Completion Of Funimation-Crunchyroll Merger Results In Over 100 Anime Titles Being Made Digitally Unavailable To Western
Audiences Including ‘Astro Boy’, ‘Slayers’, And ‘Mobile Suit Gundam SEED’
In a result that will no doubt bolster the very anime piracy the newly-formed entity is seeking to combat, thanks to various licensing issues that arose during the acquisition process, the recent completion of the previously-announced Funimation-Crunchyroll merger has rendered a worrying amount of titles, all of which were previously hosted on the former platform, completely unavailable to streaming audiences.
As previously reported, in August 2021, the Sony-owned Funimation announced that not only had they acquired Crunchyroll for roughly $1.175 billion USD, but also that, as part of the deal, their own service and library of anime would eventually be folded into the latter in order to better streamline their offerings.
And while many fans had hoped they would still be able to legally access all of Funimation’s library following the merger, reality has since proven to be far more consumer-unfriendly, as following the initial confirmation that digital copies of Funimation titles would not be supported by Crunchyroll, it has now been discovered that several titles have been lost, or at least partially so, in the digital shuffle.
Per a list complied by one of the moderators of Crunchyroll Discord server and verified by Bounding Into Comics against the streaming database Just Watch, following the April 2nd completion of the merger, over 100 Funimation-licensed titles are now sitting in digital purgatory, unavailable to stream or purchase digitally anywhere online.
https://boundingintocomics.com/2024/04/23/completion-of-funimation-crunchyroll-merger-results-in-over-100-anime-titles-being-made-digitally-unavailable-to-western-audiences-including-astro-boy-slayers-and-mobile-suit-gundam-seed/
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Complete list of now unavailable titles is in the article.
A second list of now purchase-only titles is also in the article.
(Meaning no longer part of a streaming service, you have to pay an additional fee to stream)