Trivia / Crunchyroll

• Adored by the Network: Black Clover quickly became Crunchyroll's favorite series to push when the anime was released, and the site was pushing hard for it to become the next Naruto. Unfortunately, the anime's incredibly rough start, paired with the general consensus that My Hero Academia was seen as Naruto's Spiritual Successor lead to them quietly dropping the sheer amount of marketing they had for the series once said marketing backfired and caused many to see the series as a joke, only picking the marketing up again when it came into its own, but never again pushing it as hard as they did initially.
• Banned in China: On April 13, 2021, the service was banned by the Russian government after the Roskomnadzor found that the website was not rating its series or displaying its ratings as required by Russian law. With that in mind, the Roskomnadzor has banned the following series: DARLING in the FRANXX, Konohana Kitan, My Sister, My Writer, Tsugumomo, Here Comes the Three Angels, Girly Air Force and How Not to Summon a Demon Lord.
• Colbert Bump: Gave a very significant one to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure after they licensed the Stardust Crusaders anime. The series was already getting more popular thanks to the 2012 anime and the digital re-release of Heritage for the Future, but this is what ultimately created a bunch of new fans.
• Completely Different Title: Crunchyroll has been part of changing titles, depending on the market:
  • Asobi ni Iku yo! (meaning "Let's go play!" or "We're coming to play!") has two different English titles, Bombshells from the Sky (Crunchyroll's title) and Cat Planet Cuties (Funimation's title), neither of which is a translation of the original.
  • Before Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru ("My youth romantic comedy is wrong, as I expected") even started airing, it was re-titled for the English crowd: My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU. It's not clear if this was to avoid naughty interpretations of the word "wrong," shorten the title, or both.
  • The English publisher of the Jitsu wa Watashi wa manga felt that the original title was less marketable, and went with My Monster Secret. Fans were less than pleased. Crunchyroll streamed the anime under the more literal translation Actually, I Am...
• Creator Backlash:
  • It's easy to forget nowadays, but Crunchyroll themselves started out as one of the most well-known pirates in the industry before going legitimate, and even during (and before) that process there was quite a few instances of them claiming work done by other fansubbers as their own. Crunchyroll themselves like to distance themselves from these particular roots, barely acknowledging where they came from at surface level, since ironically the very same piracy they engaged in is now their direct competition, one that they're not all too fond of acknowledging.
  • Their declaration of Black Clover as "The New King of Shonen". To those who were familiar with the series, this was seen as comedic since the manga wasn't as popular as was expected, as it was referred to as "The New Bleach". Furthermore, because the anime had such a rough start before it grew into its own at a much later point, it was heavily mocked; Crunchyroll quietly dropped the declaration as a result.
• Demand Overload:
  • The website crashed for a while due to an overload of viewers all trying to watch Episode 12 of Yuri!!! on Ice at the same time.
  • It's reported that the website crashed every Saturday during the premiere of every episode of Dragon Ball Super. This was turned up to eleven during the Spring 2017 season, since Super, My Hero Academia, One Piece, and Attack on Titan aired every Saturday. Because of this, Crunchyroll heavily suggested U.S. users to watch them on VRV in order to leverage their servers.
  • The release of episode 87 of Black Clover crashed the servers.
• Follow the Leader: While other popular streaming services like Netflix and Hulu were already present, Crunchyroll was really the first streaming service to target the anime market, specifically simulcasting. At the time, big American distributors like Funimation and Sentai Filmworks were more invested in their premium cable channels and home video releases, so Crunchyroll was able to stake their claim and experienced massive growth because of it. It was later on that Funimation and Sentai Filmworks would play catch up in establishing their own streaming services. Furthermore, some of the bigger streaming platforms like Amazon and the aforementioned Netflix and Hulu would also show a growing interest in anime.
• Invisible Advertising: Crunchyroll owns the rights of the 2020 animated adaptation of Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai outside of Japan. Yet, despite the original manga being one of Shonen Jump's most popular titles and sold 50 millions copies, Crunchyroll did nothing to sponsorize the new animated adaptation beside publishing the trailer.
• Killer App: While Crunchyroll experienced modest growth over the years, it was really the one-two punch of simulcasting Sword Art Online in 2012 and Attack on Titan in 2013, which caused the service to explode in popularity.
• No Export for You: Since Crunchyroll is a law-abiding anime site, it must adhere to territorial restrictions like any other legal streaming site. This is averted with any anime Crunchyroll licenses worldwide except Japan and/or Asia. Since it's a company located in the United States, Crunchyroll tends to make negotiations with local distributors in the U.S. and, in most cases, simulcast titles are restricted by Japan because of that.
• Promoted Fanboy: Many Crunchyroll employees are anime fans working for a website that deals with the distribution of anime worldwide.

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