About the studio
Crunchyroll launched May 14, 2006, and its origin story is a bit awkward in hindsight: it started as an unlicensed fansub hosting site before pivoting to legal licensing in 2009, kicked off by a deal with TV Tokyo over Naruto. *From legal gray area to industry standard, that's quite the redemption arc.* Founded by UC Berkeley graduates and now based in San Francisco with offices worldwide including Tokyo, Crunchyroll became the dominant Western platform for simulcasting anime. AT&T's WarnerMedia acquired it in 2018, then sold it to Sony's Funimation Global Group for $1.175 billion in 2021, and Crunchyroll absorbed Funimation entirely by 2024. Today it's less a scrappy fan project and more the default answer to where do I watch the new season, backed by one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world. Twenty years after starting in murky legal territory, Crunchyroll basically became the industry's front door for international fans.