Crunchyroll IMO: 2 thumbs down these days

Am I alone in saying that crunchyroll went from a solid streaming service that helps to support the artists as best as possible, to a train wreck of a service that doesn't know what it is doing?

I mean the new content tab is broken, it just throws stuff at you. Impossible to actually know what new episodes are out unless you keep track of launch days (used to but don't). Now it just throws the last weeks worth of content at you randomly and leaves you to click and figure out if you saw the last episode or now. (is it for adds or something?)

The streams are solid but there is no user mentality.
When I finish a series and want to watch something similar. I get recommended the same shows no matter what genre. It seems to be based off of release date but still. For a service that charges money, I expect some effort put into said service. We are doing you the service in paying you, we as customers expect to get some quality in what we pay for. 6 months ago I would never have posted this I was content. The last 6 months have been sharply going down the hill of pig feces.

Anyone got opinions on funimation or similar anime streaming services?

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gem2niki2026-01-05 08:29

There was a layoff in August last year and lots of long time staff were let go. Feel like things went downhill when they went full corporate.

beckychao2026-01-05 08:29

Who knew that having a monopoly would be bad for consumers? Crunchyroll is a cautionary tale about deregulation in the US. Consumers have clearly been harmed by its acquisition of Funimation, down to costs and the enshittification of translation/captions done via AI.

firestorm7342026-01-05 09:45

Dude, the captions are so bad these days. Makes me wish for fan-subs.

beckychao2026-01-05 09:48

Not unique to Crunchyroll, either. Something egregious is going on with Netflix captions on new shows, too. The Dead Girls has some of the worst Spanish-to-English captions I've ever seen. It reads like AI translated it and then a human edited the captions to what they think was being said, without knowing what was spoken in Spanish.

Stanklord5002026-01-05 10:48

>It reads like AI translated it and then a human edited the captions to what they think was being said, without knowing what was spoken in Spanish.

Hey so about that

Designer_Pen8692026-01-05 09:47

Do you remember it before Funimation acquired it? I was straight up locked out of it for a month, and was essentially told there was nothing they could do.

strand_of_hair2026-01-05 08:30

Bound to happen when there’s no competition anymore! Regarding your last sentence, Funimation was bought by Sony/Crunchyroll in 2020 so that’s not an option.

Wilson-theVolleyball2026-01-05 08:50

It was the other way around actually.

Sony bought Funimation in 2017 and then bought Crunchyroll in 2020.

beckychao2026-01-05 09:44

But the Funimation part of the operation ceased to exist, and now it's just Crunchyroll. So Crunchyroll ended up digesting Funimation's catalogue.

Wilson-theVolleyball2026-01-05 09:47

That is indeed correct but I never said that didn't happen; I just wanted to clarify that it wasn't "Sony/Crunchyroll buying Funimation in 2020".

beckychao2026-01-05 09:54

No, no, wasn't correcting you! I was just noting that it's tragic that Funi's parent company acquired Crunchyroll, and then killed Funi, and Crunchy became much worse lol

So Funi acquired Crunchy but then Crunchy ate it

Xanill2026-01-05 11:08

it's even more funny and tragic when you realize CR got shitty because sony got rid of most of the people who were working at CR (ie the people who gave a shit) and the previous funi higher ups are the ones mainly in charge of CR now lol

beckychao2026-01-05 21:20

They should've renamed it Zombieroll

DoctorDazza2026-01-05 10:36

Actually, it’s a little bit different. Funimation/Sony took over Crunchyroll and then changed their name to Crunchyroll.

Nachtwandler_FS2026-01-05 10:50

You know, it is a double-edged sword. People do want to have all their shows in one place and not pay for like 4-5 different services. But when one service has most of the shows, there us alwats the risk thry drop thexquality and inflate the price because they have a monopoly or close to it.

We obly good solution would be if multiple services had the same shows available (at least majority if then), but this won't happen due to how licensing works and we fact that ecery srrvice wants exclusive rights (we do see some sharedseries nowadays, but it us rare).

Geoffk1232026-01-05 08:31

Crunchyroll has always been lacking imo and the funi acquisition only exacerbated it.

It took Crunchyroll forever to have a user-friendly dub layout. You used to have separate seasons for each language and they were all labeled incorrectly. Nagatoro I remember having like 10 seasons and the actual Japanese audio was the one labeled S2 before it got a season 2 release.

Funi used to also upload the blu ray versions for some shows. I remember specifically watching shows like aot on funi because I could watch the blu rays.

The only competition it really has is Hidive in the US which has an atrocious UI to navigate.

BebeHillz2026-01-05 08:34

I am lowkey hating the removal of comment sections in so many things i used to enjoy. I used to love the crunchyroll comment section. enshittification strikes again whos ready for increase prices tho!!!

harrythefurrysquid2026-01-05 09:16

I understand why they did it, though. IIRC anything that had even slight LGBT overtones got toxic in the comments ridiculously fast.

Kyuutai2026-01-05 09:53

It's not like it was not possible to moderate it... They chose the "chop it off instead of treating it" option, no effort needed and people will still watch and pay because of Crunchyroll's monopoly.

jon624912026-01-05 08:34

Remember when their employees opened and withheld fan art and gifts and letters intended for a beloved VA? Who only found out because the fans asked why he never responded or acknowledged them. Then he found out Crunchyroll had them, and that's why he never received those personal gifts.

