Crunchyroll (2019-present)
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 Activision Blizzard's more unhinged anime distribution cousin.
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Crunchyroll, LLC. (formerly Funimation) is an anime licensing company founded in Houston, Texas back in 1994. The majority of the company was acquired by Sony in 2019, with founder Gen Fukunaga keeping a 1% stake.
They used to be a great anime dubbing company until they went downhill in 2019, following Sony's acquisition of the company and the Vic Mignogna controversy, due to their recent business agenda.
Why They're Now An Unfun Soggy Bread
Crunchyroll
- It started as a piracy site, but eventually, they opted to go legit.
- Crunchyroll does a poor job at making accurate subtitles for anime, at times the localization is sub-par even by fansub standards. Even worse, sometimes, they don't bother putting English subtitles in shows like High Guardian Spice.
- For a very long time, Crunchyroll required the dying Adobe Flash to function even when most other sites moved on to HTML 5. Eventually, an HTML 5 plugin for Crunchyroll was released and solved numerous issues, such as being unable to rewind to the 0:00 mark on Flash.
- The comment section on the site is broken. Only a handful of comments appear on certain videos and the filtering system is quite buggy.
- To make matters worse in July 2024, in a move that proves that they cannot handle any criticism and to likely compete with other streaming sites, it stopped allowing users to post comments or user reviews anywhere on the streaming site, although they still allowed the stars system. When users complained about this change on the site's support line, they were told that this was done to "reduce harmful content, prevent misinformation, and improve overall user experience" and to " ensure a safer, more respectful, and higher-quality environment for all our users”. It is also rumored that the site did this due to the homophobic backlash of Twilight Out of Focus, which the site could've ban the users for those comments, but decided to not do so in favor of retiring user reviews anywhere on the platform.
- Subpar video quality, to the point that many consider piracy a better alternative to watching anime.
- It used to have a downloading function, but it got killed off previously in 2010, partly because of how poorly advertised the function was and partly because it still has DRM.
- Crunchyroll also handles diversity poorly. For instance, when they held an LGBTQ panel during a convention, for 45 minutes, the staff talked about their personal experience as LGBTQ+ people instead of discussing topics, such as the representation of LGBTQ+ in anime, which would have been a better-fitting topic for an anime-themed business panel.
- Crunchyroll has also forced people to pay for the overpriced streaming services by playing the ads that are unskippable and they often cause lagging to occur. Some of the ads can be long much longer than what YouTube is. Which costs about $7.99 a month or $40 a year for a Premium subscription.
- Feminist propaganda: The staff is very sexist towards males, despite still allowing anime, manga, and Asian live-action films and shows with attractive/sexualized women or Rule 34 and other things they hate on their site. They also allowed a radical feminist writer by the name of Kate Leth to work in High Guardian Spice and are fine with her being misandrist towards men.
- It was one of the sites that sometimes misrated shows which caused the Goblin Slayer and High Guardian Spice drama in 2018 and 2021. For starters, the Goblin Slayer anime was rated TV-PG on Crunchyroll, which is low, considering that the anime (and the manga to a higher degree) has depictions of slaughter, gore, and rape by the goblins to the characters FROM THE VERY FIRST EPISODE. This error caused a lot of people who used Crunchyroll to watch the anime expecting, at worse, a generic Isekai with mild violence, only to get shocked by the episode (mainly due to the depiction of rape, even though it makes the goblins even more hateable instead of glorifying it) expressed their disgust on Twitter by discouraging people from watching it, some of whom alleged to be traumatized by it.
- Meanwhile, High Guardian Spice was promoted for adult audiences, despite there barely being any gore, hammering down the audience's IQ like they are in pre-school and do not have things that can upset the kid unlike something above.
- They have recently deleted most of their anime catalog, including anime licensed by rival anime licensing company Sentai Filmworks, which goes against the platform's very beginnings since its creation in 2006. While this could be due to going legit and losing licenses, it doesn't excuse the situation.
- Similar to the Netflix Games, Crunchyroll Game Vault has poor lineup for subscription-based games, only 5 games has been launched (4 of them are good, and 1 game is very generic and mediocre games).
