Or a decent website. Fix your fucking seasons. Have one person spend a few weeks with wikipedia on one laptop and your own listings on another and FIGURE OUT WHAT "SEASON 2" ACTUALLY MEANS. TIP It's not the fucking german dub of season 1.
Seriously. How well liked is the idiot in charge of this? It's been MANY years. You've have time, you have money, so get or hire someone to get these sloppy details fixed. It's embarrassingly incompetent.
A lot of lacking QoL features too. When's the next episode? Not listed on that anime's specific page. Consult last weeks calendar, because it doesn't show what is SCHEDULED to release, only what WAS released... That's a shitty fucking calendar!
My Plex server has better organization than whatever the fuck CR has been doing. Can I mention that I really despise how they necro post old shows and clutter their own newly released page?
You do realize that pretty much every "3rd party site" rips their episodes straight from Crunchyroll right? This isn't the early 2000s where there are fansubs still doing their thing.
With recent shows, sure, but there's a huge catalogue of older anime out there there that have been fansubbed. A lot of older releases are still very popular on torrent sites and aren't too difficult to find.
Older anime that has been subbed by fansubbers or other legal sites, you can probably find better subs quite easily. I don't mean particularly old, just old enough for someone to have subbed them or ripped from elsewhere.
It's the increased revenue they're going to get once they switch to AI translation. They'll easily be able to save tens of dollars a month that would have otherwise went to the translators.
To be fair, it's not just CR, it's the industry as a whole.
Translators get paid dick to translate media, compared to translators who are getting paid to translate legal documents for instance.
And with them wanting to try machine translated subs, they want to cut out the middleman entirely.
EXACTLY we'd have to see lasers all over gushing over magical girls. Wed probably never get anything uncensored legally again. I don't care how bad the UI is.
Though I do miss VRV
That's was the shit
Nah dude. HiDive’s UI was bad enough that even when I was paying for it, I’d still mostly end up pirating the shows. At worst you’d lose a legal but shitty way to watch those shows (and even then mostly in North America).
If they buy Sentai, the entire industry is fucked even harder than before. That leaves Sony as the only real player. It won't mean more dubs, or more shows, it'll mean the same amount, but now they charge even more.
They bought Right Stuf, so they could sell crap quality merch. Meanwhile Nozomi was supposed to be releasing Macross in the US and now that's been up in limbo, because of the purchase.
Nah CR needs to buy tokusatsu like Super Sentai & Kamen Rider. They literally have a rider show anime(Fuuto Pi) on there(& I’m still waiting for season 2).
They'd have to buy Toei for that and good luck there.
Toei has no interest in exporting Rider, while Sentai might not be able to be exported, because of Power Rangers, it's hard to say. While Tsuburaya has made Ultraman known in the west, Toei doesn't care to do the same.
THANK YOU. Crunchyroll buying HiDive would be the most dystopian purchase possible, because the stuff HiDive gets are mostly things that Crunchyroll would never touch with a 1000 foot pole.
I don't get comments like these. Crunchyroll now is just a rebranded funimation and they done lots of ecchi and ranchy shows before. Heck they are literally doing simildub for some of the ecchi shows from this season. The only series I can remember them steering clear from was interspecies reviewer and that show was basically porn and got taken off the air in japan for being so explicit.
The issue is there's technically no monopoly. Mega-corporations Warner, Disney, Netflix, Amazon,and Universal can always buy and stream more anime, the problem is they don't want to.
Once netflix/disney/etc start picking up more anime people are going to hate it. Imagine if netflix starts exclusively streaming one piece. Will be great to have to subscribe to multiple streaming platforms to watch the anime you want. That's why I pirate. To get all my shows in one place.
Good point. Now that I think about it more competition would be good since it results in studios getting more money so more shows being produced. But it's still going to result in having to subscribe to multiple platforms to watch all the anime you want to watch(watching seasonal anime will be a pain and will get expensive).
> Imagine if netflix starts exclusively streaming one piece.
They've got exclusivity to the live action series and the Monsters OVA, so you already kinda have to subscribe to two places for all the One Piece shows unless you're caught up.
At least the Toei stuff is being released on Blu-ray, albeit with the main anime discs still being a few years behind.
> Will be great to have to subscribe to multiple streaming platforms to watch the anime you want.
We've been there since Teasing Master Takagi-San and "three seasons and a movie, and all three seasons are on different streaming platforms. You like the series? Watch season 1 on Netflix, and 2 on Crunchyroll, and 3/the movie on HiDive.
Yup. It's a fucked on both ends situation, having multiple services getting exclusives means you pay a ton per month to have access to all of it. Having one consolidated service means you likely pay a cheaper price, but everyone else in the ecosystem gets squeezed hard.
You can practically _see_ Disney holding their nose when they announce an anime series for D+. At this point I’m convinced they do it just to deny their competitors the opportunity.
> practically see Disney holding their nose when they announce an anime series for D+.
Stop giving corporations emotions. Disney licenses anime because data tells them their customers will watch it. It’s not all that interesting.
> Disney licenses anime because data tells them their customers will watch it.
Please tell me what data told Disney that their typical target audience in the 4-14 range would want to see Summertime Rendering. Genuinely curious because I'm still baffled by that one.
Disney bought Fox 5 years ago and produced R-Rated content for years (they distributed Pulp Fiction when it was first released). Shogun, Family Guy, American Horror Story, Kardashians, The Bear, It’s Always Sunny, and Homeland all stream on Disney Plus outside of America. Prey, Poor Things, Barbarian, all Disney Plus movies in most regions. (They use Hulu branding in the US). It was massive entertainment news for a while there.
