With anime streamers rushing to increase fan accessibility in different languages, two of the most important platforms, Crunchyroll and Netflix, have both now recently revealed that subtitled anime viewing accounts for the minority of fans. Netflix more recently confirmed this, revealing at Anime Expo 2025 this month that half of its members—over 150 million households—watch anime. This was in addition to the surprising stat that 80 to 90 percent of Netflix users opt to watch anime dubbed.
Meanwhile, as Crunchyroll president Rahul Purini toured the UK in May 2025, he revealed that fans in the region accounted for the highest proportion of anime sub watchers, with 48% of UK users opting to do so. This means that in every other region globally, at least 52% of Crunchyroll anime watching was without subtitles. While a small percentage of these viewers may simply be watching the raw Japanese, it showcases how pervasive dub watching is worldwide.
The Numbers Reveal Crunchyroll Users Are Significantly More Locked In Than Netflix Users
Furthermore, while a recent report by Dentsu revealed that Crunchyroll is far from the most popular choice for where fans stream their anime, placing 10th in the U.S., Purini also gave important insights in May that prove how strongly and uniquely anime resonates with Crunchyroll users compared to other platforms.
With a fraction of the subscriber count—Crunchyroll has over 17 million subscribers, while Netflix has over 300 million (or approximately 17² multiplied by a million)—UK viewers watched 5.5 billion hours of anime on Crunchyroll over the last year, according to Purini. C21 Media, which interviewed Purini, reported him saying that the UK ‘was now among its top 10 markets.’
Assuming the UK was 10th, this would work out to over 55 billion hours of anime watched on Crunchyroll globally, which is likely a severe undercount since it assumes a negligible difference between tenth and first and doesn’t consider markets outside the top 10. For comparison, Netflix, with 17x more subscribers and more varied content, confirmed over 188 billion hours of watching in all of 2024, or only 3.4x more hours. This suggests that, per head, Crunchyroll users spend at least 5x more time watching content compared to Netflix users, likely increasing with more accurate data.
Naturally, Crunchyroll has not made the actual ordering of its top 10 markets public, so this should only be seen as an estimate. Nevertheless, Purini identified the UK as “relatively nascent compared to other markets we’re in, with most fans having joined in the last three to five years.” Meanwhile, North America, Western Europe, and Latin America were identified as ‘key markets.’
Source: The Hollywood Reporter, C21 Media
Featured image © Solo Leveling Animation Partners © Yuto Suzuki/SHUEISHA, SAKAMOTO DAYS PROJECT
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