- Speaking of which, unlike Netflix Games, where you can release separate games, even some games have been removed or still exist. Here, the publisher is forced to removed some games that are really popular and underrated and replacing them with subscription-only games that only Crunchyroll can publish. The problem is whenever a game is delisted from iOS and Android, the user is forced to download the delisted game on piracy website or play on Consoles and PC to save money. This is led to an increase inn the piracy of mobile gaming and extremely disappointed for fans that an act like this is absolutely a greedy move.
- They treat their gacha games that they publish horribly. For example, their global version of Princess Connect! Re:Dive only lasted 2 years, despite already having a steady playerbase, with its EoS announcement at a very bad timing; close to April Fools' Day or April 1st. This would eventually cause Cygames to ditch Crunchyroll Games in favor of their own publishing branches with Uma Musume: Pretty Derby.
- On July 1, 2024, it removed the entirely all the volumes and episodes of RWBY (with expection of few episodes in Volume 1) a month after Rooster Teeth shut down.
- Recently, they, along with Funimation, ended up getting exposed for opening David Wald's private mail, throwing away the fans' letter and giving the gifts that were included in the mail to their staff, which has been going on for five years. This means the company is breaking the law, as tampering with someone else's mail can get you arrested.
- According to a Bloomberg article written in December 2024, which was based on interviews with 18 current and former employees, Crunchyroll has been struggling to both retain paying customers, with their monthly customer turnover rates sitting upwards of 8.5%, and capture the attention of viewers.
- In addition, ever since acquiring Funimation, Crunchyroll has been dealing with at least three rounds of layoffs.
Funimation (2019-2024)
- Very toxic workplace environment where infighting and gossip are rampant, thanks to the leadership of Sony and Jamie Marchi.
- They fired Vic Mignogna for sexual assault allegations that had no proof whatsoever, while they hypocritically kept some of the other actors have proof of misconduct as well. They also fired Vic to have more "diversity in the workforce", just because he is a Christian, which is yet another example of blatant discrimination against white people, especially since Vic supports people of diverse cultures.
- There is also no policy regarding sexual harassment or misconduct and nobody was punished for it except for the previously mentioned Vic.
- The situation was so bad that Mignogna had to sue the company, which ended up being unsuccessful due to anti-SLAP protections. It led to him retiring from being a voice actor in 2021. He does remain somewhat active in the industry thanks to founding his voice-acting studio the same year, where he serves as voice director.
- They recently added political agendas in some of their dubs.
- One such example was in Prison School when one character referred to "that dumbass GamerGate creep shows." Keep in mind that the show takes place in Japan and GamerGate is an American movement. The original line was "You keep talking to me like we're on equal terms, but I'm a second year. You have to address a superior more politely."
- Another such example was Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. Jamie Marchi, voice director of the company and voice actress of Lucoa in the show, intentionally rewrote one of the lines to her demands. The line was, "Oh, those pesky patriarchal social demands were getting on my nerves, so I changed clothes". The original line was as followed: "Everyone was always saying something to me, so I tried toning down the exposure. How was it?"
- Even worse, Jamie Marchi still defends this decision years later.
- They later did the same thing with My First Girlfriend is a Gal, in which they altered certain lines to insult anyone who reads visual and light novels, calling them misogynists, incels, and losers. When the original line was about girls not wanting to read lewd scenes in public, even if it makes the customer happy. When their fans called out on this, Funimation refused to apologize and instead posted a statement about not condoning harassment.
- Poor customer service, such as when they claim it's the internet connection or episode, but was a site problem. They can also forget to fix a broken video as well.
- They still haven't fixed glitches, with one example being after watching an episode. On the main page, it won't recognize that you already watched that episode and thinks that you're still watching the episode you've already completed. The other infamous one is when you try to access your account, it will redirect you to the main page.
- Like Paramount and Mattel, they have abused the copyright system to death.
- Their site in 2017 was very buggy and had video player issues when a huge chunk of cookies was being used.
- When people started unsubscribing from Funimation in 2019, they tried to stop this by briefly removing the "cancel subscription" button, while claiming that it was a bug.
- They, along with Crunchyroll, infamously released the "anime"-inspired show, High Guardian Spice.