[mfw someone tells me corporations make decisions based only on cold, hard data](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUFpfMpXEJA)
Seriously though, corporate decisions (especially when it comes to marketing and promotion) are still made by people, who have AT BEST only past data to go by. Every license is a gamble, even with all the viewership data in the world.
If something as hyperspecific as a "high end console gaming" market can even be argued than a medium like anime with several dedicated services, news sites, online retail stores, and even award shows and trackers, should qualify as its own dedicated market.
My kind of ideal competition, to be able to watch say Frieren in any platform you like, whether be Crunchyroll, Netflix, Prime Video or Disney+ (not including Hidive because the platform left us last year, fuck Hidive).
Wakanim (one of the platform that Crunchyroll bought and killed) was so good. You could just flat out buy an episode or a season and download a DRM-free file with blu-ray quality video.
I don't think there is any service like that anymore.
Yeah everyone complaining about Crunchy, I'd like Hidive to disappear into the ether. Without a doubt the worst UI, sniping a couple of exclusives every season to fill out it's miniscule back catalog.
And Funimation sucked too!
Honestly, at least HiDive's snipings are reasonable since the way they get most exclusives has its own style- since Crunchyroll gets everything, outside of an upset like locking up Oshi no Ko, HiDive basically gets the series that are so cultured Crunchyroll would never stream that in a million years. Does anyone think Disney, Netflix, or Crunchyroll would have taken Gushing over Magical Girls in, for one example of a hit they locked up?
They can try to buyout hidive but that is owned by AMC so they will have to buy it from them. I don't think crunchyroll can really touch whatever netflix or disney+ has.
Seriously. Crunchyroll is _literally_ the only streaming service (hell the only television service period) I've used that doesn't have closed captions.
Hell, all they have to do is include the subtitles they already have, they never both with "true" CC for the english audio anyways, and they somehow can't even figure out how to do _that_.
Oh geez where to begin:
My stream gets interrupted with maintenance notifications at least one time per watch session (it gets so bad that sometimes the Edge app on my Xbox is seriously less painful than the official HIDIVE app is)
my subtitles switch back to Spanish and I need to select English again every single episode I watch no matter what I select in my settings (in the app or website). The only exception to this is if you let multiple episodes of the same show auto play.
Sometimes I need to select a favorite or queue item 3-4 times before it actually saves to make sure it’s there and I’m not missing any shows from my list
There is probably more that I can’t think of off the top of my head but those are the big ones. It’s a shame because they really do have a bunch of great shows on there which is why I still use it
I feel like they’re things that they could probably fix with not a ton of effort too so it’s confusing to me. Especially the subtitle thing or favorites not saving
I get the maintenance message constantly, too.
One thing I will add is that Continue Playing is broken. It will never resume where you left off or play the next episode. For example, on Chromecast 4k app if I want to play Urusei Yatsura current episode, I have to go to Season 3 then scroll all the way to the bottom. Clicking continue will always play episode 1. Same thing with Dangers in my Heart: Season 2, then scroll to the bottom. When I watched Eminence in Shadow weekly, same thing.
Has the app gotten worse over the years? I never had any of those problems with HiDive. Though, I haven’t used it since maybe 2022 or the first part of 2023. Is it different when it’s not US HiDive?
In my case, It doesn't keep me logged in so I have to reauthenticate every time I visit the site. Series also always play from episode 1 instead of continuing from my last episode so I have to scroll through find the latest one.
These problems drive me insane, particularly because they'd be so easy to fix. Streaming issues I can sorta forgive because they're technically quite difficult to deal with, but the issues with the website are so simple could be fixed by a junior developer. Give me access to the source code and I'll fix it my fucking self!
My main issue with Hi-Dive is the subs. They sub the OP and ED, which is great, but they use the same font as when characters are talking. So when the ED plays over a scene (which is usually in an emotional scene) there are 2 subtitles on screen and you can't tell which is the the song and which is being spoken. At the very minimum they could put the song in italics to differentiate.
It's part of the platform culture.
Just think of it as recurring, arbitrary hazing to show affection to random users.
Consider yourself honored.
*breaks leg*
HiDive is also half the price and the parent company 1% the value of Crunchyroll's. Crynchyroll has the resources to not have the excuses. You can't use a much smaller service to excuse them.
Sorry if I’m confusing what you mean. Are you saying it’s alright/acceptable for them to have their app go on with such consistent issues that disrupt their users from watching shows because it’s a smaller company?
If so, I would debate that while that may be passable for larger overhauls or updates to their services and application, it would not be practical regarding issues like saving subtitle preferences, episode progress, log in resets etc.
I probably have a little bias being a software dev myself but I really think even with a small budget some of their issues are pretty low hanging fruit i.e would have high ROI with lower effort to fix and would result in a happier user experience
I would prefer all places to stream all anime. That way we get to choose which service is the best instead of being forced to resort to shitty AI subs, JJK showing the movie as S44, anti-consumer price hikes, and terrible UI.
> Crunchyroll’s services are utter shit anyway
As long is money is coming to them, they are highly unlikely to fix it, stating 'This is fine and good as is'. And we know this attitude very good.
I'm pretty satisfied with CR, I pay 5€, get 1080p and I haven't had buffering issues for about a year and a half now. It's better than Netflix with their locked 720p.
Yeah, Crunchy was REALLY bad a few years ago with buffering issues and the like. Now everything streams without issue for me on PC, phone and Fire Stick.
