Funimation is shutting down — and taking your digital library with it - In which the anime fandom learns to own nothing and be happy

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Crunchyroll is shutting down Funimation for good on April 2, 2024. Former Funimation users will not be able to access digital copies previously purchased through that service. Also, legacy subscription prices will increase, nearly by double in many cases ($54.95 to $99.99 annually).

Original | archive

Funimation is shutting down — and taking your digital library with it​

Funimation is migrating existing subscribers to Crunchyroll when it shuts down in April.​

By Emma Roth, a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.
Feb 8, 2024, 4:03 PM UTC

Funimation is shutting down on April 2nd, 2024. The anime streaming service will start migrating existing subscribers to Crunchyroll — a move that will not only affect subscription prices, but will also wipe digital libraries.
A support page on Funimation’s website says the service will automatically transfer existing subscribers to Crunchyroll, noting that the transfer “may vary depending on your specific payment platform, subscription type and region.” But the page — unhelpfully — doesn’t say how much subscribers will have to pay following the transition, only that legacy subscribers will see a price increase. You’ll have to check your email to see how much you’ll have to pay.

Since I’m a legacy subscriber, my price is going up. Instead of paying $5.99 per month for the Funimation Premium Plus plan I was grandfathered into, I’ll have to pay $9.99 per month for Crunchyroll’s Mega Fan plan. (For some reason, my email lists my new price as $12.49 Canadian, which is how much Canadian users have to pay for the Mega Fan plan.)

I’m not the only one getting a price increase, either. In a post on X, one user says they’ll see their yearly subscription price go from $54.95 to $99.99. However, the user notes that they were also grandfathered into an older Funimation plan, which is why the price hike is so steep. Another user on the same legacy plan as me will also see the same jump from $5.99 to $9.99 per month. We’ve reached out to Crunchyroll for more clarification about the new prices Funimation subscribers will have to pay but didn’t immediately hear back.

To make matters worse, Crunchyroll won’t support the digital copies redeemed through Funimation. This promotion allowed users to redeem digital copies of a Funimation Blu-ray or DVD they purchased, giving them the ability them to store and view the show or movie through the streaming service. Funimation said users could keep the copies “forever” — but that’s clearly not the case now.

According to Funimation’s support page, Crunchyroll “does not currently support Funimation Digital copies, which means that access to previously available digital copies will not be supported.” In other words, all those digital copies are going away, too, which is a massive bummer for anyone who purchased — and later sold — eligible DVDs or Blu-rays, hoping to store the digital copies on Funimation forever.
The writing has been on the wall for Funimation for quite some time. When Sony acquired Crunchyroll in 2021, it made plans to combine Crunchyroll and Funimation into a single streaming service. After that, Crunchyroll inherited a huge library of content from Funimation — but Funimation remained online, while still adding episodes of continuing series. We didn’t know when Funimation was going to shut down until now.

If you’re interested in transferring to a Crunchyroll subscription, there are instructions on the support page about how to transfer your watch history and queue. As for myself, I’m likely going to cancel my subscription. The only reason why I kept Funimation was because I’m on a legacy $5.99 per month plan — making it the cheapest ad-free streaming service I have amid rising prices across the entire industry. Sure, Funimation’s playback controls and UI aren’t all that great, but I’ll miss using the app to get my fill of nostalgia from Dragon Ball Z or to catch up with new episodes of My Hero Academia.
 
People mock me for still collecting piles of DVDs and VHS of media I enjoy, but whenever I see this shit it makes me glad I don't rely on streaming services for anything I give a fuck about.
Not as applicable to anime, but I literally found a place that sells DVDs and Blu-rays for $2 a piece and even less than that when buying them in bulk. It's really fucking nice to not have that subscription bullshit in the back of my mind
 
Crunchyroll is shutting down Funimation for good on April 2, 2024. Former Funimation users will not be able to access digital copies previously purchased through that service.
I suspect there's a lawsuit in there, and, knowing the first places anime became popular, I'm absolutely sure one of them can afford to do so.
Purchasing a company doesn't void its legal requirements.

Nyaa and AB bro.
Streaming services ramping up their destruction of people's access are going to produce a major resurgence in torrenting.
 
Nyaa and AB bro.
AB is hard to get into, even if you have the time to hunt for invites or fellate some tranny on irc.
If I were to give advice to some streaming zoomy fag, I would give the following link from /t/ https://boards.4chan.org/t/thread/1224352
You have a basic bitch list of resources, and after that, it's up to them were they want to go and weeb out.
Become torrent chads and renounce the virgin faggoty streams!
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Now, on to the topic at hand.
Wasn't Funimation that ones that intentionally used bad translation to insert pozzed talking points? I know there was talk of something like this some time ago, so I'm not sure if it was them or some other group.
 
People mock me for still collecting piles of DVDs and VHS of media I enjoy, but whenever I see this shit it makes me glad I don't rely on streaming services for anything I give a fuck about.
I took all my anime DVDs to goodwill and just converted to an all digital collection. But I honestly don't even rewatch anime so having the DVDs was pointless.

I paid for CR for a while but then shit started getting split between netflix, funi, amazon, and hulu, that it became impossible to keep up with everything. That and i'm not paying for censored shit.
 
Wasn't Funimation that ones that intentionally used bad translation to insert pozzed talking points? I know there was talk of something like this some time ago, so I'm not sure if it was them or some other group.
Yeah, they were. @The Carpet Crawler mentioned Miss Kobayshi's Dragon Maid but you can see some of the stuff like at this this Reddit post.

Tohru: "What's with that outfit?"
Lucoa: "Everyone was always saying something to me, so I tried toning down the exposure. How is it?"
Tohru: "You should try changing your body next."
Tohru: "What are you wearing that for?"
Lucoa: "Oh, those pesky patriarchal societal demands were getting on my nerves, so I changed clothes."
Tohru: "Give it a week, they'll be begging you to change back."
 
>paying for anime in 2024
View attachment 5705108

All these articles about how whatever crooked ripoff service is taking away what you paid for can't state that piracy is an option. So when I read them I just roll my eyes at all the normies who don't realise that they never should have paid for subscription based digital copies of anything. Once that service is dead or they lose a license for something, your glorified rental is gone.

This is why I lament the death of physical media. Because now they will just nickel and dime you for every show and movie you want to watch until it goes poof one day and the service still has your money. You bought nothing. You owned nothing. You paid for the privilege of borrowing something that can be taken back at any time because reasons.
 
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