Full transcript of “Crunchyroll Gains an Unstoppable Monopoly on Anime with Mass Layoffs”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 Sony's Crunchroll makes layoffs as it restructures to lean into international growth markets. This news comes out a day after this news where Crunchroll partnered up with Delta Airlines to be able to stream anime episodes on backseat screens if you fly on a plane. And overall, from what I've seen from the conversation around this that came out yesterday, people were overwhelmingly happy. However, there was other news that kind of slid under the radar that came out literally the exact same day yesterday, and it was this news that was pointed out. Crunch is cancelling select right stuff anime back orders and forcing customers to pay a higher price to receive their back order. With the recent wave of reprints, especially with older viz titles, Crunchroll is cancelling back orders under the excuse of the reprint being a
0:45 different SKU and suggesting to reorder at a higher price. And basically, this information was gotten from, you know, emails and stuff. People that, you know, were trying to request for their back orders or having their back orders canceled. Crunch sent them, you know, an email and this is what people have gotten as responses. Feel free to pause the video to read it for yourself. But basically, Crunchel alongside of this news that came out with Delta Airlines, they were now apparently cancelling back orders, which is pretty scummy because obviously what Manga Alerts here kind of points out, and I'm going to scroll down here, he does a too long to not read to kind of summarize the entire situation, which is um right here. So, too long to not read. Crunch rolls incompetence really showed up with these recent reprints. And instead of doing the right thing by honoring the price as they've done recently, they rather cancel your
1:31 order and charge you more for something you've already paid for. Disgusting behavior. So pretty much there's no reason for this. They're using excuses to cancel it. And to give context why this even happened to begin with. For instance, why these promises of, you know, back orders and happened is because about a year and a half, two years ago, Crunch or Sony bought out Right Stuff, which was a massive anime merchandise store, basically selling manga, selling figures, stuff like that. It was a pretty big store. It was like one of the biggest, you know, stores you can actually buy anime goods or manga goods and stuff in the West. And Sony bought it out. I made videos talking about that and how, you know, it was Sony building itself a monopoly. I talked already at that time about two years ago about how they bought out Funimation. You know, how that Funimation was consumed in the Crunch
2:17 Roll, you know, how we had the whole thing with Crunchel, you know, assuming a monopoly, Sony gaining a monopoly in the west, there was no one really being able to compete with them. And then obviously they were going to probably keep branching out and smothering the market to where they control more. And so basically at that time when right stuff was consumed, it was stated by Crunch Roll or Sony that they would honor the back orders or the pre-orders that people did on Right Stuff and they would give them through the Crunch Roll site or under the Crunch Roll name. That was what was stated a while ago. And I believe back in November, I believe manga alerts here actually even states that like back in November they started to honor that and give back, you know, back orders and stuff. But obviously just randomly within like this week, Crunchroll decided to cancel back orders and try to get more money out of you. So
3:03 regardless if this the excuse is legit or not, like if they're telling the truth about SKUs or whatever, it really is messed up, especially when there was already a promise made by the company a long time ago. A promise made that they would honor the uh the, you know, actual back orders or pre-orders people made. And the fact that they're just cancelling stuff and then making you pay more to be able to get the same product is just straight up scum. It is. And what makes this news so relevant and why I'm talking about this first is because obviously this news comes out after this article came out today, which I opened the video up with. Sony making mass layoffs and restructuring to lean into international growth markets. Now, why this is relevant and why I'm mentioning everything here is because this is a paper trail of clearly some signs or
3:50 patterns that something is going on at Crunchroll and not necessarily good things at all. Now, many people might look at this news as a welcome thing, something good, because obviously Crunchroll has built up quite a negative reputation over the years. It has. I've talked about them negatively. A lot of content creators have, a lot of people on social media have. I think in general the anime and manga community do have a negative reception of crunch roll. Not just because let's say the anime awards or anything like that, but just how they handle things to bad translations, localization, how they treat their workers, how they steal mel, you know, all these different controversies that build up over time. It has stained their name and a lot of people just have a lot of animosity for them. And so a lot of people are going to look at this news of layoffs within Crunch Roll as a good
