In summer 2021, the Sony’s Funimation Global Group acquired Crunchyroll for over one billion dollars. At the time, it wasn’t clear what that would mean. We only knew that Funimation sought to create “a unified anime subscription experience.” Now, that unified anime platform has become a reality. Effective immediately, “Funimation and Wakanim are officially moving to Crunchyroll, kicking off an exciting step in anime’s streaming evolution.” But what does this mean more practically for Funimation and Crunchyroll subscribers? And more importantly, what how does this merging of Crunchyroll and Funimation’s streaming content affect costs and subscription fees for fans? Let’s take a look at what we know about Crunchyroll and Funimation bringing their anime together.
In a trailer that teases anime streaming’s “final form,” the unified anime hub promises thousands of episodes, hundreds of series, all in one place. The trailer includes clips of some of the most popular anime around. We see anime like One Piece, Dragon Ball, My Hero Academia, and more take center stage. It all certainly sounds exciting. A promise of lots of anime to come.
A New Unified Anime Streaming Hub
In a release, Crunchyroll goes on to speak more practically. Here’s what it shares:
Starting today [March 1], existing and new Crunchyroll subscribers will have access to library and simulcast content previously exclusive to Funimation. This move makes good on the promise to fans that the merger of Funimation and Crunchyroll would bring together the previously separate services into a single subscription. Crunchyroll’s pricing remains unchanged, offering fans the ultimate anime experience with subs, dubs, films, and simulcast series in over 200 countries and territories and in 10 languages.
Pricing for Crunchyroll and Funimation’s Anime Streaming Platform
Pricing remains unchanged are the golden words we like to hear. To break that down a little further, Crunchyroll tiers are “Crunchyroll tiers are $7.99/month, Fan; $9.99/month, Mega Fan; and $14.99/month, Ultimate Fan.” Further, Crunchyroll invites its subscribers to cancel their Funimation accounts. As “all new series from the upcoming spring 2022 season will stream exclusively on Crunchyroll going forward and you will be able to watch 80% of Funimation and Wakanim’s most popular existing series on Crunchyroll by the end of March 2022.” Funimation will only continue to add episodes of its current series.
Transferring from Funimation to Crunchyroll
However, please note you cannot presently access Crunchyroll with a Funimation account. Funimation, Wakanim or VRV subscribers should make new Crunchyroll accounts to access the anime streaming content. However, the platform is working on transferring over Funimation users’ “Funimation digital copy, watch history, [and] queue.” Hopefully, this new unified anime hub will soon be able to offer users this information from their old accounts.
For anime fans, this unified anime streaming hub could be a solution. One anime streaming platform to subscribe to could feel easier to keep track of than two. We hope this platform indeed creates a convenient and comprehensive resource for anime fans. And hopefully, it also makes getting into anime more accessible for new viewers. Trying to figure out where a show was located could be difficult in the past. But hopefully, some of those barriers have now eased. Anime has a tremendous breadth and depth of content, so wrangling that in a more user-friendly way seems like a welcome change.
And now we know our weekend plans. Anime all day.
