Crunchyroll, the home to a diverse collection of anime, is now being sold to Sony. With Sony already being the owner of Funimation, it now has a lot of anime content on its hands.
With the possession of two major anime streaming websites, all otakus’ eyes are now on the company’s next move.
Founded in 2006, Crunchyroll has 90 million registered users as of 2020. It also has 3 million subscribers worldwide. It is one of the leading anime streaming websites in the world.
Earlier today, Sony and AT&T announced that Crunchyroll will be sold to the Funimation Global Group, LLC. It is being sold for a total of $1.175 billion. Funimation is a joint venture between Sony and Aniplex.
Crunchyroll and Funimation are the top competitors in the anime streaming market.
Their collaboration or combination will not only broaden distribution but also lead to more anime production. Crunchyroll already has its own line of anime called Crunchyroll Originals.
Tony Goncalves, Chief Revenue Officer of WarnerMedia, appreciated the effort that the Crunchyroll team has dedicated to making the streaming website a complete success.
He hopes that the future will bring anime to more audiences.
The deal is still pending, and thus not much information has been revealed. It is too soon to decide future plans for the websites.
However, are fans happy with this decision? It doesn’t seem so.
Funimation has multiple censorship issues as a lot of anime are not available outside of specific regions. If the same rules were to apply to Crunchyroll, fans will definitely not be happy.
If both the websites are merged, fans hope that they don’t need to pay for both, and only one account will suffice.
Although this seems too good to be true, fans are hoping with their all. However, since the deal is pending, we do not know for sure if the websites will merge or stay autonomous.
Source: Sony Press Release
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