Crunchyroll SAS is a European manga publisher and anime distributor headquartered in Paris, France. Established as Viz Media Europe, it was Viz Media's European sister company until 2019. It holds partnerships with TV channels, DVD distributors, and manga publishers. The company used to be headquartered in Amsterdam. The company opened its Paris operations on 15 January 2007. Crunchyroll SAS is majority owned by Crunchyroll, though Hitotsubashi Group retains full ownership of the former Viz Media Europe's Publishing Licensing Business. On January 27, 2020, Viz Media Europe SAS changed its corporate name to Crunchyroll SAS, announcing the change publicly on April 2, 2020, with all of Viz Media's former brands being rebranded as Crunchyroll brands.
Subsidiaries and Brands
As of April 2020, Crunchyroll EMEA has been organised into a portfolio of brands and companies. Crunchyroll EMEA is also affiliated with VME PLB SAS, though does not own any stake of the company.
Brands
Kazé
Kazé is the French division of Crunchyroll EMEA, and is responsible for the distribution of anime and manga within France and other French-speaking regions. Kazé also operates in German territories through the Swiss subsidiary VIZ Media Switzerland SA and AV Visionen, and formerly operated in the British market in collaboration with Manga Entertainment.
Anime Digital Network is a French video on demand service dedicated to streaming anime content to French-speaking territories. The business is a collaboration between Crunchyroll EMEA and Média-Participations subsidiary Citel.
Eye See Movies
Eye See Movies is a brand of Crunchyroll EMEA focusing on the distribution of German television and film on home video in Germany. It operates as a label of AV Visionen.
Subsidiaries
AV Visionen
AV Visionen is the German subsidiary of Crunchyroll EMEA, and is responsible for the distribution of anime, manga, film and television in German-speaking territories. It distributes anime through the Anime House, Nipponart and Kazé labels, and is the distributor for Aniplex's Peppermint Anime.
Ellation
Ellation is Crunchyroll's business in Chișinău, Moldova. The Ellation name was formerly used as Otter Media's Consumer Division, but was later transitioned to be Crunchyroll's Moldovan operations following the rebranding of Crunchyroll EMEA.
Other companies
VME PLB SAS
VME PLS SAS is a publishing licensing business owned by Shogakukan and Shueisha group. The company was formed in December 2019, after Crunchyroll acquired the majority stake in Viz Media Europe. The company is responsible for licensing manga within the EMEA and Latin American regions. Kazuyoshi Takeuchi is President of VME PLB and Kazuyuki Masuda is Managing Director of VME PLB.
