Crunchyroll has long been one of the most popular anime streaming services on the planet, with an estimated 17 million users regularly watching from a selection of over 1,000 shows and movies. While other major streaming services have stepped up their game in recent years, countless fans still prefer the service that focuses primarily on anime.
However, Crunchyroll is no stranger to controversy. In October 2025, fans noticed a major step-down in the quality of Crunchyroll’s translations and subtitle formatting, which led to a statement being released by the company addressing the criticism. Now, only months later, fans are irate once more at the latest disappointing update from the streaming service.
Crunchyroll Walks Back on Its Promises; Cancels Anime and Manga Backorders
In 2022, it was announced that Right Stuf, a long-time distributor of anime products, would be merged into the Crunchyroll Store, expanding the selection of goods available from Crunchyroll. The next year, Right Stuf officially ceased operation, and Crunchyroll informed users it would fulfill any outstanding purchases.
Unfortunately, it appears Crunchyroll is walking back on its promises, as fans are reporting that their orders and any charges are being canceled. In place of their ordered items, the store is offering a discount code redeemable on the Crunchyroll Store site.
Crunchyroll’s New App Is Already Facing Major Backlash
Crunchyroll Manga is an exciting prospect for fans of the medium, but it comes with an unfortunate catch, as some have already noticed.
The affected items appear to include certain printings of manga volumes from Viz Media, including Yu-Gi-Oh! R and The Testament of Sister New Devil Storm!, as reported by X-user MangaAlerts. The root cause of the cancellations is currently unknown, as fans have yet to find any sort of discernible pattern among the affected items.
Crunchyroll has yet to address the cancellations in a formal statement, as fans are once again taking to social media to voice their criticisms of the streaming service.
Crunchyroll Has Found Itself at the Center of Yet Another Controversy
Following a somewhat rocky finish to the year for Crunchyroll, it hasn’t taken long for the streaming titan to once again find itself in controversy. The October 2025 drama concerning the quality of subtitles and localization had fans on edge for another reason. Reports surfaced revealing Crunchyroll’s transition to Israeli-based localization platform, Ooona.
The move raised questions about the future of localization and the possible continued diminishing quality of subtitles on Crunchyroll’s service. Fans also expressed suspicion about the involvement of AI-generated translations in the service’s recent translation hiccups.
Crunchyroll remains one of the biggest anime streaming services in the world, though its recent string of controversies is putting the anime community on high alert.
- founded
-
May 14, 2006
- notable shows
-
In/Spectre, Tower of God, Blade Runner: Black Lotus, Shenmue the Animation
Crunchyroll is a North American-based streaming service owned by Sony that focuses largely on Japanese anime but also covers several East Asian drama series. The service is available in several countries and has a small catalog of self-created and published series, with most of its content licensed with partners overseas.