- They're very hypocritical, these examples include:
- The first example involves Fire Force airing on Toonami, in which Funimation censored a scene involving the character Tamaki Kotatsu's breasts and butt getting grabbed, but not a scene when she sat on another character's face. However, that was a decision made by Adult Swim, which generally has looser censorship policies compared to the normal daytime Cartoon Network (the Funimation dub for Attack on Titan has aired with the word "shit" uncensored).
- Another example of hypocrisy is how Funimation made a video celebrating Pride Month with LGBTQ+ voice actors on their YouTube channel. Yet Chris Sabat, one of the lead executives of the company, made his rendition of Dragon Ball Z involving homophobic jokes and, along with other voice actors, made homophobic remarks about the now disgraced Vic Mignogna.
- Some of the voice actresses even slept with the directors for roles in projects, which shows the blatant cronyism going on in the company.
- Their physical home media releases are very inconsistent:
- One example is My Hero Academia, its first season got a single release, but its later seasons were separated into two parts until they got a single release with both parts combined. Speaking of its split-up sets, they sell each Blu-Ray part for $50. Basically, if you want to watch a twenty-five-episode series or season, you need to pay $100 plus tax.
- If you want to get a DVD set for LESS than $50, then you have to pay up for the other home media releases like Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6.
- Some of their Blu-Ray releases have glaring technical issues, such as 2-channel mono audio on Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, out-of-sync dub audio on Re:ZERO -Starting Life In Another World-, flickering subtitles on My Hero Academia, and the inability to disable subtitles on any release from 2014 to 2018 if the Japanese audio is chosen.
- Their awful Dragon Ball Z DVD releases. They keep cropping a 4:3 image to 16:9 and using digital noise reduction, which ruins the image.
- Their infamous Dragon Ball Z 30th Anniversary set received a ton of fire before its release.
- Their Danganronpa: The Animation: Collector’s Edition DVD and Blu-Ray box set came in two Blu-Ray boxes, one with the Blu-Ray disc and one with the DVD. What laziness!
- They still have not released Your Name in 4K Ultra HD in North America, which means fans there will have to import it from Japan, which is not only more expensive but also does not contain the English dub, only subtitles.
- One example is My Hero Academia, its first season got a single release, but its later seasons were separated into two parts until they got a single release with both parts combined. Speaking of its split-up sets, they sell each Blu-Ray part for $50. Basically, if you want to watch a twenty-five-episode series or season, you need to pay $100 plus tax.
- They recently abandoned one of their dubs known as Interspecies Reviewers because the anime they licensed was against their standards. However, they have dubbed Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid, Heaven’s Lost Property, The Testament of Sister New Devil, etc. This is also very hypocritical.
- And despite not dubbing or using the anime anymore, they still keep a hold of the dub rights to it.
- After Scott Freeman was arrested for possessing child pornography, Funimation kept him employed for at least a year before firing him, which shows that they were well aware that he was a pedophile.
- There were also many cases somewhat related to this as well besides it and the Vic controversy:
- Chris Thurman was revealed to have sent actual explicit pictures to minors he was in contact with and he even admitted it as well. Due to this, his relationship with Funimation was terminated.
- Another case was back in 2014 a former ADV/Sentai Filmworks, Funimation actor, and acting teacher Illich Guardiola was revealed to have been dating his then 16-year-old female acting student, Hope Harris, and (surprisingly) with consent from her and her parents, both Illich and Hope got married in Las Vegas and due to this, he was fired from both Sentai Filmworks and Funimation.
- Doc Morgan sexually harassing minors.
- The most recent case happened shortly after firing Vic, in One Piece: Stampede, Akudama Drive, Ikebukuro West Gate Park, and My Hero Academia, they hired D.C. Douglas to replace him in his booth, despite their existing conclusive evidence of him committing sexual harassment, indecent exposure, emotional-psychological manipulation, homophobia, transphobia, and non-disclosure agreement violations. But after World Heroes Mission, it looks like they disassociated with him.
- Daman Mills sexually harassed a boy named Duncan and then intimidated and forced him to admit that the allegations (which is true based on Duncan's evidence) are false (which is not false at all)
- There were also many cases somewhat related to this as well besides it and the Vic controversy:
- They also approve of their voice actors bullying/isolating fans and even other fellow voice actors over different viewpoints.
