Ravi Ahuja, President & CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, discussed anime and Crunchyroll’s importance to the company at a conference on September 4. When asked about Sony’s long-term goals for Crunchyroll, he replied:
“Yeah, it’s [the long-term goal] to continue to lean into the growth. The thing that excites us a lot is that there’s enormous demand for anime content, and it’s very much a Gen Alpha, Gen Z thing. Even Millennials to Gen X, there’s not as much anime fandom, so that also makes me very optimistic for the future. Because as that group ages up, they’ll subscribe a lot more, so we see continued momentum there, and global too, so it’s popular around the world.“
“We have a great advantage as well in being very involved in production in Japan through our sister company, Aniplex, there. So, we’ll continue to lean into that. The other thing that matters to us at Crunchyroll is really making it an authentic member-oriented series, so there are a lot of membership benefits.“
“I’ll be a pitch man now [laughs]. You can get digital manga now, e-commerce… You can get a lot of products that you can buy through e-commerce… a lot of other things. So, it’s not just about streaming all of your anime. And even when streaming your anime, you can choose: dubs and subs. Translation works in a way through to many different languages, so it’s very user-friendly, so we look at it as super-serving the anime fan.“
“—which, obviously, look,” he continued, “There’s gonna be anime on other services. Hulu has anime, Netflix has anime, and that’s great because in our view, people get educated in anime there and then they come to Crunchyroll.” In response to whether Crunchyroll was the largest streaming service, Ahuja replied, “Yeah. By far.“
It’s not the first time senior Sony/Crunchyroll staff have expressed an arguably nonchalant view of Netflix and Disney (Hulu), positioning them as platforms that can entice casual fans with their size before funneling them to Crunchyroll for a more in-depth experience. CEO Rahul Purini said as much in 2024:
“So once you’re a fan, a casual fan, and you want to try more, you come to Crunchyroll. So that’s why we also work with our partners that are in general entertainment that have broad reach, whether it is Netflix or Hulu or Amazon, to help reach this audience, engage them, and then we have the confidence that when they want a deeper experience, they’ll come to Crunchyroll.“
Crunchyroll CFO Travis Page (2022):
“It’s not just one or two others. It’s big players like Disney as well. And frankly, we welcome a diversity of providers in the market because it grows the audience, and sooner or later, fans will come to us because we have the most in-depth catalog.“
Crunchyroll sublicenses anime to Netflix, which supports its belief that Netflix can be used to funnel users to its platform. An estimate of Crunchyroll’s viewership numbers also suggests that a user on Crunchyroll watches significantly more anime than one on Netflix does. Nevertheless, Netflix clearly has lofty ambitions, with VP Kim Minyoung saying last month she “wants to make Netflix the largest streaming service in the world for anime.“
According to recent surveys by Dentsu, Netflix is also by far the platform of choice for anime in the U.S., EMEA, and APAC regions. The streamer has long been forging partnerships with studios, with anime creators in attendance at its anniversary ceremony on September 4 particularly effusive about Netflix’s role to come (excerpts of full statements below):
- Manabu Otsuka, CEO of MAPPA (Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man):
“[…] Although our works are distributed worldwide, the sense of closeness that Netflix provides is unique, and moving forward, we aim to create content that leverages this strength. We hope to expand the range of expression and take on projects with surprises and originality that make audiences around the world say, ‘I didn’t know anime like this existed.‘” - Kotaro Yoshikawa, Executive Officer and Senior Managing Director of TMS Entertainment (Baki, SAKAMOTO DAYS):
“[…] SAKAMOTO DAYS, also released exclusively overseas on Netflix, received significant promotional support and generated a huge response. Being distributed on Netflix, with its 300 million members worldwide, rapidly increases a work’s recognition. I feel that Baki has grown together with Netflix—it’s a work that Netflix has nurtured. Their commitment to preserving the integrity of the series has helped it resonate globally, including in Japan. Nowadays, we can truly feel that anime studios are recognized as creative collectives, and Netflix has contributed to elevating the status of Japanese anime. Moving forward, we aim to continue approaches that can stand shoulder to shoulder with Hollywood films and dramas.“
While Crunchyroll’s far superior library, gained from licensing as much as possible (“buy everything,” says Sentai Filmworks’ John Ledford), isn’t going anywhere, both companies’ content acquisition strategies are changing. Netflix has reduced large investments into originals, opting more for licensing; the platform’s former Chief Anime Producer, Taiki Sakurai, recently expressed regret over the strategy during his tenure (excerpt below):
“[….] Even though we produced all sorts of original anime, in the end, the anime [whose streaming rights] we cheaply bought from external production committees were the ones being watched. So discussions of ‘Why is there even a need for us to go out of our way to come up with anime ourselves?’ arose.“
Crunchyroll, which has been noted for its part in driving up licensing revenue amid rising anime demand (“Are we being tricked?” said Toho’s CEO over bidding wars for My Hero Academia), was described more recently as becoming “more careful” in negotiations over prices by KADOKAWA’s Chief Anime Officer Daijo Kudo. This follows its dominance in the U.S. after absorbing Funimation and Sentai’s “power as a distribution service weakening,” Kudo says. Crunchyroll is also ramping up in-house production for its platform through its HAYATE joint production company with Aniplex, which may signal a shift away from licensing as much anime.
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Kudo also expressed industry concerns that “there are works starting to appear where, when Crunchyroll doesn’t buy the distribution rights, the overseas distribution revenue can’t be predicted,” and emphasized the importance of having an exit strategy regardless of Crunchyroll’s interest. An example was with Boys’ Love anime:
“It’s not that there aren’t any fans, but securing revenue from North America through platforms like Crunchyroll would not be easy. So the strategy would be to focus on markets in Asia and Japan, as well as on merchandise sales.“
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With Kudo’s concerns and shifts in Crunchyroll and Netflix’s production and licensing strategy, huge changes may be coming to the anime streaming landscape. Regional anime licensees, such as Spain’s Selecta Visión, which recently announced the first Castilian Spanish dub for Hunter x Hunter (2011), 14 years after its premiere—a bet on Spain’s anime fandom growth—and the more proactive approach of Japanese licensees like REMOW, may signal a market opportunity for other platforms. Japan-based streaming service AnimeTimes said in May that an expansion to Germany is possible, given its collaboration with growing anime streamer Amazon Prime Video.
Source: 2025 Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference – Sony Pictures Entertainment
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