Crunchyroll is an American on-demand video subscription platform owned by Sony Group Corporation. The service started in 2006 with a specialization in hosting East Asian content specifically the Japanese world of animation. It is the best mainstream place to catch up with old and new anime series. Therefore, it’s hard to believe that someone is an anime fan and hasn’t heard about ‘Crunchyroll’. The article below explains the Crunchyroll review including its key features and anime collections.
The streamer offers more than 1,000 anime shows, almost 200 East Asian dramas in 10 different languages, and over 80 manga titles ‘Crunchyroll Manga’. Moreover, by the previous year, the app had reached approximately 10 million subscriptions. The only issue is that its content library is restricted according to the region where you have subscribed to watch. For detailed analysis let’s have a look at the Crunchyroll review below.
Crunchyroll Review: Pros and Cons
Pros | Cons |
Expansive anime content library | No captions are included on English dubs |
Few original series | Some works overlap with Hulu |
Permits offline download | Not suitable for families with parental control issues |
All tiers support HD-quality streaming | |
Have started adding Funimation dubs | |
Contains numerous simulcast shows | |
Watchlists are customizable |
Crunchyroll Review: Key Features
The most unique feature of Crunchyroll is its “Crunchylist” system, so you can add your anime to the custom lists in addition to the regular watchlist. For instance, if you want to make a list of entire isekai fantasy or currently airing simulcasts for yourself, you can easily do that. Hence, you can organize everything to avoid the unorganized overstimulation of a normal watchlist. Let’s deep dive into the other beneficial aspects Crunchyroll comes within the below section of Crunchyroll review;
Immense Anime Content Library
The most prominent aspect explained in this Crunchyroll review is that you can not only stream anime on the site but also get them to watch quite quickly. This is because Crunchyroll broadcasts a series within an hour of its screening in Japan. Some of these simulcast shows are Black Cover, My Hero Academia, and Ace of Diamon. There are lots of other options as well, like classics, original programming, or whatever your taste matches with. Moreover, to never miss a current episode of your favorite show keep checking the simulcast calendar of the app.
Simultaneous Streams
Another prominent feature we are highlighting in this Crunchyroll review is, that the different subscription packages of the site permit versatile stream options. With a free trial, you are only allowed one streaming option; with the Ultimate Fan package, you can have 6 profiles simultaneously. Therefore, you can share your screen with friends and family so that everyone can watch whatever they like from the anime world. Mega Fan tier or Ultimate Fan is a suitable choice for a large family or group of roommates.
Audio and Video Quality
The audio and video quality of the app is good enough with 1080p maximum resolution. This is the reason this video and audio quality aspect is highlighted in the Crunchyroll review. It can automatically get set to 720p or 1080p according to the requirements of your selected content. You can also manually make the settings to video quality according to your system’s compatible resolution option. In case you want to save data for more anime, bump down the resolution to 240p.
Free Trial
You can select a free plan while signing up for the site, to get access to the ad-supported limited amount of content library. Although, to enjoy a premium life taste with an ad-free entire catalog you can sign up for a premium subscription featured with a 14-day free trial. A free trial allows the customers to have a deep look into available content so they can make better decisions.
Harness Features
Crunchyroll’s watchlist may seem straightforward on the surface but it does have something unique for web and mobile users, which we have explained in this Crunchyroll review. When You tap on the Watchlist or My List icon You’ll find the basic watchlist you have added. But if you go through the Crunchylists, you can create 10 different lists with the capacity of holding 100 titles in each.
An important aspect that this Crunchyroll review explains is the history feature of the app. The feature can be found under the main menu section/watchlist, which allows you to check your watched shows or titles you have started but didn’t finish. It means you can continue watching any of your favorite show episodes directly through the history section. The history section can track multiple episodes of the same series, you can pick either recent ones or previous episodes as per your preference.
Crunchyroll Review: What Type of Content is Available?
The library of Crunchyroll is quite large with two subdivisional categories Drama and Anime. Distribution of the shows contains many genres for instance adventure, drama, action, fantasy, comedy, mystery, music, romance, and Sci-fi. Besides, the top releases are Death Note, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Attack on Titan, Naruto series, One-Punch Man, Yuri, Hunter X Hunter, and FLCL.
There are also numerous original anime productions including In/Spectra, A Place Further Than the Universe, and The Rising of the Shield Hero. Some upcoming originals of Crunchyroll are Onyx Equinox which has a Meso-American basis, and Meiji Gekken: Sword and Gun about the 1870s era in Japan.
Anime on Crunchyroll
A notable point of this Crunchyroll review is that no other contemporary platform can beat the enormous anime library of this site. Some of them may support some famous anime series like Pokemon, but can’t come near the huge amount of relevant shows Crunchyroll has. Instead, it has absorbed numerous rival content ideas like gluttonous cosmic horror, and many others as well.
Some of the renowned Crunchyroll anime are:
- Ace Attorney
- The World Ends with You
- One Piece
- SPY x Family
- Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!
- My Hero Academia
- Dngan Ronpa
- Attack on Titan
- Mob Psycho 100
The latest simulcasts on Crunchyroll are:
- The Fire Hunter
- Tomo-Chan is a Girl!
- VINLAND SAGA
- NieR: Automata Ver1.1a
- Buddy Daddies
Manga on Crunchyroll
Manga other than anime are a treat to get on Crunchyroll although they are of no comparison to the number of anime collections. Still, you can have some big manga titles on it, some titles are given in this Crunchyroll review, such as;
- SPACE PETROL LULUCO
- Fairy Tail
- The Grim Reaper and an Argent Cavalier
- Space Brothers
- Fire Force
- KIZNAIVER
- Girl May Kill
- Genshin Impact
- That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slim
- Crossing Time
- Arakawa Under the Bridge
Crunchyroll Review: Subscription Packages and Prices
This site in contrast to opponents includes a Free subscription package other than three paid plans. The free plan can be a great option for those who want to have fun with little content. However, if you are a fan then you should pick a suitable paid option for unlimited watch time and options. Let’s have a look at the plans and their features explained in this Crunchyroll review;
Plan | Free Plan | Fan | Mega Fan | Ultimate Fan |
Price | No Price | $7.99/ per month | $9.99/ per month | $14.99/ per month |
Allowed Catalog | Limited Content | Full | Full | Full |
Streaming Options | One | One | Four | Six |
Offline viewing | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Crunchyroll Web Interface
The color scheme of the Crunchyroll web features a distinctive color scheme of orange, white, and grey. However, every page contains a massive amount of information making the interface more like an online board forum rather than a dedicated streaming app. At the top menu bar can be located to navigate Shows, News, Games, Store, and Manga. Further, there’s a button at the upper right corner for your Queue, for unknown show episodes you can see a Random button and a profile icon.
Crunchyroll on Mobile
The color scheme is quite similar to the web and creates a consistent look with orange and white colors. All menu bars appear at the top corners, including the search bar on one side and the account settings option on the other. You can search through the section Home, New, then Anime, and Manga Shop. The only customization is that you can switch between language options and view the quality of manga.