Crunchyroll Is Launching A Free 24-Hour Anime Channel In The US

Oliver Brandt
·2 min read

Everyone’s favorite anime streaming service Crunchyroll announced that it’s taking the leap into the realm of television. The Sony-owned company announced today on the Crunchyroll blog that it will be launching a 24/7 anime channel on some internet TV services, with the channel already live on some platforms.

The Crunchyroll channel will be available on Amazon Freevee, LG Channels, The Roku Channel, and VIZIO WatchFree+ from today, with other services seemingly to be added in the future. The channel is a collaboration between Crunchyroll and Game Show Network, another subsidiary of Sony Pictures, although unlike other GSN channels, it doesn’t seem like it will be available through cable and satellite services.

Programming on the channel will include a host of English-dubbed anime, including Horimiya, Ranking of Kings, Moriarty the Patriot, Psycho-Pass, Arifurete, Sugar Apple Fairytale, To Your Eternity, and Code Geass. Crunchyroll says that promotional, genre, and themed programming blocks will appear on the channel in the future, though it seems like it’ll be limited to dubbed anime.

Related: Crunchyroll Just Made Heaps of Anime Free

The channel has had a mixed reaction from fans, who on the one hand appreciate a free way to watch anime, but aren’t happy with its advertising model. Some Twitter users say that the ad-supported nature of the channel is problematic, with ads playing seemingly at random, often interrupting scenes.

For the moment, it seems like the channel is only live in the US, and Crunchyroll hasn’t mentioned any plans to launch it outside of North America at this stage. We’d imagine that licensing for different countries would be quite difficult to manage, so you probably shouldn’t expect to see it outside of the US anytime soon.

The news comes just one day after it was revealed that US Crunchyroll users can get $30 after a class action settlement. The anime streaming giant was accused in a class action lawsuit of improperly disclosing users’ information to third parties in permission, although the company denied wrongdoing and chose to settle “to avoid the uncertainties and expenses with continuing the case.”