Crunchyroll Removes Their Biggest Anime After Record Sized Profits ⁉️

Added: 2026-05-14

[00:00:00]The Crunchyroll has a 21-million subscribers. They've removed 86 among other anime over the years, but 86 is the one currently catching traction, disappearing from a lot of platforms, mind you. And also, $3 a month subscription for 3 months. Pretty good deal. But they must be doing that because they are failing, right? No.

[00:00:20]There's actually three things that we need to discuss. All three of those are worth mentioning. At the end of the day, is Crunchyroll failing? No. You're dealing with clickbaiters who really hate Crunchyroll. Which, hey, I get it.

[00:00:31]They've done a lot of stuff that's pissed me off, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if Netflix raises their prices a bajillion times. The records show that they make more money by the people who stay than the people who quit because of the price increase.

[00:00:42]21 million subscribers is up 4 million from the previous year. They're not failing. Should they? Probably. But are they? No. The $3 a month is not because they're they're struggling to keep people. They've been doing that since I got into anime. They call it anime. And generally, it'd be a good [ __ ] thing to grab onto. I used to do it. Not anymore. Big thing though that is the 86 leaving. Now, I don't believe they advertised it like Netflix does. And that is really unfortunate to me because, you know, at the end of the day, this is what I get if I load up 86's home page now.

[00:01:20]Ain't there, guys.

[00:01:22]Yuzu says there's nothing to see here, and Yuzu can kiss my furry ass, god damn. Now, 86 is a great show, one of the best cases of a modern Mecca you can watch. Now, the thing is is when stuff like Netflix removes 86 or any show, there's generally like next to the thing cuz the UI, I think, is better. It'll be like, "Hey, you know, leaving in 3 days."

[00:01:44]Like, when you have something in your Netflix queue, Netflix will even do a thing where it will like remind you, "Hey, something in your queue." Now, it doesn't always do that, but Netflix is pretty good for that. Like, and often, you'll be like, "Oh, [ __ ] it's it's so I want to watch the thing before it leaves, right? Now, did Crunchyroll nefariously do this? No, licensing deals expire. So, let's just give a little recap so people understand how this works. When you license something as a streamer, there's different intervals that happen, but I'm pretty sure the standard is 1, 3, 5, or 10 years. I think. Now, I could get those numbers off, but those are typically what I see.

[00:02:20]Because at the end of the day, should a streaming service endlessly have access to a show? No, monopolies are not good.

[00:02:27]I used to criticize the fact that like when, you know, the whole Funimation thing happened, it's not a good idea for one thing to be an all-access shop, because by doing so, they can be and do whatever the [ __ ] they want. You recently saw that with PlayStation having to slightly double back from the "Hey, you got to reconnect your PlayStation to play your single-player games." Basically doing what the Xbox One tried to do, because Microsoft doesn't have that much market pull, so Sony can do whatever the [ __ ] they want.

[00:02:54]Crunchyroll can do whatever the [ __ ] they want for the most part, because they have pretty much unlimited access.

[00:02:59]Now, Netflix does have deeper pockets, and if they really want an anime, they'll have an anime, but they're not just going after anime, right? It's important to have sites be able to counter other sites, because it forces the very rich people, because they're never going to just act out of the best interest for us as consumers. They will only act out of their wallets, and if their wallets know, no matter how shitty they are, that they will have a fat paycheck, they will do shitty things.

[00:03:26]Crunchyroll removing 86 is not a shitty thing at face value. The worst thing they did is they didn't advertise, because if you allow Crunchyroll to have a 20-year contract to 86, they probably would get someone's hard work for pennies. While yes, they do spend a pretty penny to license show, at the end of the day, could you imagine, yes, bigger shows would probably be fine with longer windows, but imagine like more indie niche anime and shows that get bought out for a few thousand dollars because they unfortunately have no other options. They're they're worried sick and they get to license something for 20 years. Like that's not a good idea. I'm seeing a lot of misinformation about 86 being removed and why Crunchyroll should have had access to it for a decade plus minimum and it's like definitely not a good thing because you need to renegotiate. Renegotiations are good because it allows for the people who actually worked on it and you know, the people involved. Now granted, royalties don't really exist in the world of anime creation, but still that's how it should be. You should have to renegotiate to be able to do it. Crunchyroll's biggest sin here isn't that it left, it's that they didn't market the fact that it was leaving soon. So when you would go to the homepage and I haven't seen a single person be like, "Oh yeah, you know, I was watching 86 the other week before this happened and they mentioned it was going to be leaving soon." Netflix does do that. Crunchyroll doesn't. That's their biggest sin. So don't let people mislead you into being like, "Oh my god, they lost 86." And the issue is because they don't have endless streaming for it. No, that's not the issue.

[00:04:56]Renegotiations for contracts are important. Yes, it does suck when all the licenses expire at the same time and then you're like, "Well, where the [ __ ] do I watch it?" I as I always say, it's 2026. Yohoho, it's very easy to find stuff. But Brandon, all the pirate sites are shutting down. If you still don't know how to torrent, figure out how to use the cat site. If you know, you know. Now, as for other things that I've been seeing recently, we have the anime. Now, this is what originally the video topic was going to be, but then I got busy and then it became a multi-part video.

[00:05:25]Um I'm seeing people Now, it was really funny because I saw people this was the initial news. They're dropping their prices. The boycott's working.