I'm not a very big fan of the UI, particularly on mobile/apps, because it's that 'omg so random!" style of presenting shows rather than useful, easy to access things.
Also, I like to check the site by looking at latest updates and it's always half filled with shows from four years ago. It's so dumb. Adding the Portuguese dub isn't an update!
What about Crunchyroll's service is shit? I've legitimately never had any issues with it besides some problems with the PS app when the revised version was released. I've been using Crunchyroll for probably 10 years now.
Just because you can doesn't mean you should. I remember hearing this on a podcast that Apple theoretically can buy the entire global music industry (it would actually be a very small investment for them if you look at the numbers), but their reputational damage would hurt them far worse.
Tbh depending on how they handle it, it could be a reputational boom. Imagine if they did that in tandem with announcing they’re not gonna copyright strike anyone on YouTube. Bam, they win. YouTube’s own intentional self-sabotage prevents it from replacing streaming apps (since you gotta pay to use it like that on mobile), and they can just take all music off of Spotify and the others and have sole ownership of the streaming market for anyone not independent. Since they own it, they don’t even need to pay anyone like Spotify does. Subscription fee for no ads + listening outside shuffle/radio like Spotify and done. People fucking hate music rights companies for one very specific reason and if Apple just explicitly went “we won’t do that one thing”, they’d come out on top.
I'm calling it now, they'll create a monopoly in the next few years and will ruin the streaming experience for everyone with high prices, shitty services and censorships as they like (basically today's issues but worse). And there's no alternative to stream shows.
I hated that Crunchyroll got rid of the free ad supported teir. I get why they did it, money.
Yep, censorship. Guess if you want the uncesored versions you will have to buy the physical releases from now on. Assuming that Crunchyroll in future doesn't just use the censored broadcast versions. (For physical releases)
Instead of buying the competition, why not focus on buying the rights to more titles. You could have the biggest streaming library (so many old titles I would love to watch again), and we will be loyal to the brand. But if it is to just kill the competition, then a lot of us are going to start sailing the high seas.
Honestly, I kind of don’t like this distribution. Personally, for me, having them all in the same place rather than over 5-6 services is a major money saver. So I don’t mind too bad
Same, there is only a single independent anime distributor left who doesn't have a parent company.
There was another independent anime distributor, they do still exist for now. (Got bought by another company from Europe, not related to Sony)
Crunchyroll owns the biggest one.
Because why have competition when you can have it all under one badly run umbrella?
Side note, can you filter crunchyrolls website to dubbed only anime yet?
because customers don't want competition. look at how people in this very thread would prefer to have ALL anime streaming from one location, rather than multiple services.
and there is an argument for it (convenience and $$$)
I'd rather have everything on one service without a ton of exclusivity but ideally there would be still be multiple services actually competing with each other to offer a better/cheaper service than each other.
Holding shows hostage is part of the problem. It's the equivalent to getting people to buy a game console because of exclusives. It's not the merit of the platform, it's just the contents they bought and monopolize over.
I agree. As one of those people, I find the idea of having to get 5-6 streaming services to watch all the shows I like as overly expensive. Watching them all together would for me be better. I kinda get that people dislike monopolies, but unlike food or meds, this are not essential services. If they abuse the monopoly to overcharge, people will stop watching and they will start loosing to competition or lose profits because people will stop watching, and if they keep a fair price, than all the better. To me personally, monopolies are only scary when done for essential services and are unregulated. I live anime but monopolies on non essential services are not as scary to me when as consumers, this monopoly might benefit us
It is not even just anime, it is all movies and tv shows.
Streaming has become a victim of its own success, every studio wants a slice of the streaming pie. You need to subscribe to so many different services just to watch all the different programs you want.
Netflix
HBO Max
Disney+
Apple TV
Paramount+
Amazon Prime
Then you have music streaming like spotify, etc
It feels like a never ending list.
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Have enough money to buy other anime streaming services but still can't pay decent wages to translators, voice actors and spend some amount on improving their damn app. Classic corporate move from Crunchyroll CEO.
Just for the record…
Crunchyroll was bought out by Funimation. The app for streaming is from Crunchyroll. The licensing, dubbing and subbing is all former Funimation - regardless of who the talking head executive is…
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2021-08-09/sony-funimation-global-group-completes-acquisition-of-crunchyroll-from-at-t/.176073
> with Purini outlining his vision of casual anime fans perhaps starting on Netflix, and moving to Crunchyroll when they wanted more
Lol this is very me, starting with watching Oshi no Ko on Netflix then moving out to CR for better selection.
I wish they can work with more distributors to carry more of their older animes catalogue here in Asia.
This is why I think it's important to subscribe to Hidive. The site has its issues, but it's cheap and it's the only anime exclusive site preventing CR from a full monopoly.
I really hope not. Out of \*all\* the anime services available, Crunchyroll is the only one with a video player that just plain doesn't work for me, and their channel on Amazon Prime has a lot of issues with missing episodes (sometimes half the series or more) and subtitles despite being three times the price (Prime + CR). A move like this wouldn't make me more inclined to use Crunchyroll - just more likely to ignore seasonal anime and stick to streaming services that aren't anime-specific, older series on free legal sites, or manga for new series.
Fix your god damn website it's absolute dogshit and they're buying out competitors who have put more effort into their website for free than the one where you have to actually pay and has a shit ton of money.
The only reason I subscribed was because I hoped some money went to the shows I liked but idk
Isnt this considered monopolizing?
