Crunchyroll Partners Up With Walmart to Stock Anime Merchandise

Summary

• Crunchyroll and Walmart team up to sell anime merch.
• The partnership will last from the holiday season of 2023 and throughout 2024 in 2400 locations across the US.
• The merch will include Blu-rays, figures, plushies, and more.
• Fans have different reactions, from suspicious to happy.

Crunchyroll is a very popular streaming service that is available all over the world and that is the go-to streaming service for many anime fans. It has been announced that Crunchyroll will partner with Walmart to sell anime merch.

Collaboration Details

Crunchyroll and Walmart will be collaborating since the Holiday season of 2023 and throughout 2024, when merch will be refreshed. A total of 2400 Walmart locations will carry the merch, all in the US. The merch itself will be mostly of well-known, popular titles like Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin), Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Yaiba), and Naruto. It makes sense financially, even though it means that merch for lesser-known anime will not be available.

The Merchandise

The promised merch includes various products, from Blu-rays to figurines to plushies to vinyl records. The Blu-rays include those of Dragon Ball Z and My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia). Manga will also be sold, especially for big titles like Attack on Titan. Overall, the Walmart locations that carry this merch will be very attractive to those who like the big names in the anime world. This partnership will make anime merchandise more accessible to the US fans.

Fan Reactions

While some fans still hope that more obscure titles might make it onto the shelves of Walmart, it’s not very likely to happen. This issue of focusing on the merch that is most likely to sell pushes away a lot of fans, especially since popular anime makes its way on T-shirts anyway.

Some fans are cautious because of Walmart’s reputation as a rather bad place for employees. While Crunchyroll likely focuses on the accessibility of the merch (as well as profit, of course), some fans question the decision to partner up specifically with Walmart. Additionally, a lot of fans who live in the middle of nowhere worry that they will not have a partnered Walmart location to visit.

However, many fans are hopeful and happy at the thought of their favorite anime merch being available at Walmart, making it very accessible to them.