Sony's Crunchyroll Finds Its Early Lead in Anime Under Attack
Disney and Netflix are expanding in the popular Japanese cartoon genre
Illustration: Ari Liloan
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At first glance, Sony Group Corp.’s $1.2 billion acquisition of the anime streaming site Crunchyroll in 2021 looks like a success. Subscribers to the $8-a-month service have tripled to 15 million since then, and the number of new shows has doubled to more than 50 every quarter.
But the rising popularity of anime — Japanese cartoons featuring complex plots and colorful characters — has attracted competition. Netflix Inc., Walt Disney Co. and Amazon.com Inc. are all digging into their deep pockets to license shows, making it more expensive for Crunchyroll to compete and giving fans less reason to subscribe to the niche service.