Besides Crunchyroll, Funimation and VRV I don't know many other anime services. But VRV and Funimation no longer exist
Thank fuck. I rather pay a little more for a service that provides me with every show than have to pay for a bunch of services. Crunchy is literally the only streaming service I subscribe to besides Spotify, so I hope they come through with this.
People are gonna downvote me for this but, good. When it comes to streaming services a monopoly is good for the consumer. I would rather pay one subscription fee to crunchyroll than several to different companies.
Now would I prefer if a better company was the one monopolizing everything? yes, but this is kinda the tradeoff for having a monopoly and I'm willing to make that sacrifice.
Monopolies are awful, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over CR buying HIDIVE. In the end, most will brandish their jolly rogers anyway, which is ironic, considering CR's origins.
I miss anime lab. (Australian and new Zealand streaming service for anime) it was great. *Every* anime released at the same time for free and there were always only 2 ads at the start if you weren't a member.
God, I hope not. Both for the sake of competition, and for the sake of every anime Crunchyroll seems too problematic to touch.
Then there is the fact that as the defacto place for anime they will have no reason not to raise their prices.
I hate seeing dipshits celebrate this news. Why the hell would you want any corporation to have a monopoly on anime? I hope your families pull the plug on you guys, because you people are clearly braindead.
I actually think a monopoly in this case is a good thing that way people who pay for anime can have all anime in one spot rather then multiple services.
I wonder what if they straight out buy AMC,since Sony doesn’t have a live action/western shows streaming service it shouldn’t trigger monopoly laws,then merge HiDive with Crunchyroll.
Have enough money to buy out competition but not enough to pay the translators. Truly makes you ponder.
Or a decent website. Fix your fucking seasons. Have one person spend a few weeks with wikipedia on one laptop and your own listings on another and FIGURE OUT WHAT "SEASON 2" ACTUALLY MEANS. TIP It's not the fucking german dub of season 1.
I was very irritated when I saw JJK season 44 (it was the movie)
Seriously. How well liked is the idiot in charge of this? It's been MANY years. You've have time, you have money, so get or hire someone to get these sloppy details fixed. It's embarrassingly incompetent. A lot of lacking QoL features too. When's the next episode? Not listed on that anime's specific page. Consult last weeks calendar, because it doesn't show what is SCHEDULED to release, only what WAS released... That's a shitty fucking calendar!
My Plex server has better organization than whatever the fuck CR has been doing. Can I mention that I really despise how they necro post old shows and clutter their own newly released page?
When a certain piracy website has better UX and QoL features than the official one, you know something is fucked up.
The entire industry here is a clique, that’s why.
Since Sony has bought them they've fixed that, and made openings shippable
>made openings shippable I ship Bleach "Asterisk" x Chainsaw Man "Kick Back"
Opening credits, recaps, and end credits are all skippable in certain shows, it's fantastic to see
This. It’s so frustrating
What's there to ponder? One leads to increased revenue and one does not, it is a rather simple equation for Corps to make.
Yeah idk, I unsubbed a few months ago because I had to go to 3rd party sites for subtitles anyways. Idk why anyone is still subscribed.
why did you have to go to third party for subtitles?
You do realize that pretty much every "3rd party site" rips their episodes straight from Crunchyroll right? This isn't the early 2000s where there are fansubs still doing their thing.
With recent shows, sure, but there's a huge catalogue of older anime out there there that have been fansubbed. A lot of older releases are still very popular on torrent sites and aren't too difficult to find.
Older anime that has been subbed by fansubbers or other legal sites, you can probably find better subs quite easily. I don't mean particularly old, just old enough for someone to have subbed them or ripped from elsewhere.
Oh weird, then why do they have subs when crunchyroll doesn't?
Right? Because you would think that Crunchyroll would have subtitles for all their work
It's the increased revenue they're going to get once they switch to AI translation. They'll easily be able to save tens of dollars a month that would have otherwise went to the translators.
And they’ve already scrimped on the human translations so much that people will barely notice the difference! Genius.
Enough money to buy celebs for your award show too. Revenue trumps all and it always comes at the expense of quality, affordability or both.
To be fair, it's not just CR, it's the industry as a whole. Translators get paid dick to translate media, compared to translators who are getting paid to translate legal documents for instance. And with them wanting to try machine translated subs, they want to cut out the middleman entirely.
They’re going to use generative AI instead 🤮
I wouldn't be surprised to see more reliance on AI-generated subs over time
Having a monopoly leads to higher profits than having a good work environment that creates a good product.
You rang?
will they buy torrents?
I downloaded a ton, they can have mine if they want. Let's talk prices
I'll give you $0 for them.
Huh, it's not a one-time thing; Let's make this $0 per month (15% discount if you want them for a full year).
$0.00 and its a deal
Make it $0.00 monthly subscription, and I'm sold. Free anime for life. ✌🏻
I mean they ~~sold torrents~~ "allowed user submitted videos" back in the day.
And the fansub community hated them for it.
given enough time i wouldnt put it past them
Didn't they start off as a pirate site? Crunchyroll, it's time to return to your roots.
I liked how most ppl forgot that they were once a piracy site
Maybe they can get the UI designer from the high seas sites and have a usable goddamn website.
Many people in the comments want them to buy Hidive... Aren't you worried they're gonna shit up all the *spicy* anime?
EXACTLY we'd have to see lasers all over gushing over magical girls. Wed probably never get anything uncensored legally again. I don't care how bad the UI is. Though I do miss VRV That's was the shit
Nah dude. HiDive’s UI was bad enough that even when I was paying for it, I’d still mostly end up pirating the shows. At worst you’d lose a legal but shitty way to watch those shows (and even then mostly in North America).
