WarnerMedia’s Crunchyroll Makes History With 5 Million OTT Subscribers!

We should actually be saying “Sony’s Crunchyroll Makes History With 5 Million OTT Subscribers”, but since the sale of the anime exclusive OTT platform to the Japanese conglomerate has been blocked by the DOJ of the United States – this is where we are at for now. Still, it doesn’t change the fact – as of Tuesday, Crunchyroll surpassed 5 million registered OTT subscribers – making it the only anime exclusive streaming platform to have over 5 million subscribers (As far as we know).

Besides the 5 million subscribers, Crunchyroll also has over 120 million registered users, viewing some of their content for free. The streaming service had surpassed four million subscribers and 100 million registered users, back in February – so this turnaround has been astounding. Crunchyroll is currently Netflix’s biggest International competitor (it was the other way around sometime back) when it comes to attracting users with quality anime content.

If (or when) Sony’s procurement of Crunchyroll is allowed, then we are looking at anime the likes of Attack on Titan, Fullmetal Alchemist, One Piece and much more, which Sony has the licenses off, through Funimation (another anime streaming service) to join the extensive library of Crunchyroll. The popularity of these three anime alone is staggering and we would very likely see an immediate rise in subscriptions. Like another million subscribers joining Crunchyroll in a month, popular.

Add to the fact that Zoe Saldana will now be part of a Crunchyroll original series, ‘Dark Star Squadron’, we can expect even more registrations. ‘Dark Star Squadron’ is expected to be a space opera animated series which will be written by Todd Ludy. Cinestar Pictures’ Zoe Saldana, Cisely Saldana, and Mariel Saldana will come on board as executive producers.