ThinButton77052026-01-05 09:13

I always wondered how that shook out. I don't know the country that happened in, but as far as the states go, I know that if the USPIS gets involved it does not end well. They do not play fucking games.

wastoocoolforschool2026-01-05 09:20

Willing to bet that they have something in their voice actors contracts about opening fan mail received at their office. Would have been a much bigger deal if there was any fight to be had there.

duncandun2026-01-05 09:01

I have never in my life used Crunchyroll for discovering new shows. It has always sucked ass at that. In fact they didn’t have a ‘new seasonal’ tab until quite recently, to me means it’s better than it used to be lol

Seaphron2026-01-05 09:16

[This](https://www.crunchyroll.com/simulcastcalendar?filter=premium) may help you with one of your complaints. It's CRs simulcast calendar that shows every episode that launches each day. It gets updated automatically as shows go live.

AriaShachou-2026-01-05 09:28

crunchyroll has been buns since forever

Klinicalyill2026-01-05 09:28

I seem to be in the minority here but, I’ve literally never had a problem with it.

$9 for ad-less streaming is by far the cheapest subscription I have of any streaming service which are double that and sometimes also have ads.

They have most of the shows I want to see and the newest ones airing for the current season. As long as you put things on your watch list it will update your “continue watching” section with new episodes/seasons of shows you’re following as they release.

I can understand why people might not like it for moral reasons but, as a product, It works in every way that I need it to.

timpkmn892026-01-05 09:29

>I mean the new content tab is broken, it just throws stuff at you. Impossible to actually know what new episodes are out unless you keep track of launch days (used to but don't). Now it just throws the last weeks worth of content at you randomly and leaves you to click and figure out if you saw the last episode or now. (is it for adds or something?)

I'm not sure what the problem is

You just look at the Continue Watching list

icchann2026-01-05 09:40

Crunchyroll has never been about supporting the artists or studios.

Aksudiigkr2026-01-05 09:40

The updated browsing filter stopped working for me the last couple months and doesn’t show the current season at all. It isn’t that old shows are getting new translation subs either or anything. That’s been my main gripe, but also agree with what you said

EmperorAcinonyx2026-01-05 09:40

what on earth made you think that crunchyroll supports artists or whatever? lmao

furculture2026-01-05 09:45

What being a part of a US publicly owned company does to a mf.

Lola_PopBBae2026-01-05 09:49

I'm glad it exists, but I do wish it were better. Tons of shows come and go, to the point searches still return that crunchy has them, only to click the site and find disappointment.
They can afford to do better for all my years of supporting the official release

nexxlevelgames2026-01-05 09:52

How does crunchy roll help and support the artists?

codylish2026-01-05 09:55

I've been subscribed to it for about 6 or 7 years. I haven't noticed any terrible changes aside from subtitles being formatted a little more oddly this year.

Compared to hidive's app, crunchyroll completely blows it out of the god damn water.

Seriously, what kind of absolute idiot makes it a maze on a streaming service to try to resume or navigate a series episode list. Hidive is a purposely hostile user experience for some reason.

reactguides2026-01-05 10:06

You just can't expect that platforms work against their interests. They recommend what it's popular within their catalog, and hope you will just watch hours an hours of mediocre content. I am talking about you too, Netflix!

You need to go to Youtube and look for people that make good recommendations. And even recommendations that go beyond Crunchyroll preferably, because there are great shows that simply are NOT there.

I have a channel and recommend anime mostly to Frieren fans and people that like most laidback things. But there are others that cover romance, shonen, and a bit of everything. [https://www.youtube.com/@reactguides](https://www.youtube.com/@reactguides)

As long as I know every platform has pros/cons. I'd say you ROTATE them and pay them only monthly, and cancel then go some months to another one, etc. I usually do that on summer, all year long I stay on CR because of some contents, but one season a year I switch and try some other. It's a healthy thing to do, and shows them with our money that they need to improve or we have some other places we'll put our money into.

war_story_guy2026-01-05 10:18

My favorite is how they broke the recommended section. I watch nothing but romcom slice of life and iyashikei stuff and it keeps pushing shonen slop up there like jjk or dragonball. Yeah those are really like what I was watching recently. Feature used to work but now its just junk.

Galactus17012026-01-05 10:42

They need to include some type of release calendar.

Nachtwandler_FS2026-01-05 10:56

But they have somerhing like this, one of tge pisters above put a link.

Rolphcopter12026-01-05 10:44

It's always been worse than the "other sites".

Nachtwandler_FS2026-01-05 10:56

Most of other anime streaming services are worse, though.

Rolphcopter12026-01-05 11:08

Most definitely worse than the less than legal ones. They've had a better UI, bigger library, and most importantly they weren't a shitty company that'd show how out of touch they were by producing High Guardian Spice.

Nachtwandler_FS2026-01-05 10:46

Easiest way to farm karma on the sub: criticize CR.

LoganN642026-01-05 10:46

It was a mess for so long.

I've had the premium account and the app had a hard time loading on anything other than a computer or laptop.

I got fed up and didn't renew my subscription. Tried watching stuff under a free account, and got bogged down by multiple repeating ads. I swear I'd watch 5 minutes of a show and have to sit through 7 or 8 minutes of commercials.

baseballlover7232026-01-05 10:51

Sorry, your submission has been removed.

- This is not a What to Watch? thread.

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HunnyMonsta2026-01-05 10:56

I dunno if it's just me, but the CR TV and PS5 app are especially arse in recent years.

It can barely get to an episode OP before it either drops to 360p multiple times or buffers for an age. Maybe it's because I'm in an older show watch and those are stored on a server run by hampsters. But the same show works okay on PC.

I'm fortunate enough if TV & PS5 don't work I can just boot up the PC connected to the TV and watch anime there, but if I'm having to go that far then I might as well just go to my favoured pirate site because even then sometimes the CR website buffers videos for an eternity.

Pretty sure it's not internet issue either because I'm on a decent fibre plan and the pirate sites load these shows with no issue. Our CR sub ends soon and with the app issues we're struggling to find reason to resub..