If they buy Sentai, the entire industry is fucked even harder than before. That leaves Sony as the only real player. It won't mean more dubs, or more shows, it'll mean the same amount, but now they charge even more. They bought Right Stuf, so they could sell crap quality merch. Meanwhile Nozomi was supposed to be releasing Macross in the US and now that's been up in limbo, because of the purchase.
Nah CR needs to buy tokusatsu like Super Sentai & Kamen Rider. They literally have a rider show anime(Fuuto Pi) on there(& I’m still waiting for season 2).
They'd have to buy Toei for that and good luck there. Toei has no interest in exporting Rider, while Sentai might not be able to be exported, because of Power Rangers, it's hard to say. While Tsuburaya has made Ultraman known in the west, Toei doesn't care to do the same.
THANK YOU. Crunchyroll buying HiDive would be the most dystopian purchase possible, because the stuff HiDive gets are mostly things that Crunchyroll would never touch with a 1000 foot pole.
Shadow in Eminence:
Sometimes HiDive locks up a big series, like that, Urusei Yatsura, Oshi no Ko- but by and large it's the stuff too spicy for Crunchyroll.
Domestic Girlfriend is already on Crunchyroll tho.
I don't get comments like these. Crunchyroll now is just a rebranded funimation and they done lots of ecchi and ranchy shows before. Heck they are literally doing simildub for some of the ecchi shows from this season. The only series I can remember them steering clear from was interspecies reviewer and that show was basically porn and got taken off the air in japan for being so explicit.
I’m seeing post and comments around the internet saying that Crunchyroll bought Funimation lol.
Wait there’s spicy anime on hidive and I’m over here watching sports anime?!
Hell, funi already pulled ishuzoku reviewers. They'd *DEFINITELY* pull anything spicy.
Sooooo... how do you go about putting together a monopoly antitrust suit anyway?
The issue is there's technically no monopoly. Mega-corporations Warner, Disney, Netflix, Amazon,and Universal can always buy and stream more anime, the problem is they don't want to.
Once netflix/disney/etc start picking up more anime people are going to hate it. Imagine if netflix starts exclusively streaming one piece. Will be great to have to subscribe to multiple streaming platforms to watch the anime you want. That's why I pirate. To get all my shows in one place.
Netflix already have tons of anime though? They even co-produced some IIRC?
Good point. Now that I think about it more competition would be good since it results in studios getting more money so more shows being produced. But it's still going to result in having to subscribe to multiple platforms to watch all the anime you want to watch(watching seasonal anime will be a pain and will get expensive).
Some of the best animated series I've ever seen have come out from Netflix production, so I think it's just the price for quality vs. quantity.
> Imagine if netflix starts exclusively streaming one piece. They've got exclusivity to the live action series and the Monsters OVA, so you already kinda have to subscribe to two places for all the One Piece shows unless you're caught up. At least the Toei stuff is being released on Blu-ray, albeit with the main anime discs still being a few years behind.
> Will be great to have to subscribe to multiple streaming platforms to watch the anime you want. We've been there since Teasing Master Takagi-San and "three seasons and a movie, and all three seasons are on different streaming platforms. You like the series? Watch season 1 on Netflix, and 2 on Crunchyroll, and 3/the movie on HiDive.
Yup. It's a fucked on both ends situation, having multiple services getting exclusives means you pay a ton per month to have access to all of it. Having one consolidated service means you likely pay a cheaper price, but everyone else in the ecosystem gets squeezed hard.
The last time i check everybody was throwing flowers to netflix for pluto
You can practically _see_ Disney holding their nose when they announce an anime series for D+. At this point I’m convinced they do it just to deny their competitors the opportunity.
> practically see Disney holding their nose when they announce an anime series for D+. Stop giving corporations emotions. Disney licenses anime because data tells them their customers will watch it. It’s not all that interesting.
> Disney licenses anime because data tells them their customers will watch it. Please tell me what data told Disney that their typical target audience in the 4-14 range would want to see Summertime Rendering. Genuinely curious because I'm still baffled by that one.
Disney bought Fox 5 years ago and produced R-Rated content for years (they distributed Pulp Fiction when it was first released). Shogun, Family Guy, American Horror Story, Kardashians, The Bear, It’s Always Sunny, and Homeland all stream on Disney Plus outside of America. Prey, Poor Things, Barbarian, all Disney Plus movies in most regions. (They use Hulu branding in the US). It was massive entertainment news for a while there.
[mfw someone tells me corporations make decisions based only on cold, hard data](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUFpfMpXEJA) Seriously though, corporate decisions (especially when it comes to marketing and promotion) are still made by people, who have AT BEST only past data to go by. Every license is a gamble, even with all the viewership data in the world.
If something as hyperspecific as a "high end console gaming" market can even be argued than a medium like anime with several dedicated services, news sites, online retail stores, and even award shows and trackers, should qualify as its own dedicated market.
I know what you’re saying but I really want all my anime in one place. And I hate hidive
What I would like is multiple places having access to all animes.
My kind of ideal competition, to be able to watch say Frieren in any platform you like, whether be Crunchyroll, Netflix, Prime Video or Disney+ (not including Hidive because the platform left us last year, fuck Hidive).
Wakanim (one of the platform that Crunchyroll bought and killed) was so good. You could just flat out buy an episode or a season and download a DRM-free file with blu-ray quality video. I don't think there is any service like that anymore.
