Funimation Shutdown

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HuskyLeaf @HuskyLeaf - 17h Friendly reminder to you #anime fans out there to cancel your @Crunchyroll & @Funimation subscriptions. If you can't even keep what you buy digitally, what's the point of even buying anything at all. It's not worth the $10/mo supporting a corporation who won't honor purchases. II GIF ALT 00

THA Music Fiend Enjoyer @KodenX993 - 17h Get tucked Funimation and good riddance II GIF

Astia 3:16 Trey @TreyTrey37. 23h hearing that Crunchyroll is shutting down the Funimation streaming service and deleting everyone's purchased copies of stuff, while also hiking their own prices is yet another reason I don't feel bad for pirating all my anime 17 4 ...

Tamadventures That #Funimation shuttering in short: (Still lost in Eorzea). @tama_thatsme · 10h II GIF The world has truly entered a Great Pirate Era! ...

JoshBahGosh @ThiccWeapon - 4h I wish Funimation didn't recycle the same 3 voice actors for every anime II GIF

JoJo123 JoJo123 (86 Days Till My B-Day!) @JoJoWhizzKid123.3h The recent announcement of Funimation streaming service about to shut down once again brings to light the importance of physical media like DVDs, which I will never stop supporting. ...

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Overview

Funimation Shutdown, also known as Funimation Shutting Down Controversy, refers to the change in policy by the streaming platform Crunchyroll in early February 2024, which announced the end of support for online anime streaming provided by Funimation services. The sudden announcement of the cancelation, as well as a price hike on current Crunchyrole services, lead to a large fan backlash against the company and the online animation streaming marketplace as a whole.

Background

On February 7th, 2024, customers of the Funimation online streaming service received notice that the service itself was shutting down. That day, X user @Pikagreg^[1] uploaded this notice, captioning it "RIP Funimation," which explained that the service is being shut down but users can still migrate all of their watch history and favorites over to Crunchyroll's service. This notice also announced that the price of Crunchyroll would be doubling on January 28th, 2025, giving fans a year to opt out and cancel their service (shown below).

Gregory Guillen @Pikagreg RIP Funimation crunchyroll Service Update Thank you for being a loyal Funimation customer; the Funimation service is ending on April 2, 2024. You can still access the content you love on Crunchyroll which houses one of the largest anime libraries, subs and dubs, catalog and simulcast - as well as Games and The Crunchyroll store. You don't have to leave your Funimation Watch History and Funimation Queue behind, you can migrate them to Crunchyroll. Please log into Crunchyroll using your Funimation credentials. If you already have a Crunchyroll account, your accounts will be merged and you will be prompted to migrate your user information at login. As part of our transition to Crunchyroll, the price of your new Crunchyroll plan will increase from USD $54.95/year to USD $99.99/year beginning January 28, 2025. Future billing will be provided by Crunchyroll. Changes will be reflected in your next billing cycle starting on January 28, 2025 and charged to your current payment method on file. If you want to make any changes to your subscription prior to the transition, please visit your account page or your third party access platform, or you may cancel at any time prior to your next billing date. The Ultimate Anime Experience Awaits! :

Online Reactions

The news quickly spread and created a significant amount of backlash against Crunchyroll, with numerous fans being upset at both the shutdown of Funimation and the doubling of Crunchyroll's price.

For example, on February 7th, 2024, X user @EposVox^[2] alerted others to the question and answer section of Crunchyroll, which stated that people who had previously purchased a product, such as an entire season of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, that it would be revoked upon the switch to Crunchyroll, effectively nullifying the purchase. This notice, which received over 4.1 million views in one day, reignited conversations on what digitally buying a product means versus true ownership (shown below).

On February 8th, YouTuber and esports team owner Cr1tikal uploaded a video to his YouTube^[3] channel titled "Goodbye Funimation" in which he talked about the news and the anime industry as a whole, earning over 300,000 views in one hour while advocating for the ownership of physical goods and items over digital services (shown below).