[00:05:36]And then like a day later it got revealed that Crunchyroll's up 4 million subs. Now listen, I'm not a Crunchyroll bootlicker. I just can look at the facts. Crunchyroll is not failing as a site. The reason they can get away with a lot of shitty practices, subs not being on the biggest shows when they air, because [ __ ] it, we roll. The site not working. So many [ __ ] things happening. Anime is not It's just a smart thing that a lot of sites do. And Crunchyroll's been doing it as far as I When I got into anime weekly, back at the end of 2012 into early 2013. One of my first like cheap deals from Crunchyroll was Anime or something similar to it. Maybe I'm misremembering exactly. This is a normal thing and it's a It's a fair deal. I mean, they do have a good access to stuff. And I mean, for what? 12 bucks for 3 months? I mean, that's a decent deal for people to watch a lot of different shows. So let's not, you know, use our hatred for Crunchyroll to be like, this proves and do this false narrative. And they were trying for a bit the same problematic individuals that I always see were trying to use this as the see they're failing only for then there to be an article literally from Deadline being like, oh yeah, 21 million subs. Yeah, like Crunchyroll doesn't need to do the It's just It's smart business.

[00:06:48]Um at the end of the day, should Crunchyroll 21 million? I mean, that's I don't really give a [ __ ] if I'm being 100% At the end of the day, I think Crunchyroll has a lot of functionality issues that it the I think there's no reason Crunchyroll should still have as many issues as it has, right? Like Crunchyroll has you'll be watching My Hero Academia's final season, one of the biggest airing shows, and still one of their most popular series, and the newest episode won't have [ __ ] subs or will have subs from some children's anime, and it's like, what the hell's happening?

[00:07:19]And it's a first-world problem, man.

[00:07:20]Everyone should admit that. But if yeah, if you are paying for a site and you're watching seasonal anime, you should expect the shows to work. Now, I used to actually be very not criticizing that type of stuff because it would happen to me once a season out of 20 shows I was watching on Crunchyroll. That's not worth getting up in arms about, right?

[00:07:37]Like that's once in a blue moon. And then it got to the point where it was like three to five times maybe every and a half. And I was like, "Okay, that's that's not right." But maybe I can ignore that. But then it just gets worse and worse, right? Yeah, they raise their prices, they do all these nefarious things. And it's really unfortunate because there are other smaller sites that have tried to come up and you know, maybe could have been like a miniature version of Funimation. It's like, yeah, Sony just Sony just had to [ __ ] merge Funimation and Crunchyroll, didn't they?

[00:08:06]They really [ __ ] us over. But at the end of the day, should we be mad that licensing deals expire? No. That's important for people who sell the broadcasting rights to not get screwed over into a deal that lasts an obnoxiously long time. And you know, cuz could you imagine? Just put it like this. Think of all the hatred you have.

[00:08:26]Okay, I'm mad that I can't currently watch A6. You should be mad that they didn't advertise it was leaving. I assume Crunchyroll probably re-license it or someone else will, right? But the big issue is imagine if Crunchyroll with their fat 21 million subscriber pockets were able to license 20-year deals for anime. Do you know how much worse that [ __ ] site would be? They would be even richer, even greedier. They would be paying way less for their licensing. And I feel like they can't even keep up with the [ __ ] subtitles they are supposed to do, which is why they constantly get their hand caught in the cookie jar with AI.

[00:09:02]It would be worse, guys. So let's be frustrated at the right thing. And let's not misinformation, which I've been seeing. Is Crunchyroll failing? No.

[00:09:10]Should Crunchyroll fail? Probably.

[00:09:12]Uh is anime a sign that yeah, they secretly are forging their numbers? No, it's a pretty normal deal. Netflix and all the likes love to do that type of stuff. And to be honest, 12 bucks for 3 months is probably a pretty fair price for, you know, like in terms of content-wise, Crunchyroll is an insane value. In terms of quality-wise, let's not Yeah, I think I think $4 a month is fair for your quality at this point. But, let's just let's let's be mad at the right thing. We don't need to manufacture outrage. Like, as soon as I saw people up in arms at $4 a month that they were failing, I was like, "Bro, I don't know their official numbers. I'm too lazy to look it up."

[00:09:54]And then a day later, I'm like, "Yeah, up 4 million from the previous year."

[00:09:58]Come on, guys. Let's let's let's be mad at the right things. Don't let Twitter cuz that's what happened. Some bozo will [ __ ] tweet something. They'll be like, "They're failing." And then big account will be like, "They're failing."

[00:10:10]And then impressionable audience will be like, "Yeah, they're failing." And then I'm sitting here like, "Motherfucker, every time I see the Netflix boycott, right? Every time I see them cancel or raise their price, I see the same people. I'm going to cancel. We're all going to cancel, right?" And in doing so, they'll have to change their price.

[00:10:27]That person might cancel. That person's probably lying. He probably also won't cancel. And the, you know, let's say 100,000 people canceled, but all the people that stay people who stayed with that price increase offset the losses of the people who left. And I'm not saying I'm not mad when the price increase happens. I'm just I'm just realistic.

[00:10:46]Crazy world we live in. But, let's not misrepresent the facts. The real issue is Crunchyroll didn't advertise it was leaving. But, I don't think we should be mad that licensing deals expire because we would be in a lot shittier situations if they didn't expire. But anyway, thanks for coming to my TED Talk. Head on over to Patreon. I've got a bunch of life reactions that we're releasing today. We'll upload like five or six videos a day over there. It's crazy stuff. So, consider supporting like, comment, subscribe. Till next time, take care. Keep on hating Crunchyroll. Just do it in the correct way. Have a good one.