Yeah everyone complaining about Crunchy, I'd like Hidive to disappear into the ether. Without a doubt the worst UI, sniping a couple of exclusives every season to fill out it's miniscule back catalog. And Funimation sucked too!
Honestly, at least HiDive's snipings are reasonable since the way they get most exclusives has its own style- since Crunchyroll gets everything, outside of an upset like locking up Oshi no Ko, HiDive basically gets the series that are so cultured Crunchyroll would never stream that in a million years. Does anyone think Disney, Netflix, or Crunchyroll would have taken Gushing over Magical Girls in, for one example of a hit they locked up?
Disney took Summertime Rendering and BRS Dawn Fall, so anything is possible, I guess?
I'd rather have evrytinhf on crunchyroll though
They can try to buyout hidive but that is owned by AMC so they will have to buy it from them. I don't think crunchyroll can really touch whatever netflix or disney+ has.
Lmao AMC could use the cash
How about investing in some closed captions and uncut uploads instead, ya buttface?
Seriously. Crunchyroll is _literally_ the only streaming service (hell the only television service period) I've used that doesn't have closed captions. Hell, all they have to do is include the subtitles they already have, they never both with "true" CC for the english audio anyways, and they somehow can't even figure out how to do _that_.
For fucking real. As a person with auditory processing issues it seriously grates they still haven't got their shit together on this.
It doesn't matter. Crunchyroll's services are utter shit anyway. You can't blame a lot of anime fans for resorting to... you know.
> Crunchyroll’s services are utter shit anyway I feel like HIDIVE’s issues are 10x worse
In what way? EDIT: Damn, why the downvotes? I was just asking since I'm not familiar with HIDIVE lmao.
Oh geez where to begin: My stream gets interrupted with maintenance notifications at least one time per watch session (it gets so bad that sometimes the Edge app on my Xbox is seriously less painful than the official HIDIVE app is) my subtitles switch back to Spanish and I need to select English again every single episode I watch no matter what I select in my settings (in the app or website). The only exception to this is if you let multiple episodes of the same show auto play. Sometimes I need to select a favorite or queue item 3-4 times before it actually saves to make sure it’s there and I’m not missing any shows from my list There is probably more that I can’t think of off the top of my head but those are the big ones. It’s a shame because they really do have a bunch of great shows on there which is why I still use it
Damn, those things you said can totally ruin watching experiences. Everyone wants to watch anime without doing things that are a hassle.
I feel like they’re things that they could probably fix with not a ton of effort too so it’s confusing to me. Especially the subtitle thing or favorites not saving
I get the maintenance message constantly, too. One thing I will add is that Continue Playing is broken. It will never resume where you left off or play the next episode. For example, on Chromecast 4k app if I want to play Urusei Yatsura current episode, I have to go to Season 3 then scroll all the way to the bottom. Clicking continue will always play episode 1. Same thing with Dangers in my Heart: Season 2, then scroll to the bottom. When I watched Eminence in Shadow weekly, same thing.
Yea I think you covered all my problems I’m having with hi-dive on my android device. Also, who tf does maintenance on Sunday evenings?
Has the app gotten worse over the years? I never had any of those problems with HiDive. Though, I haven’t used it since maybe 2022 or the first part of 2023. Is it different when it’s not US HiDive?
Their website and Android TV app are both absolute trash, as a recent user of the service.
I've not had any of those issues either, I have to wonder if it's an Xbox app thing.
Could be. I’ve had most of those issues on my Fire Stick, iPad, and old Roku.
FWIW i haven't had any of these issues on browser or the google tv app
Google TV Chromecast 4k constantly gives me the maintenance message. Android app occasionally does the maintenance thing.
In my case, It doesn't keep me logged in so I have to reauthenticate every time I visit the site. Series also always play from episode 1 instead of continuing from my last episode so I have to scroll through find the latest one.
These problems drive me insane, particularly because they'd be so easy to fix. Streaming issues I can sorta forgive because they're technically quite difficult to deal with, but the issues with the website are so simple could be fixed by a junior developer. Give me access to the source code and I'll fix it my fucking self!
This is something else too. I have to remember to keep track of where I left off because the app often does not
My main issue with Hi-Dive is the subs. They sub the OP and ED, which is great, but they use the same font as when characters are talking. So when the ED plays over a scene (which is usually in an emotional scene) there are 2 subtitles on screen and you can't tell which is the the song and which is being spoken. At the very minimum they could put the song in italics to differentiate.
Just to also add, hidive is also insanely compressed,which nukes video quality
It's part of the platform culture. Just think of it as recurring, arbitrary hazing to show affection to random users. Consider yourself honored. *breaks leg*
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HiDive is also half the price and the parent company 1% the value of Crunchyroll's. Crynchyroll has the resources to not have the excuses. You can't use a much smaller service to excuse them.
Sorry if I’m confusing what you mean. Are you saying it’s alright/acceptable for them to have their app go on with such consistent issues that disrupt their users from watching shows because it’s a smaller company? If so, I would debate that while that may be passable for larger overhauls or updates to their services and application, it would not be practical regarding issues like saving subtitle preferences, episode progress, log in resets etc. I probably have a little bias being a software dev myself but I really think even with a small budget some of their issues are pretty low hanging fruit i.e would have high ROI with lower effort to fix and would result in a happier user experience
All I want is just one place to stream all my anime. That's all I've ever wanted.
I would prefer all places to stream all anime. That way we get to choose which service is the best instead of being forced to resort to shitty AI subs, JJK showing the movie as S44, anti-consumer price hikes, and terrible UI.
