Crunchyroll Co-Produces Way More Anime Than You Think
Crunchyroll’s anime investments reveal the unique role they play in the industry.
More than one in six new TV anime released in 2025 had Crunchyroll involved in some element of its production. Examining these titles, and what level of involvement Big Orange has in them, particularly their interest in isekai and webtoon adaptations, reveals interesting insights about their IP preferences and publisher relationships. But first! - Miles A.
Entertainment at Large
Chloé Zhao & Nicolas Gonda Launch Kodansha Studios To Create Live-Action Adaptations From Manga Library (Deadline)
This Kodansha announcement, plus Sony Pictures’ recent interest in live action anime adaptations, got a lot of buzz around TIFFCOM. While fans might balk at the headline, it could be a winning strategy…if done right. I’m of the mind that stories that begin drawn (comics/manga/manhwa or animation/anime and even video games) are shaped by that format, and should normally stay that way when being adapted into different mediums, which is why the manga to anime pipeline works so well.
That being said, if Kodansha Studios, Sony Pictures, and their competitors are smart about which IP they choose for live action, focusing on manga that haven’t already been made into anime that lend themselves better to live action, rather than remaking big franchises for another quick buck, it could be a successful strategy. Live action J-drama and K-drama adaptations of manga and manhwa do this all the time, to great results. Just look at one of my favorite BLs, Cherry Magic!, which has several live action adaptations from several countries, and eventually also got an anime. It’s a contemporary romance that doesn’t necessarily need animation to pop, like an action title might. If these new ventures focus on what medium works best for each story, it could be a great way to help these IPs thrive globally. - Klaudia A.
Here it is, the confirmation that Big Orange is going for the Oscars. While I’m pleasantly surprised by the framing from their PR, that anime is just another format to tell stories, and deserves as much recognition as any other, going in on Demon Slayer for a Hollywood film award seems like a misstep. I know WHY they’re doing it (more “artsy” anime films are distributed in the U.S. by GKIDS, and this is CR’s big splashy hitter), but I think this strategy puts all their eggs in one action-filled basket.
While I love Demon Slayer, and the latest movie has a ton of artistic merit, it is the anime equivalent of Marvel movies, and will definitely be seen as such by western voters already unfamiliar with the medium. It’s also the continuation of an ongoing story, so they can’t just watch it and judge it on its own merits. If Crunchyroll had a more long term strategy of investing in anime as a wholistic medium (rather than a shonen action money machine), putting big money and theater distribution behind stand-alone anime films and developing fan behaviors from the ground up, and then eventually campaigning for an Oscar, I think it could really have legs. For now, this just seems like a way to gain Hollywood attention. - Klaudia A.
Further reading:
From PlayStation Vita to Anime: GNOSIA’s Incredible Underdog Story (Crunchyroll News)
Unpaid Labor Allegations Cast Shadow Over Naver WEBTOON’s Market Dominance (Anime News Network)
AI Is The Ultimate “Forced Meme” (Aftermath)
How manga broke the US comic industry (matttt - comic & manga history)
WEBTOON Disputes Union’s Unpaid Labor Allegations (Anime News Network)
Crunchyroll Co-Produces Way More Anime Than You Think
If you’ve got a careful eye and don’t mind cross-checking LinkedIn to figure out who works at which company, you may have noticed a trend in new anime released this year: Crunchyroll has become one of the anime industry’s most active producers.
Outside of Asia, the anime industry is driven by its biggest revenue-generating vertical: streaming. As we’ve discussed before on Anime by the Numbers, overseas anime streaming is essentially a duopoly, with more than 80% of all titles and an even bigger share of revenue split between just Crunchyroll and Netflix. However, the way that the two companies approach acquiring anime titles for their services has become more and more different.
In the last few years, Netflix has moved almost entirely to a licensing model for anime. Using some of the best data in the history of entertainment, they’ll put out offers for anime they believe will perform well with their 300M+ global audience. Even outside of Asia, they’re less picky than ever about exclusivity, sharing the majority of new anime added to their service with other streamers, like Dan Da Dan and Tougen Anki. While Netflix will still lock down exclusive rights for surefire hits like Sakamoto Days, they’ve retired the phrase “Netflix Original Anime,” and the company is absent from the list of producers on most new exclusives.
Counter to this trend, Crunchyroll has vastly expanded its interest in producing anime. The majority of Crunchyroll’s anime are still licensed: in more than 150 countries and territories, Crunchyroll secured exclusive streaming licenses for more newly-released anime than all of its competitors combined. But the anime streamer has also ramped up its volume of co-productions by 250% over the last three years.
Now, Crunchyroll is featured on the production committee for more new titles than Shueisha, Kodansha, or Bandai. In 2025, Crunchyroll co-produced approximately 18% of all new TV anime released. But what does that mean, exactly?
