Sony / Funimation Buys Crunchyroll

[Plutonius]

On Wednesday, Sony / Funimation announced that they were purchasing Crunchyroll from AT&T for 1.175 billion dollars in cash.

Many Crunchyroll viewers currently watch Crunchyroll using the free ad supported option (only 3 million paid subscriptions out of 90 million registered viewers). Funimation's free ad supported tier is very limited (older anime and often subtitled only) so I believe that most people that use Funimation have a paid subscription.

I'm wondering how many people that use the Crunchyroll free ad supported tier will get a Funimation subscription when Crunchyroll is most likely rolled into Funimation.

I'm expecting the Funimation subscription cost to probably go up a little (to help pay for the acquisition) but I should save money paying for only one subscription (I currently subscribe to both Crunchyroll and Funimation for $60 / year for each service).

 

[decafjava]

Hmm I tried Crunchyroll here but it didn't have the free tier and went with a French channel called Wakanim. Although I am fluent in French some of the character name translations are different.

 

[kev0626]

i pay for the crunchy roll use but I have seen fewer titles on Funimation. My daughter is the main watcher of anime but I like it as well. I hope Funimation does not make crunchy roll worse when they merge them (I am assuming that they will merge them).

 

[Plutonius]

i pay for the crunchy roll use but I have seen fewer titles on Funimation. My daughter is the main watcher of anime but I like it as well. I hope Funimation does not make crunchy roll worse when they merge them (I am assuming that they will merge them).

I'm actually the opposite.

This season, I'm watching more anime on Funimation (watching over twice as many shows on Funimation). It varies every season though so I see no clear winner between the companies.

Do you also pay for Funimation ? If not, that would explain the lack of titles (the Funimation free tier is limited).

Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle and Akudama Drive are two of my favorite shows this season on Funimation. I highly recommend them.

On Crunchyroll, my favorite show this season is Tonikawa Over the Moon for You. I highly recommend this show if you like romantic comedies.

Sony will probably combine Funimation and Crunchyroll into one company and I'm sure that there will probably be layoffs at Crunchyroll.

 

[kev0626]

No, I don't pay for Funimation just Crunchyroll. My favorite show right now has been Fire Force. I hope the combination is not too expensive.

 

[kev0626]

I went ahead and subscribed to Funimation as well as keeping my current Crunchy Roll subscription because my daughter wanted to watch several of the new shows on Funimation. I see what you were saying Plutonius about the selection. There are several older anime that I am fond of like Slayers in the catalog.