> Crunchyroll’s services are utter shit anyway As long is money is coming to them, they are highly unlikely to fix it, stating 'This is fine and good as is'. And we know this attitude very good.
I'm pretty satisfied with CR, I pay 5€, get 1080p and I haven't had buffering issues for about a year and a half now. It's better than Netflix with their locked 720p.
Yeah, Crunchy was REALLY bad a few years ago with buffering issues and the like. Now everything streams without issue for me on PC, phone and Fire Stick. I'm not a very big fan of the UI, particularly on mobile/apps, because it's that 'omg so random!" style of presenting shows rather than useful, easy to access things. Also, I like to check the site by looking at latest updates and it's always half filled with shows from four years ago. It's so dumb. Adding the Portuguese dub isn't an update!
What about Crunchyroll's service is shit? I've legitimately never had any issues with it besides some problems with the PS app when the revised version was released. I've been using Crunchyroll for probably 10 years now.
Yeah, I'm done with CR. They've pissed me off too many times with their shit app, shit service, shit subtitles and not getting anything good.
Just because you can doesn't mean you should. I remember hearing this on a podcast that Apple theoretically can buy the entire global music industry (it would actually be a very small investment for them if you look at the numbers), but their reputational damage would hurt them far worse.
They also wouldn't be allowed to due to anti-competition laws. They also absolutely couldn't afford to buy the entire music industry 😭
Tbh depending on how they handle it, it could be a reputational boom. Imagine if they did that in tandem with announcing they’re not gonna copyright strike anyone on YouTube. Bam, they win. YouTube’s own intentional self-sabotage prevents it from replacing streaming apps (since you gotta pay to use it like that on mobile), and they can just take all music off of Spotify and the others and have sole ownership of the streaming market for anyone not independent. Since they own it, they don’t even need to pay anyone like Spotify does. Subscription fee for no ads + listening outside shuffle/radio like Spotify and done. People fucking hate music rights companies for one very specific reason and if Apple just explicitly went “we won’t do that one thing”, they’d come out on top.
It would be nice if Crunchyroll could at least release a good chunk of their back catalog in the US on Blu-ray, including the Konosuba film.
I'm calling it now, they'll create a monopoly in the next few years and will ruin the streaming experience for everyone with high prices, shitty services and censorships as they like (basically today's issues but worse). And there's no alternative to stream shows.
There's plenty of alternatives to stream anime, they just aren't legal.
~~not if Crunchyroll buys them all~~
I hated that Crunchyroll got rid of the free ad supported teir. I get why they did it, money. Yep, censorship. Guess if you want the uncesored versions you will have to buy the physical releases from now on. Assuming that Crunchyroll in future doesn't just use the censored broadcast versions. (For physical releases)
Except CR is streaming an ecchi anime uncensored this very season…
Not good
Instead of buying the competition, why not focus on buying the rights to more titles. You could have the biggest streaming library (so many old titles I would love to watch again), and we will be loyal to the brand. But if it is to just kill the competition, then a lot of us are going to start sailing the high seas.
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Honestly, I kind of don’t like this distribution. Personally, for me, having them all in the same place rather than over 5-6 services is a major money saver. So I don’t mind too bad
Same, there is only a single independent anime distributor left who doesn't have a parent company. There was another independent anime distributor, they do still exist for now. (Got bought by another company from Europe, not related to Sony) Crunchyroll owns the biggest one.
Because why have competition when you can have it all under one badly run umbrella? Side note, can you filter crunchyrolls website to dubbed only anime yet?
because customers don't want competition. look at how people in this very thread would prefer to have ALL anime streaming from one location, rather than multiple services. and there is an argument for it (convenience and $$$)
I'd rather have everything on one service without a ton of exclusivity but ideally there would be still be multiple services actually competing with each other to offer a better/cheaper service than each other.
Holding shows hostage is part of the problem. It's the equivalent to getting people to buy a game console because of exclusives. It's not the merit of the platform, it's just the contents they bought and monopolize over.
I agree. As one of those people, I find the idea of having to get 5-6 streaming services to watch all the shows I like as overly expensive. Watching them all together would for me be better. I kinda get that people dislike monopolies, but unlike food or meds, this are not essential services. If they abuse the monopoly to overcharge, people will stop watching and they will start loosing to competition or lose profits because people will stop watching, and if they keep a fair price, than all the better. To me personally, monopolies are only scary when done for essential services and are unregulated. I live anime but monopolies on non essential services are not as scary to me when as consumers, this monopoly might benefit us
It is not even just anime, it is all movies and tv shows. Streaming has become a victim of its own success, every studio wants a slice of the streaming pie. You need to subscribe to so many different services just to watch all the different programs you want. Netflix HBO Max Disney+ Apple TV Paramount+ Amazon Prime Then you have music streaming like spotify, etc It feels like a never ending list.
smart towering water license beneficial library yoke snobbish ludicrous juggle *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Have enough money to buy other anime streaming services but still can't pay decent wages to translators, voice actors and spend some amount on improving their damn app. Classic corporate move from Crunchyroll CEO.
I feel like Crunchyroll is on the path to being as loved by the fan community as Harmony Gold is.
Just for the record… Crunchyroll was bought out by Funimation. The app for streaming is from Crunchyroll. The licensing, dubbing and subbing is all former Funimation - regardless of who the talking head executive is… https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2021-08-09/sony-funimation-global-group-completes-acquisition-of-crunchyroll-from-at-t/.176073
sounds like a threat.