Before we go any further, I do want to be extremely clear here: Crunchyroll’s involvement on a production committee does not necessarily imply a deep relationship with an anime. A Crunchyroll producer does sit on the committee for each of these anime, yes – and that comes with certain authority as a baseline. But just as I’ve seen many falsely attribute importance to the title “Netflix Original Anime” to mean a series was envisioned, kicked off, and birthed under the careful eye of the Palo Alto streamer, I do not want you to think that the dozens of anime that Crunchyroll co-produced this year were all reliant on Rahul Purini’s go-ahead. It certainly can be the case, but that kind of information is rarely made public, so I’d like to caution against reading too much meaning into any single co-production.
That said, when examined as a whole, Crunchyroll’s 2025 co-production slate seems to represent the company’s evolving priorities and interests, namely:
The dynamics of Crunchyroll’s relationship with Aniplex
How Crunchyroll is pushing the isekai agenda
Kodansha’s partnership with Crunchyroll
How Crunchyroll is looking to webtoon platforms for source material
But before we delve into that, I think it’s essential to understand more of the implications of a co-production.
What exactly is an anime co-production?
Nearly all anime produced today are managed via a production committee, a single-purpose joint venture company made of the anime’s producers. These committee members, led by the biggest investor, make most of the important decisions regarding the anime’s production outside of creative choices, though they’re known to weigh in on those as well. Different committee members have different roles and rights associated. When Crunchyroll participates on a production committee, they’re usually there to provide distribution, rights management, and promotion for overseas territories.
By joining the production committee, Crunchyroll has to commit funds earlier, but the benefits to Crunchyroll are numerous and obvious. They’re able to help push an anime to airwaves that they believe would be a hit with global fans, but that may perhaps be a lower-priority title for the domestic Japanese audience. Less often, they’ll be able to nudge various aspects along in a way that best suits their needs, whether it’s a creative choice, release timing, etc.
Most importantly, though, they’re able to lock down rights. There’s no need for Crunchyroll to compete in a bidding process with Netflix or Amazon or Disney. The lack of a competitive auction in theory means that the upfront revenue brought to an anime is lower, but the hope is that it’s made up for by increased promotion and improved rights management. By finalizing the streaming destination for an anime years earlier, there’s more opportunity for pre-promotion, bigger launches, and additional time to solicit or pursue merchandise deals that can be timed when an anime’s at its most relevant. (That can be hard to do at all while new episodes are airing for shows that hold out for the highest minimum guarantee, sometimes up until airdate).
When the members of a production committee are listed in the credits of an anime, they’re spelled out in order of investment. The first name on the list is the head of the committee, and their company is usually the driving force behind the anime’s inception. Most frequently, these are dedicated anime production companies (like Aniplex or Pony Canyon), the publishers of the anime’s source material, or the terrestrial TV network.
Most of the time, Crunchyroll’s position on the committee is near the bottom of the list. In our research, Crunchyroll did not lead any production committees and was ranked fifth or lower more than half the time. This makes sense from all sides: it’s mutually beneficial to get Crunchyroll distribution locked in early, but it’s not necessary for it to be a Crunchyroll-led project, particularly when their corporate cousin Aniplex, a company whose primary function is anime production, is often also on the production team.
From that description, I hope it’s clear that Crunchyroll co-producing an anime doesn’t necessarily make it a “Crunchyroll show”. It may mean that the anime wouldn’t have been greenlit without Crunchyroll’s involvement, though that’s harder to determine from the outside. If anything, the biggest takeaway you can have for Crunchyroll’s ubiquity on production committees is that the Japanese anime industry is increasingly acknowledging the importance of overseas audiences. Overseas sales – a category dominated by streaming licensing – makes up more than half of all anime revenue, and continues to be one of the fastest growing parts of the industry, per the latest report by the Association of Japanese Animations.
As Christopher Macdonald of Anime News Network said in 2021, a top title can recoup its entire production costs from overseas licensing fees, and then some. But even a more typical “B” grade anime “will have an MG of between $70,000 and $150,000 if it’s a new (first run) show,” accounting for somewhere between ½ and ⅓ of the typical anime’s production budget. With international money coming in early via co-production, the biggest risks of developing a new anime shrink, which is a contributing factor to why nearly every major anime studio is booked up through the end of the decade.
While international co-productions have seriously ramped up in the last decade – led in large part by Crunchyroll’s Tokyo office – they’re not new to the world of anime. French public television station Antenne 2 teamed up with Tokyo-based NHK in the early 1980s to produce The Mysterious Cities of Gold, opening the door for overseas parties to help finance additional seasons of Sonic X, the Yu-Gi-Oh! films, and original projects like Cannon Busters over the following decades, to name a few.
Since Sony Pictures acquired Crunchyroll and merged the streaming giant with Funimation in early 2022, the volume of co-productions has boomed to more than double the combined output from the two platforms pre-merger. At this point, Crunchyroll or Funimation’s staff have appeared in the credits of well over 200 anime. In the last two years, these “upstream investments,” as they’re occasionally referred to, have made up between 20% - 25% of Crunchyroll’s content lineup.
But what’s the deal with Aniplex?
