The process comes with some problems.
Summary:
- The Funimation app and website will cease to function on April 2, 2024.
- Crunchyroll promised fans a way to transfer their digital copies.
- Users are experiencing major difficulties with transferring anime series.
As part of Crunchyroll’s unification, the Funimation app and website will stop working on April 2, 2024, and fans have previously voiced their concerns about the merger.
Funimation is one of the most popular anime streaming services that has streamed tremendously popular series (One Piece, My Hero Academia, Attack on Titan), and a huge number of users have purchased their subscription.
The merger makes fans anxious
Ever since users found out about the Crunchyroll and Funimation merger, they’ve been worried about all the series that aren’t on Crunchyroll. The streaming service has made it clear that they are working on this issue, but the speed at which this is happening has left very few satisfied.
Rahul Purini, the president of Crunchyroll, promised that Funimation users would be able to transfer their digital copies to another streaming service and that customers who lose their digital libraries due to the merger would be compensated. However, fans seem to be having major difficulties with this process.
Fans can’t transfer series
Users complain that starting a support ticket with Funimation doesn’t actually lead anywhere. There are standard replies that waste fans’ time with pointless questions about account emails or suggestions to buy the Crunchyroll subscription.
It feels like they’re trying to delay helpful replies for as long as possible. Users say the support keeps asking them to provide the information they’ve already provided, and the entire conversation feels like the service is trying to make fans just give up. And when that doesn’t happen, they stop answering at all.
There’s hardly any information about users who’ve managed to receive digital codes that will allow them to transfer the series to another streaming service, and fans are getting worried because April 2 is just around the corner.
The only thing that fans have managed to get is a suggestion of a discount code for a Crunchyroll subscription, but it doesn’t leave them satisfied: they want the digital copies of the anime they’ve purchased.
There’s still hope that this is just a big misunderstanding and a matter of technical difficulties that is going to get fixed in the near future. Such a merger can’t possibly be an easy thing to do, so the Funimation support is swamped right now.
But if the situation doesn’t change, Crunchyroll will be in danger of a huge public outrage, and no one wants that to happen.