4:36 thing because they're like, "Yeah, the people I don't like is getting fired." And most likely there will be people that you dislike probably getting fired from Crunch Roll. But what this is doing is showcasing something that is much more sinister and leading into something much worse as it continues going on. First off, we need to talk about why the layoffs are being made. First off, we know that a bunch of different companies within tech and entertainment industry uh for years now, for the last like year and a half, two years now, they've been laying off a lot of employees. For instance, like Microsoft is a good example as of late. Microsoft laying off employees. I believe Sony has laid off some employees. You know, you you have these different companies, these tech companies laying off employees to be able to save money because it's no longer COVID era time. You know, they're not mass-producing as much as they used to and so production and stuff is winding down. Now obviously Crunchroll
5:23 as a service is a little bit different from let's say the gaming industry obviously but the point is is we have seen mass layoffs as the economy is hurting as you know companies can't realistically keep up paying thousands upon thousands of workers they need to lay people off and so this is more or less even if Crunch straight up denies it within this article themselves that isn't a cost you know effective saving method it definitely is and the reason why we can believe that or why they're lying why Crunch is lying about it is because the whole situation with the, you know, back orders, but also with Delta Airlines. Here's the thing. This partnership with Delta Airlines, everybody can know this. You don't have to be like, you know, massive into financing or economics or money or anything. This partnership with Delta probably costed a lot of money. It did.
6:10 The fact that you will be able to stream over 50,000 plus episodes and titles and stuff on airlines or Delta in this case is a pretty big deal. It's it's technically a massive win for anime, but the thing is is to be able to accomplish like that, the licensing and the different companies involved or in this case Japan involved as well and everything, it was probably just a legal nightmare. And so to be able to actually accomplish something like this is an impressive feat, but it definitely costed a lot of money. And I feel like because of how much money this potentially cost, Crunch Roll is having to make some uh sacrifices in some areas. And obviously this just could be like, you know, an ironic coincidence, but there definitely is reasons to believe that most likely the layoffs are
6:55 in fact due to maybe Crunch not having as much money as they would like to be able to expand their business. Now, one of the big things that this article tries to point out is the reason for why they're expanding or restructuring to focus on international growth markets. They straight up outline in this article that they're not necessarily focusing on the United States. They're focusing on stuff like Brazil for instance or Mexico, South America and all stuff like that to focus on those audiences and India as well which might seem like a good thing because obviously there would be more access to anime and stuff within these different regions. But this what this is a a big sign for is a canary situation, a canary and a coal mine that Crunch is now putting its tendrils into other countries and assuming a monopoly
7:41 around the world. Because as I've talked about, you know, months ago, one of the only companies that technically is currently challenging crunch that is just strictly anime is High Dive. And High Dive had some pretty bad news almost a year ago to where they had to kind of pull out of certain regions because they just didn't have the money to operate anymore. And it's very clear that Crunch Roll is choking them out. It is. They're they're suffocating the market with the merchandise and everything to now licensing of dubs and anime and stuff. They're choking High Dive out of the business. And if they start seeping into these other markets like Mexico, Brazil or just like in India and stuff, it will choke high dive out of those regions as well if they do operate in those regions or other competitors. So Crunchroll is gaining more of a monopoly and we're getting to see a continued increase or ramp up of
8:29 what they've already been doing for years at this point, but it's reaching into the next level. They've already se their tendrils into the American market and now they can start seeping it into other countries around the world. Basically, the monopoly is becoming even more integrated and even more stronger as time goes on. Now, here's the thing. Regardless if you like this or not, it's probably going to happen. Now, there is something else I want to talk about that is relevant to this subject matter with Crunch Roll, and that is the stuff with Kadakawa. So, a few days ago, there was another bit of information that came out about Kadakawa and what they're trying to do for the anime and manga industry. In this case, it is the manga industry. And this is what they had to say. Not all manga has to be from Japan. Major manga publisher Kadakawa looks for new manga artists overseas amidst labor shortage. Now, at first glance, if
