Summary
On Wednesday, July 26, 2025, Crunchyroll announced thatthe Funimation streaming platformwill cease functioning in April, a consequence of the former’s absorption into Sony’s Funimation Global Group from AT&T. The acquisition was worth US$1.175 billion, and at the time, it was not clear how the merger would affect the services of either the Crunchyroll or the Funimation streaming platforms. Funimation’s statement on the matter set out to reassure users that they would remain the top priority, with the goal being the creation of a unified anime subscription experience complete with a comprehensive library of titles.
At this point, Crunchyroll does not support Funimation’s digital copy content, striking up an important conversation about the importance of physical media, and the precarity of digital ownership. What does Sony’s acquisition of Crunchyroll, and the latter’s subsequent merge with Funimation mean for the industry?
What Has Happened Since the First Announcements?
A Lot of Merging and Acquiring
In 2022, it was announced that Funimation and Crunchyroll would be combined, enabling users to enjoy both services, and the content would rotate in and out. In December 2020, Crunchyroll and VIZ Media Europe closed a deal making the former a majority owner of the latter, changing the name to Crunchyroll SAS.
Since news of Sony’s acquisition of Crunchyroll first broke in 2020, Funimation users have been granted the ability to migrate their accounts over to Crunchyroll and retain their watch history and queue; or merge a Funimation account with a pre-existing Crunchyroll account, provided they use the same email address. However,the digital copies that former Funimation users hadaccess to as part of their purchases of home releases of anime titles are no longer valid, meaning that the users no longer have access to something that they rightfully owned.
Beyond that, Funimation users will have to deal with higher subscription costs under Crunchyroll, and the migration of Funimation’s library is not yet complete. When the announcement of Sony’s acquisition of Crunchyroll came out, neither Crunchyroll nor Funimation had any updates regarding what it would mean for subscription costs. Now with confirmation that Funimation will be no more from June 11, 2025, the first consequence is users having to deal with increased costs, not to mention the fact that users who have already been using Crunchyroll will also experience a huge leap in annual subscription fees from US$55 for an annual subscription to a whopping US$100.
Please note that Crunchyroll does not currently support Funimation Digital copies, which means that access to previously available digital copies will not be supported. However, we are continuously working to enhance our content offerings and provide you with an exceptional anime streaming experience. We appreciate your understanding and encourage you to explore the extensive anime library available on Crunchyroll.
How Significant is Sony’s Influence Here?
Sony, the Conqueror
Sony is a major player alongside Disney when it comes to the conglomerates and groups that are now its subsidiaries. In September 2019, Sony and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Aniplex, consolidated three Sony-owned anime distribution companies into a single joint venture. This saw Australia’s Madman Anime Group, France’s Wakanim, and Funimation combined into a single company.
Funimation was acquired by Sony in 2017, with the service ceasing its content sharing with Crunchyroll in the following year in favor of a deal penned with Hulu. AnimeLab, a streaming service based in Australia and New Zealand, was rebranded to Funimation in June 2018. Through ownership of Aniplex, Sony also owns a number of studios involved in the production of anime, includingA-1 Pictures (Solo Leveling)and CloverWorks (Horimiya). Sony has immense power and has absorbed many companies, with the Crunchyroll acquisition granting the conglomerate a huge stake in the distribution and production of countless anime titles.
US$7.99 – “Fan”
US$9.99 – “Mega Fan”
US$7.99 (with ads)
US$14.99 (ad-free)
US$6.99 – “Standard” (with ads)
Depends on the chosen plan
US$15.49 – “Standard”
US$22.49 – “Premium”
Is There A Future Solution For Digital Copies?
The Short Answer Is No
Crunchyroll does not support the digital copy content from Funimation, a fact which was confirmed along with the complete cessation of the Funimation site in April, leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of anime fans everywhere and striking up a conversation about the future of anime media, and media in general. The movement towards the current meta; one in which multiple streaming platforms vy for complete domination of the industry and make use of the subscription model that hasbecome ubiquitous in the streaming age. This echoes a similar concern of those who are passionate about video games, as gaming has been gridlocked in a system that enables users to “own” digital copies of titles whose destinies are completely at the behest of the relevant platform or developer.
In a matrix in which ownership can be taken away despite the exchange of money for something that used to be tangible content for something more precarious – media that can be pulled from platforms at their discretion, despite users having paid to own a copy of that particular piece of media. The events that have taken place as a result of the merger between Funimation and Crunchyroll concerning the lack of support for digital copies have struck the same chord as the removal of various movies and shows from major platforms. What has made users uncomfortable about this is the impermanence of digital ownership.
The Physical Media Conversation
The Future Lies in the Past
As IGN’s Amelia Emberwing succinctly put it in an August 2023 article, “You don’t own your digital media”. Emberwing put forth a strong and convincing case forthe importance of physical media, explaining that the old idea of a transaction is vastly complicated in the streaming age. While we’ve learned that when you buy a copy of a piece of media, you own it, in the subscription age, what you are paying for isn’t ownership, but a form of lease or license.
Effectively, your access to that piece of media exists as long as the platform grants access to it provided the platform itself is still authorized to grant you that access. Beyond the fact that tangible media is not subject to exactly the same precarity as digital, there’s also the issue of quality. Streaming platforms like Netflix are under the impression that offering physical copies alongside their streaming service will undercut the use of the service, but that isn’t the case because fandom culture is big on collecting, and the more options people have, the better.
The big problem here is still theissue of accessibility from a financial standpoint. “Collect physical versions of your favorite media” is only advice that can be followed by those who have the means to do so in the first place, and since the advent of streaming, we’ve been able to access far more anime than we could have imagined in the ’90s or early 2000s. The issue is that as easily as access is granted these days, it can just as easily be taken away.
The loss of media over time has been a major topic in the realm of video games for a very long time, as the subscription meta has really proliferated in that realm in a way that hasn’t quite been as devastating. Now that the majority of people use digital copies and do not have the physical item, gaming is in a space where older games are simply just lost to time, and the current crop is simply not genuinely owned by the consumer. In that sense, the physical media conversation goes beyond ownership; it’s also about preserving media history, and it seems like streaming platforms desperately want to be on the wrong side of it.
Sources: ANN (Alex Mateo), (Rafael Antonio Pineda); IGN (Amelia Emberwing), (Rosie Knight); FunimationEnd of Services
