the right to co-finance Kadokawa anime titles to be produced in the future.
On July 1, 2016, Crunchyroll announced plans to dub and release a number of series on home video.
On September 8, 2016, Crunchyroll announced a partnership with Funimation. Crunchyroll will stream selected Funimation titles, while Funimation will stream selected Crunchyroll titles, as well as their upcoming dubbed content. In addition, Funimation and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment will act as distributors for Crunchyroll's home video catalog. On October 18, 2018, Funimation announced that their partnership with Crunchyroll has ended as a result of Sony Pictures Television's acquisition of Funimation and AT&T's acquisition of Crunchyroll's parent company Otter Media.
On February 9, 2017, Crunchyroll announced that it had reached one million paid subscribers.
On March 30, 2017, Crunchyroll began to distribute anime through Steam.
On November 4, 2017, a group of hackers managed to DNS hijack the official site for almost 6 hours. Users were redirected to a fake lookalike site which prompted users to download ransomware under the guise of "CrunchyViewer". Crunchyroll has filed a first information report against the hackers.
In January 2018, Otter Media bought the remaining shares of Crunchyroll from TV Tokyo and other investors. In August 2018, AT&T acquired the remainder of Otter Media that it did not already own from Chernin Group; the company and Crunchyroll were thus folded under WarnerMedia.
In October 2018, the service announced an expansion into original content with the anime-inspired series High Guardian Spice produced by Ellation Studios.
On March 4, 2019, it was announced that Otter Media would be placed under Warner Bros. as part of a reorganization. As a result of the same reorganization, the company and Crunchyroll became corporate sisters to the U.S. cable channel Cartoon Network and its nighttime programming block Adult Swim—which have been known for their television broadcasting of most of its anime under their Toonami brand. Due to a subsequent reorganization, Crunchyroll was moved under WarnerMedia Entertainment in May 2019, so that its COO could oversee an upcoming entertainment streaming service from the brand.
On July 3, 2019, Crunchyroll announced that they had partnered with Viz Media to distribute select Crunchyroll licensed titles on home video and electronic sell-through in the United States and Canada.
On July 20, 2019, independent Australian production company Glitch Productions announce that they had partnered with Crunchyroll to produce their YouTube original series, Meta Runner.
On September 6, 2019, Crunchyroll announced that they had become the majority investor in Viz Media Europe. Crunchyroll solidified this deal on December 4, 2019, becoming the majority owners of Viz Media Europe Group, and appointed former Viz Media Europe president John Easum as Head of Crunchyroll EMEA.
On October 15, 2019, it was announced that Naver Corporation's webtoon publishing portal, WEBTOON, is partnering with Crunchyroll to produce animated adaptations of its series. On February 25, 2020, Crunchyroll announced a slate of several programs under their new "Crunchyroll originals" brand, including anime adaptations of the webtoons Tower of God, The God of High School, and Noblesse.
On April 2, 2020, Crunchyroll announced it had rebranded Viz Media Europe as Crunchyroll EMEA, with former Viz Media Europe brands Kazé, Anime on Demand, Anime Digital Network and Eye See Movies becoming Crunchyroll brands, and AV Visionen and Ellation becoming Crunchyroll companies. As a result of the rebranding, the Ellation name transitioned from Otter Media's Consumer Division to Crunchyroll's Moldovan offices, and VRV became a brand of Crunchyroll.
The Anime Awards
The Anime Awards, also known as the Crunchyroll Anime Awards, are annual awards given to recognize anime from the previous year. The awards were first held in January 2017 and returned for 2018. Crunchyroll selects twenty judges from diverse backgrounds who then create a list of six nominees within each category. This list is then made available to the public for online voting to choose the winners.Crunchyroll Expo
In February 2017, Crunchyroll created the Crunchyroll Expo anime convention with organizational support from Left Field Media. The inaugural Expo was held at the Santa Clara Convention Center on August 25–27, with team manager Dallas Middaugh noting much of the ticket sales came within ten days of the convention. Special guests for the Expo included The Fairly OddParents creator Butch Hartman, voice actors Shun Horie and Hiromi Igarashi, illustrator Yoshitaka Amano, figure skater Johnny Weir, manga artist Kore Yamazaki, and author Keiichi Sigsawa.The Expo was moved to the San Jose McEnery Convention Center in 2018 on Labor Day weekend. The convention saw 45,000 in turnstile attendance. Among the guests for the convention were Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii, voice actors Ryo Horikawa, Justin Briner, Luci Christian, Clifford Chapin and Colleen Clinkenbeard, and the staff of Darling in the Franxx.
Crunchyroll Expo 2019, also in San Jose, saw the premieres of the movie Black Fox and the Mob Psycho 100 II original video animation, while Toei Animation organized a screening of the movies ' and '. Among the guests invited were horror mangaka Junji Ito; 22/7 voice actors Sally Amaki, Kanae Shirosawa, and Ruri Umino; writer Yūto Tsukuda and artist Shun Saeki; and staff members of Zombie Land Saga, including voice actors Kaede Hondo and Asami Tano, composer Yasuharu Takanashi, and MAPPA CEO Manabu Ohtsuka. Rock band Flow, whose songs have been featured in various anime as opening themes, held a concert on August 30.
Crunchyroll Originals
On February 25, 2020, Crunchyroll initially announced several series under its Crunchyroll Originals label. These are anime or other animated series that are either co-produced or directly produced by the company. Crunchyroll previously co-produced anime titles before, but this list will only include those that Crunchyroll themselves officially place under the label.So far, these series include:
| Title | First run start date | First run end date | Episodes | Notes | Animation Studio |
| In/Spectre | 12 | Adaptation of novel series written by Kyo Shirodaira. | Brain's Base | ||
| Tower of God | 13 | Adaptation of webtoon by SIU. | Telecom Animation Film | ||
| The God of High School | 13 | Adaptation of webtoon by Yongje Park. | MAPPA | ||
| Gibiate | July 15, 2020 | TBA | TBA | Original work created by Ryo Aoki. | Lunch Box Studio Elle |
| TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You | October 2020 | TBA | TBA | Adaptation of manga by Kenjiro Hata. | Seven Arcs |
| Noblesse | TBA | Adaptation of webtoon written by Son Jeho and illustrated by Lee Kwangsu. | Production I.G | ||
| Onyx Equinox | TBA | Original work created by Sofia Alexander. | Crunchyroll Studios | ||
| FreakAngels | TBA | Adaptation of webcomic written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Paul Duffield. | Crunchyroll Studios | ||
| High Guardian Spice | TBA | Original work created by Raye Rodriguez. | Crunchyroll Studios | ||
| Meiji Gekken: Swords & Guns | TBA | Original work; working title. | Crunchyroll Studios | ||
| Ex-Arm | 2020 | TBA | TBA | Adaptation of manga written by HiRock and illustrated by Shinya Komi. | TBA |
| So I'm A Spider, So What? | January 2021 | TBA | TBA | Adaptation of light novel series written by Okina Baba and illustrated by Tsukasa Kiryu. | TBA |