9:16 you're not really aware of this conversation, this might seem like good a good thing. You know, more people having opportunities to write manga, draw manga, it seems like overall it's a net positive. However, what's really worrying about this and what a lot of people are pointing out is that there's no way, first of all, there is an actual shortage, a labor shortage of people wanting to make manga in Japan. If they were to say like anime for instance, like trying to get animators, that is believable, especially with all the freelancers around the world that is now being forced to work on anime. But as for manga in general, that is just a straightup lie. We know that is it just it's there's no way. It's completely unbelievable. It is a outright lie. However, why this is very interesting and why this is being viewed as a negative thing is because the CEO of
10:01 Kadakawa has been known to try to censor manga. They're very well known to basically try to censor manga and focus on Western ideals instead of making, let's say, manga Japanese, focusing on why manga is popular, focusing on why anime is popular. The CEO has a track record of trying to bend over and basically do what the West does, try to become basically like the next Disney or the MCU. You kind of get the point. They want to become like that, or at least the CEO tried to do that a while back, which got rightfully called out for it by the Japanese community and the Western community and backed off. And that was years ago. And since it's been so long and let's be honest, the internet has a very short attention span and memory, most likely a lot of people
10:48 has forgotten about this this situation here with the CEO of Kodakawa. And so basically with this announcement, it's very clear that it's kind of different, but it's similar enough to where we've already seen with what Kodakawa said a few days ago that they wanted to up like scale or production of actual budgets for anime. They mentioned that in an article a few days ago. And then you have this on top of that. It's very clear what Kadakawa is doing. They're trying to gear up and make their stuff as appealing as possible for a wide audience and basically lose why anime and manga became popular to begin with. And why this is relevant to the subject matter of Crunchyroll is because we know at the beginning of this year and the end of last year, Crunchyroll or Sony in this case bought a chunk of Kadakawa. And there was fears that Kadakawa would be completely bought out by Sony. And
11:33 there still is that fear. It might happen eventually. And if Kodakawa was to one day be bought out by Sony, it would just spell the end. For instance, for any competition because Kodakawa has just so much under their belt that if Sony fully controlled them, there would be no competition. The only way you could have competition at that point is if there was literally a law that came in to break Sony/Crunch up because of a monopoly. That would be it. The government would have to step in because there would be no competition. there would be no way to compete with them with their infrastructure and their control, not just on the Japanese market if they had Katakawa, but the Western market as well. And if we're led to believe what this article even goes into as well, besides them just trying to go into different countries, but even creating a manga subscription service this year, apparently they're going to be directly trying to beat out or just
12:19 smother Viz Media as well that translates Weekly Shonen Jump manga. And regardless if you like the translations of weekly shown and jump manga or not, like official, it doesn't change the fact that Centrol is obviously gaining an iron grip and they are gaining a lot more control over the markets around the world and it's going relatively unnoticed. I mean, people have talked about it, but it's not as known as it should be and it should concern a lot of people and we're continuously seeing this the escalation of it and this escalation showcases that. It's a clear sign that Crunchroll is trying to save money in different ways, but also trying to expand their business to where there is nobody that really can compete with them. And there definitely needs to be someone that can rein them in, for instance, these governments and stuff, because they shouldn't have this much control over these markets. And they do. They already have too much control. But
13:04 I'll leave it at that. I want to wrap up this video here. Thank you so much for watching. Leave a like if you enjoyed the video. Leave a comment for the algorithm. Does help out the video be noticed by different people. And I'll see you guys tomorrow. Chibi out.