- Terri Doty blocks everyone after making a whole Twitlonger post smearing Chuck Huber for simply handling an autistic fan named Edward in a way the fan wouldn't be hurt and blocking anyone who sided with Chuck.
- Kyle Phillips blasted Eric Rolon on Twitter for supporting the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse and tweeting a link to a Nick Rekeita live stream on the subject.
- Many actors harassed Vic Mignogna after he paid his respects to the late Chris Ayres after his death. No matter how you think of him, how disrespectful can you get?
- Ironically enough, several of these actors also paid their respects to Chris Ayres' death themselves.
- On Twitter, they teased Nintendo to add Goku from Dragon Ball in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate back when it was still in development. The late Akira Toriyama created and owns him, and it's Toeis's job, not Funimation's
- Even then, they could still get the game, and download this mod.
- Worst case of all, the president of Funimation, Gen Fukunaga, NEVER does anything within his own company. He does not even give the actors warnings or fire them for homophobia, anti-Semitism, sexual harassment, or misconduct. This leads people to make assumptions that he is either ignorant of it or that he supports it as well. However, it's understandable as he only holds a 1% stake in the company.
Fun and Crunchy Qualities
Crunchyroll
- They have fixed the video quality issue in 2018.
- They also now use an HTML5 video player that fixes many issues from the Adobe Flash Player.
- Crunchyroll is still a great site to watch anime, read manga, and also to watch live-action films and shows, as it has a great variety of good shows and mangas, even if, as mentioned before, it could expand its borders and show more Western programs.
- Thanks to them, many anime shows (such as Dr. Stone) were dubbed into Spanish and Portuguese and the Toonami block returned in Latin America.
- They are producing RWBY in Volume 9, since RWBY is also available in this stream, which is the only Crunchyroll original that has a good show.
- As mentioned above, they decided to go legit.
Funimation (2019-2024)
- To be fair, most of the shows they have licensed are good, and they still license good shows as of today.
- Their app has subtitled anime available and has recently started offering dubs and subtitles in Brazilian Portuguese and Latin-American Spanish.
- People can still legally watch their movies and shows without directly supporting them on Netflix, Hulu, Crunchyroll, and Adult Swim.
- Despite WTNAUSB#1, a good percentage of their dubs are still high-quality, such as My Hero Academia, Dr. Stone, Black Clover, Tokyo Ghoul, etc. Considering that most of the WIS reasons apply to their business practices.
- With their partnership with Aniplex of America, they've remedied the latter's expensive Blu-ray prices starting with a price-down re-issue of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.
- There are still plenty of talented/non-corrupt voice actors such as Justin Cook, Kellen Goff, Luci Christian, Kyle Hebert, Jill Harris, Robert McCollum, Chris Hackney, Austin Tindle, Todd Haberkorn, Caitlin Glass, Johnny Yong Bosch, Bryce Papenbrook, Cristina Vee, Nathan Sharp (NateWantsToBattle), AmaLee, Newton Pittman, Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, Ben Stegmair, Justin Briner, Cherami Leigh, Sean Schemmel, Chris Rager, Monica Rial and so on. Additionally, some of the corrupted voice actors and actresses, including Christopher Sabat did slightly improve themselves recently in their behaviors both on social media and in real life, which cannot be said for head director Jamie Marchi.
- Despite the point under WTNAUSB#13, it looked like they have disassociated with Douglas after World Heroes' Mission. (The same can be said for Daman Mills due to his sexual assault on Duncan)
- They made the right call when it came to firing Chris Thurman immediately after the latter admitted to sending photos of his penis to underage girls via Discord.
- They used to be a great company before 2019.
Trivia
- In March 2022, Sony announced that all of Funimation's streaming service library would be moving to Crunchyroll, thus changing the company's name from "Funimation Global Group LLC" to "Crunchyroll LLC". It also was announced that the Funimation and Wakanim SVOD services would be consolidated into Crunchyroll.
Videos
Crunchyroll
Funimation
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References
- https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1BGTcsbK_Pr2iQira-ZeoaqxtWIQQ4U7K
- https://drive.google.com/file/d/17oDZ1kt9drHZ2TaulYZFxzMV_W9P733-/view
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