Soon,animefans will face what is the darkest day in the long history of the art form. Yup, even darker than the live-action adaptation ofThe Last Airbender. Trouble began with theCrunchyroll-Funimationmerger in 2020. Sony combined the two largest distributors of streaming anime and manga content in the world, creating an anime monopoly one baby step at a time. Since then, questions have been raised about Sony’s long-term strategy for the platform and the obvious conflicts of maintaining two separateanime-streaming servicesunder the same umbrella, often with overlapping content on sale.
Despite a proven track record of successful productions and millions of happy customers, nothing could save Funimation from the chopping block. Its fate is the inevitable result of the corporate push to quash “redundancy” and streamline operations as much as possible, regardless of whether the decision alienates or disadvantages loyal customers. The users entered into an agreement in good faith. Too bad Sony didn’t. We’ll explain the legal loopholes and how this sort of sleazy practice is permissible in a second.
As outlined on the Funimation website, the migration process will become official the day after April Fool’s Day, a fitting date considering that Sony is playing their customers like dupes. If this is any precedent (and it is), it bodes very poorly for the future of digital media in general.
The Merger Was Supposed to Provide More Value Than Ever Before
Funimation’s demise is part of a restructuring plan that began when Sony Group Corporation bought Crunchyroll from AT&T in 2020. Sony is now basically anime, andanime is Sony. Funimation and Crunchyroll existed in the same ecosystem as rivals, but only on paper. In reality, parent company Sony intended to combine them all along. The first signs of the merger were slathered in a layer of mind-numbing, pleasant-sounding jargon, the CEO of Crunchyroll, Colin Decker, framing the merger as the greatest outcome possible, one that would improve the customer experience.
“The two brands you know and love will be working together, and we believe this is a great thing for fans and the industry, alike!”
The effects of the final stages of the assimilation are now fully being processed. According toEmma Roth over atThe Verge, her formerly $5.99 a month rate at Funimation has now ballooned to $9.99, despite having a “grandfathered” deal that supposedly should have protected her price rate. She’s not alone.
The Funimation FAQ is intentionally vague, simply explaining: “Going forward, the subscription fees will be reflected in the next billing cycle through Crunchyroll or the third-party access platform, following Crunchyroll’s pricing.” That’s corporate-speak for they are jacking the price up for all the Funimation customers getting forced over to Crunchyroll. It wasn’t so long ago we heard a spokesperson gush that “The two brands you know and love will be working together, and we believe this is a great thing for fans and the industry, alike!” They lied. No effort was taken to preserve and migrate dubs, ensure fair pricing models, or maintain cross-company digital media. It was just a half-baked attempt to cut costs, customers be damned. As you’ve already guessed, it gets worse.
Funimation Turns My Hero Academia Into a Merchandise Juggernaut
Funimation and Sony Pictures TV have announced a landslide of licensing agreements for My Hero Academia.
Access to Purchased Digital Media Could Be Gone
By far, the worst consequence surrounding the sunsetting of the Funimation streaming site will be the potential loss of hundreds of unsupported movies and TV shows. Funimation had earlier asserted that customers could keep the digitalcopies of the DVDsand Blu-rays they had redeemed through the service “forever,” but that looks like another hollow promise. Digital media — much like Funimation and the entire illusion of consumer rights — is yet another casualty of the merger.
Funimation has not been clear on the possibility of refunds. Other changes in the transfer over to Crunchyroll may include alterations in subtitles or otherlanguage-specific dubbing, meaning that some viewers might not be able to comprehend the item that they have paid for, at least not in their language or style they opted for when making the purchase, as it appears Crunchyroll will disregard Funimation’s dubs.
Considering the general discontent and disgust with how Sony has dealt with the merger and migration, some on social media are already swearing to cancel their subscription. It won’t matter. The merger/content-deletion strategy might not be an accident but the whole plan. For the last few years, and presumably the next few, media companies have pooled their services together. In that collectivist model, some movies and TV shows have mysteriously disappeared between the cracks,leaving streaming servicesaltogether.
The fact is, any piece of digital media you possess that isn’t on a USB or other storage device unconnected to the internet is liable to be vulnerable to some licensing deal you aren’t even aware of, the details hidden somewhere in the end-user license agreement nobody reads. Lawyers are quick to point out that EULAs don’t matter. It’s not that the EULAs aren’t factual; you just don’t need to bother reading them. We’ll sum it up for you: The EULA explains all the rights the vendor has. When it comes to digital media, you don’t possess any legal protection or recourse. Caveat emptor indeed.
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Dark Clouds on the Horizon for Digital Media
All those agreements, deals, and pricing packages you signed are meaningless. Any company has the legal authority — or so it would seem until a class-action lawsuit is filed and laws change — to sell you anything at any time, only to yank it out of your metaphorical hands whenever it suits them. They don’t need to explain why. We don’t have any excuse in 20 years when our Steam or Apple libraries get memory-holed by a megacorporation looking to shave expenditures. If this sounds like something out of a dystopian nightmare, you’re half right.
In a precursor case of things to come, Amazon was forced to snatch digital e-book copies of George Orwell’sNineteen Eighty-Fourfrom users' Kindles in a licensing snafu. Never mind all those people who paid for it because, in digital publishing, the consumer is always an afterthought. A trend that extends beyondanime and mangato novels, games, and music. If this botched merger was part of Sony’s plan to “fill the world with emotion, through the power of creativity and technology,” they succeeded only in a Machiavellian sort of way.
The reality of modern media consumption is built on a fantasy. Our limitless supply of movies, music, games, TV shows, etc., only exists theoretically. At any point, even if you’ve already paid for it, it can simply disappear from whatever library you had it installed in, with no guarantee of compensation.
As part of licensing deals, your purchases are as disposable and ephemeral as the firmware update that is quietly updated on your phone as you sleep. And that’s the problem of being inundated with choice. When something disappears, most people won’t notice or care. That is until their go-to movie that they paid hard-earned money for vanishes. A consumer’s options to combat the behemoth companies that control access to the content they love (and paid for) are extremely limited. We’ve been warned. Hug your body pillows extras close tonight. It could be the last time you ever see your favorite anime waifu ever again.
Billing changes with Crunchyroll will take place on Aug 23, 2025. As of Aug 12, 2025, some purchased digital content may be removed.
