When it comes to anime consumption in Western nations, the most pervasive cancer certainly has to be Sony’s monopoly over streaming rights and localization, considering how they own Crunchyroll who in turn owns Funimation.
When Crunchyroll acquired Funimation it was marketed as a massive victory for fans everywhere, but obviously given how Crunchyroll are the only streaming service in the business, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they’d bend over their customers straight away.
We’ve previously discussed many of Crunchyroll’s anti-consumer business practices, including illegally harvesting data from its users. However, for anime fans in the West, they’ve crossed a line by recently closing the Right Stuf store, significantly impacting access to anime merchandise that Crunchyroll themselves refuse to provide, such as adult orientated items.
Now they’ve decided to take more drastic action, by terminating Funimation as a whole.
Crunchyroll will cease its website and app functionality on April 2nd, 2024, marking the official end of its service. Existing Funimation users will see their current subscriptions automatically transferred to a Crunchyroll subscription by April 2.
Additionally, if a Crunchyroll account shares the same email credentials as a Funimation account, both accounts will be merged, including any watch history and queue lists. For users with different email addresses, they will need to contact customer service for assistance.
Furthermore, the same Funimation login information can be used to access a Crunchyroll account after the transition.
This move appears to be a profiteering tactic, as Crunchyroll will now stand alone as the primary Anime streaming service in the West, despite Funimation being a subsidiary.
Despite Funimation gradually increasing its subscription prices, they generally remained lower than those of Crunchyroll. This suggests an effort by Funimation to transition users to Crunchyroll, where prices are higher.
But obviously the most depressing issue has to be regarding paying customers and their saved digital copies, those will be tossed into the void as they will not be carried over to their new Crunchyroll subscription which now starts at $8 USD per month for the lowest tier with the “Ultimate Fan” package costing $15 per month.
Interestingly, even if you opt for their lowest-tier subscription, it would only amount to an annual bill of $95.88. However, the recent service update email mentions that the transitional subscription will cost $99.99 annually. This suggests that Crunchyroll may be increasing its subscription prices once more.
Every single streaming service is an invasive cancer amongst society, the only redeemable “streaming service” that exists in this day and age happens to be self-hosted media servers such as PLEX.
It’s absurd for Crunchyroll to claim that they cannot support digital copies from Funimation. However, the true blame for this situation lies with the morally righteous individuals who seemingly aim to undermine Japanese animation at its core by continually funding malicious corporations such as Crunchyroll.
They perpetuate the notion that obtaining content through piracy might lead to viruses or other unfounded excuses such as piracy equaling theft, ultimately contributing to this ordeal.
Why continue to pay money towards a corporation who despises you, steals your data, incorporating politically correct bullshit into their translations and dubbing?
Individuals who lack integrity deserve to be manipulated and mistreated by their corporate overlords. I only wish that the sudden termination of Funimation prompts more individuals to resort to pirating anime.
Websites like Nyaa offer an endless array of anime / manga content for free, and I encourage people to take full advantage of them.
