Story Round-Up
- Funimation has announced its closure, effective April 2, 2024. Its content library will migrate to Crunchyroll.
- Digital copies purchased from Funimation will no longer be accessible following the end of services.
- Crunchyroll has announced a price increase, seemingly for those who had a subscription to Funimation.
Funimation has announced its closure in a recent post on the official website, effective April 2, 2024, following its rebranding as Crunchyroll LLC in 2022. According to one section of the article, users will no longer have access to their copies of digital media purchased directly from the service as Crunchyroll does not support Digital Copies.
This effectively means that users who paid for digital versions of content will no longer have access to it along with suffering a monetary loss due to the Funimation streaming service shutting down. While this is a severe disadvantage and an issue that must be brought to light, it’s worth noting that the company appears to be making efforts to simplify the transition to Crunchyroll.
“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.”
The closure of Funimation will not impact a user’s access to their library on Crunchyroll while the company continues to remain committed to delivering the best anime streaming experience and expanding its offerings to cater to diverse consumer interests.
RIP Funimation pic.twitter.com/LwlFQSEpRe
— Gregory Guillen (@Pikagreg) February 7, 2024
On the other hand, though, it appears that Crunchyroll has announced a significant price increase for its subscription. There’s a chance that this is due to the migration of Funimation’s catalog which stands to presumably increase content on the service. It should be noted that this drastic hike appears to only be affecting Funimation Legacy subscribers or those who previously had the service. As of now, there’s no information hinting at existing Crunchyroll users facing an increase.
As the world of content continues to move toward a more “all-digital” ecosystem, the current Funimation saga appears to have brought the demerits of purchasing digital content to light once again.
