Crunchyroll chose perhaps the worst time yet to make one of its most bone-headed moves. The anime streaming service announced this week that it’s retiring its online store for physical merch and replacing it with something new that fans can only access with a pricey monthly subscription. It’s led to calls for boycotts as some angry fans fear anime Blu-rays will get even harder to find at the same time Sony is moving to kill discs on PlayStation.
“This August, we are transitioning the Crunchyroll Store to a brand-new shopping experience that will be available exclusively for Mega and Ultimate Fans,” read the announcement. “The new store captures the excitement of convention-exclusive merchandise—collectibles, curated drops, and limited-release products inspired by the anime series you love.”
Crunchyroll supports three different subscription tiers. At $14 a month and $18 a month, respectively, the Mega and Ultimate tiers are the two most expensive ones. The overhauled store appears to be leaning into FOMO and soaking the service’s biggest spenders with limited drops rather than focusing on well-stocked merch anyone can buy. In the meantime, Crunchyroll is liquidating existing inventory, like steel case Blue-ray anime sets, in a summer sale.
All of this is leading to fears that Sony-owned Crunchyroll’s tightening death grip on anime will lead to fewer options for physical media alternatives to streaming. The streaming platform bought Iowa-based online anime retailer The Right Stuf International in 2023, before later merging it into the rest of the Crunchyroll store.
“Lets be real, the store was dead anyway, there’s so little in stock or available for order,” wrote one user on Reddit. “Just remember that Right Stuf died for this and go shop somewhere else instead like Merry Manga, InStockTrades or Roberts Anime corner. Support the guys who care and not whatever this is.” Another thread that’s started blowing up on the Anime subreddit has called for people to walk away from Crunchyroll entirely, and tied the latest changes into Sony’s recent decision to end game discs in 2028.
“Don’t subscribe to them, don’t buy from them, nothing,” the person wrote. “They do not deserve any money from customers they’ve time and time again treated like shit and it’s disgusting how much of a monopoly they hold over anime in North America. They will continue to do this because people let them get away with it by paying them. This goes double for what they’re doing with physical games on PlayStation.”
The recent outrage comes months after Crunchyroll raised its subscription prices for the first time in seven years. The move follows consolidation in anime streaming, with Sony acquiring Funimation back in 2021 and later closing it after merging its content with Crunchyroll. Fortunately, Blu-ray discs will be harder to kill off than PlayStation ones, even if market consolidation continues to leave fans with fewer choices overall.