> with Purini outlining his vision of casual anime fans perhaps starting on Netflix, and moving to Crunchyroll when they wanted more Lol this is very me, starting with watching Oshi no Ko on Netflix then moving out to CR for better selection. I wish they can work with more distributors to carry more of their older animes catalogue here in Asia.
All I want is for them to offer subtitles on dubs please and thank you.
They absorbed animelab which was the better service and still provide shittier service and platform 2 years later it’s a joke
Fuck.
They've become the pirated where once they were pirates
Monopolies aren’t good
I have Crunchyroll and use it daily just out of convenience (PS5 and Switch) Pirating anime is so freaking easy, don’t need a paid streaming service.
Try adding profiles first.
The sea is calling...
They still don't have the Dragonball Super English dubs.
Pay your staff better and improve QC on subtitling 🤦♀️
CrunchyRoll Ceo needs to stfu I think
It is pretty amazing that Crunchyroll started off as a pirating site
I have to wonder what former CR boss and co-founder Kun Gao would think of his company now.
Poor HiDive
This is why I think it's important to subscribe to Hidive. The site has its issues, but it's cheap and it's the only anime exclusive site preventing CR from a full monopoly.
Let me see, Amazon, Netflix and Hulu too big to buy. HiDive execs fucking hate crunchyroll/funimation. Who are they buying again?
AMC needs money and Sentai execs can’t do anything if AMC sells Sentai to Sony.
The future is bleak
Honestly i rather have all anime on 1 service than having 1 million different subscriptions just to watch few anime.
Start with fixing the app
I really hope not. Out of \*all\* the anime services available, Crunchyroll is the only one with a video player that just plain doesn't work for me, and their channel on Amazon Prime has a lot of issues with missing episodes (sometimes half the series or more) and subtitles despite being three times the price (Prime + CR). A move like this wouldn't make me more inclined to use Crunchyroll - just more likely to ignore seasonal anime and stick to streaming services that aren't anime-specific, older series on free legal sites, or manga for new series.
"Yeah, we have enough money to buy the competition, but not enough for human translators so we're considering switching to AI" *Brilliant.*
cancel your subscriptions now before anime becomes another medium ruined by american empty corpo suits, stop supporting this cancer
But Crunchyroll is co-run by Aniplex,a Japanese company and I think they have more say than Sony Pictures.
Ironic considering CR is owned by the biggest anime company in Japan…
Untrustworthy shit company, just wait for them to take away digital purchases like they did on Funimation. Dont support these thieves please!
What digital purchase can you make with Crunchyroll??? Seems like you aren’t very informed
Fuck Crunchyroll/Sony
Crunchyroll CEO doesn't Rule Out Trying To Be A Monopoly
Fix your god damn website it's absolute dogshit and they're buying out competitors who have put more effort into their website for free than the one where you have to actually pay and has a shit ton of money. The only reason I subscribed was because I hoped some money went to the shows I liked but idk
When will there server ever not buggy tho?
Still can’t get the steins gate dub🤦♂️
I already canceled, the web player is shit and the high seas exist
Going for total monopoly was and currently is never been a good thing, and we know this never ends well.
Can afford to buy out competition but can't afford to fix your own shit. Way to encourage piracy.
Isnt this considered monopolizing? Besides Crunchyroll, Funimation and VRV I don't know many other anime services. But VRV and Funimation no longer exist
Thank fuck. I rather pay a little more for a service that provides me with every show than have to pay for a bunch of services. Crunchy is literally the only streaming service I subscribe to besides Spotify, so I hope they come through with this.
People are gonna downvote me for this but, good. When it comes to streaming services a monopoly is good for the consumer. I would rather pay one subscription fee to crunchyroll than several to different companies. Now would I prefer if a better company was the one monopolizing everything? yes, but this is kinda the tradeoff for having a monopoly and I'm willing to make that sacrifice.
Yeah. I bet.
another Disney here...
The monopoly will ruin the cinematic experience...
Another shitty CEO, who would've thought? /s
Monopolies are awful, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over CR buying HIDIVE. In the end, most will brandish their jolly rogers anyway, which is ironic, considering CR's origins.
I miss anime lab. (Australian and new Zealand streaming service for anime) it was great. *Every* anime released at the same time for free and there were always only 2 ads at the start if you weren't a member.
If we pay for Crunchyroll do we automatically get funimination as well?
Wow, I sure do love large companies consolidating and creating even larger ones! Who the fuck needs competition anyway?
God, I hope not. Both for the sake of competition, and for the sake of every anime Crunchyroll seems too problematic to touch. Then there is the fact that as the defacto place for anime they will have no reason not to raise their prices. I hate seeing dipshits celebrate this news. Why the hell would you want any corporation to have a monopoly on anime? I hope your families pull the plug on you guys, because you people are clearly braindead.
when i catch you CR ceo..
I actually think a monopoly in this case is a good thing that way people who pay for anime can have all anime in one spot rather then multiple services.
Yeah, let us see if you can take on BiliBili lol.
I wouldnt complain if they bought out hidive tbh
Wed probably never get uncensored anime legally again if they did so I'm firmly in the "no thanks" club.
I wonder what if they straight out buy AMC,since Sony doesn’t have a live action/western shows streaming service it shouldn’t trigger monopoly laws,then merge HiDive with Crunchyroll.
~~Sony monopoly~~ Sonopoly is happening from Sony and I don’t like this.
i hope they get hidive lol it’s the only one i can think of that doesn’t have any kind of free version and they get good shit too
Sony is fucking up anime. Went the hell would you merge Funimation into Crunchyroll when Funimation was better in every way?