What about all of the series?
Summary:
- The Funimation app and website will stop working on April 2, 2024 as part of Crunchyroll’s unification.
- There are still a lot of series missing on Crunchyroll.
- Fans have worries about the upcoming merger.
Funimation has undergone some significant changes in the last 7 years. First, the service and its parent company were acquired by Sony. Then, Funimation Global Group had a large majority of its catalog moved to Crunchyroll.
Now it’s time to say goodbye to Funimation whatsoever, since its app and website will stop working on April 2, 2024 as part of Crunchyroll’s unification.
Funimation users have received an official email stating that they can migrate their watch history and queue to Crunchyroll, and if they already have a Crunchyroll account, both accounts will be merged.
What is to happen to the series?
The thing that bothers fans the most is, of course, various anime series. First of all, not all of them have been transferred to Crunchyroll, and viewers are scared to lose the opportunity to finish watching their current shows.
On top of that, there are issues with the anime that have been transferred. For example, fans mention such series as Hyouka that’s missing episodes on Crunchyroll, or Steins;Gate which still lacks English dubbing.
This is very puzzling to fans, as it’s been years since the merger began, and Steins;Gate is one of the most popular and high-scored anime you can find, so leaving it without a proper dubbing feels extremely weird.
Fans mention over 100 anime series that haven’t been added to Crunchyroll or are missing such things as OVAs, dubbing or even whole seasons. Even such immensely popular series as Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji) are not fully available, and there’s still only the Book of the Atlantic movie.
Some series might be forgotten
There are also concerns about smaller and less popular titles that are Funimation exclusives. Fans are anxious about them being forgotten and their contracts never being renewed. If that happens, they’ll never be transferred to Crunchyroll, and viewers will have to find other ways of accessing them. Mostly illegal ones, unfortunately.
No one wants to lose an easy and legal way of accessing anime series, so the concern is understandable. Fans were told that it would take months for the merger to fully happen, and yet it’s been years and the results are upsetting. Crunchyroll is still missing tons of stuff, and viewers just can’t see a way of resolving this issue until April 2.
Fans have also got concerns about the digital copies they purchased on Funimation, since Crunchyroll does not currently support them, which means fans will lose access to them once Funimation stops working.
We’re hoping Crunchyroll will be able to solve all of the issues in the future, but we fear it will take months and maybe even years until the entire process is finished.