Crunchyroll Head Says, "We Are Very Bullish About the Overall Growth of Anime"

Crunchyroll Head Says, “We Are Very Bullish About the Overall Growth of Anime”

Danica Davidson January 7, 2025

Over the years Sony has gotten increasingly involved with anime, and this was highlighted yesterday at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Top people at the company presented on stage: Crunchyroll President Rahul Purini, Aniplex President Atsuhiro Iwakami, and the President and COO over all of Sony, Hiroki Totoki.

“There are many more opportunities for Sony companies to collaborate around anime at a global scale,” Iwakami said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter prior to CES.

Totoki gave a statement to The Hollywood Reporter as well, saying, “Sony is committed to enriching the fan experience, by transforming fan-favorite stories into anime and bringing them to a worldwide audience.”

The men used the opportunity of CES to reveal that Crunchyroll and Aniplex have teamed up to adapt The Ghost of Tsushima video game into an anime. Crunchyroll is also dipping its toes into the manga world again, by offering a new manga app. Purini said about the app, “Crunchyroll Manga will be a premiere online manga app that carries catalogs from renowned publishers, offering fans unparalleled access to the visionary works that inspire the anime we love.”

Purini also noted, “We are very bullish about the overall growth of anime and what that means for us.”

The Hollywood Reporter article highlighted Crunchyroll’s successes, like having 15 million subscribers, and pointed out the growing popularity of anime, especially with Gen Z, and almost half of Gen Z fans watch at least one anime a week.

The successful picture painted here was quite different from the more bleak story recently reported at Bloomberg, where 18 anonymous current and former Crunchyroll employees alleged that top people in the company didn’t understand anime, among other complaints.

Iwakami expressed excitement in bringing Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle to theaters in America and around the globe. Purini also spoke about the possibilities of “collaborat[ing] across all of the Sony Group companies to serve anime fans and creators.”

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

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Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin, plus its sequel, Manga Art for Everyone, and the first-of-its-kind manga chalk book Chalk Art Manga, both illustrated by professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.