Crunchyroll announced today that the Funimation YouTube channel will now be known as Crunchyroll Dubs.
As detailed on the anime streamer's website, the newly renamed Crunchyroll Dubs channel will focus on showcasing dubbed clips, trailers and other content from the company's anime library. Japanese language clips will be posted on the company's other YouTube channel, Crunchyroll Collection. In addition to previews of new titles, the Dubs channel will also release full episodes of classic shows, beginning with the first English-dubbed episode of the popular isekai anime Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- on April 9. The streaming company says it will add additional free episodes to the Dubs channel on a weekly schedule. The new YouTube releases come a week after Crunchyroll announced that it will discontinue free, ad-supported access to new releases on its platform.
The relaunch of the YouTube channel is the latest step in the merger of the Crunchyroll and Funimation brands. Both companies are now owned by Japanese tech giant Sony, who purchased Funimation in 2017 and then bought up Crunchyroll in 2021. Crunchyroll was previously owned by WarnerMedia and its parent corporation, AT&T. Sony reportedly paid $1.1 billion to acquire the anime streamer. In March, Funimation announced that the majority of its streaming library, which includes over 800 anime titles, would now be available on Crunchyroll's service. Funimation also announced that it was winding down operations on its own streaming platform, which was once Crunchyroll's biggest direct competitor. No new shows will are being added to the Funimation service following the winter 2022 season. Funimation's home video releases on digital marketplaces and on physical media will now also carry the Crunchyroll branding.
While the newly consolidated Crunchyroll now boasts what it calls the largest library of streaming anime in the world, it's competitors have also stepped up their efforts to command the lucrative anime streaming market: Netflix recently detailed its plans to continue investing in the medium after revealing that over half of its global subscribers use the service to watch anime, and Disney+ plans to begin streaming its first exclusive anime series this year, beginning with the upcoming psychological thriller Summer Time Rendering.
Crunchyroll, meanwhile, will add three highly anticipated titles to its already substantial library this month, as it prepares to premiere the highly anticipated new seasons of The Rising of the Shield Hero and Kaguya-Sama: Love is War. The platform will also stream the new anime adaptation of Tatsuya Endo's critically acclaimed Spy x Family.
Source: Crunchyroll
