Crunchyroll Logo
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4.1

Overall Score

LAST UPDATED: January 12th, 2024

Crunchyroll provides anime on demand giving users access to thousands of hours of videos and different episodes of popular Asian content. This online service was founded by UC Berkley graduates in 2006. There are more than 5 million users of Crunchyroll's online service. 

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The Good

  • Device availability
  • Premium options
  • Great user experience

Variety of Streaming Devices

Crunchyroll works on a large variety of streaming devices such as, WiiU, Chromecast, XBox One, XBox 360, PlayStation 3, 4 and Vita, Apple iOS, Windows Phone, Apple TV, Google TV, Roku.

Plenty of Content

While Crunchyroll is designed for a very niche market, there is a lot of content available online.

Premium Option

Subscribers can upgrade to a Premium or Premium+ account and have access to even more features such as; all anime and drama within one hour of airing, all Manga, live streaming on all devices.

Social Functionality

There is an element of social functionality included with Crunchyroll; chat rooms, a place to get video recommendations, and an area to compete in contests to earn badges. Even though Crunchyroll is a narrow, very specific market, anime fans receive a lot of great features with Crunchyroll. From a large option of devices to stream videos to a fun social element, Crunchyroll creates a great user experience. In addition, subscribers have access to a very large database of videos and can choose to upgrade to Premium or Premium+ to access even more content.
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The Bad

  • Poor quality streaming
  • Lacks English-dubbing
  • Customer service

Poor Streaming Quality

The quality and resolution of streaming is poor compared to Hulu and Netflix.

English-dubbed Titles

Crunchyroll lacks English-dubbed titles for their videos. While there is a list of titles that include English dubbing, the list is disorganized.

Limited Customer Service

While Crunchyroll does have a pretty thorough FAQ, customer service overall is very limited.

Focus of Service

While Crunchyroll has a ton of content for their "anime on demand" market segment, their efforts to amass all anime did result in a loss of quality. Even though Crunchyroll is geared towards a specific market, there are some concerns to note with Crunchyroll's service. In addition, their streaming quality is poor at times and they lack English-dubbing for their subscribers.

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The Bottom Line

Crunchyroll is not a traditional streaming platform due to the limited subject manner they host on their website. While they offer a wide variety of anime content, those who want to see content in other genres will have to get an additional subscription. Though they have a fun social component, overall, the quality of video for the paid subscriptions is considered relatively poor. We recommend reviewing the top rated companies before making a final decision.

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Star Rating

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3.5

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65 Reviews

Review Breakdown

5 grade

35%

4 grade

23%

3 grade

15%

2 grade

2%

1 grade

25%

Sentiment Criteria

Value

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Quality

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Service

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Trustworthiness

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Kenneth Okerlund

I am a big fan of watching Anime with subtitles instead of it being English dubbed, but if you prefer the English dub then probably not for you. I like how there are so many platforms that this runs on, but their site/app it just feels clunky and laggy. I have a hard time getting consistent loads for videos.

6 years ago