Crunchyroll Logo
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4.1

Overall Score

Author: Kaitlyn Short

LAST UPDATED: June 1st, 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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66 Reviews

Review Breakdown

5 grade

36%

4 grade

23%

3 grade

15%

2 grade

2%

1 grade

24%

Sentiment Criteria

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Quality

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Service

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Trustworthiness

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Elder Terdkin Green Cove Springs, FL

They cant even get the free version together so im never paying for it, I have even moved onto Tubi to finish off an anime I thought only Crunchyroll had. they blast you with commercials, the app freezes, you have to restart it and then more commericals, so at this point you have wasted over 5 minutes just to start the show, then 2 minutes in, more commericals and if you rewind for any reason, it goes back through the commericals again. Thats when its not freezing mid commercial, it also doesnt remember which episode you were on, even though it knows you watched it, so if your on episode 80 and accidently click out of the episode, it makes you click through the 79 other episodes all over again. Funimation and Tubi have much better functioning tv apps and I am currently using those instead, the app is beyond frustrating and they dont have alot of dubbed animes if you like english when compared to Funimation. I never purchased the sub for Crunchyroll cuz if it works that poorly while free, why would I waste money on it?

3 years ago

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John Stafford Rockford, MI

I can't even cancel it. I tried watching MHA 4 months ago but gave up because even with premium I couldn't actually get through an episode, but I figured since I was doing the free trial it was fine and I cancelled. Four months later I just saw another charge on my card, even though I've attempted to cancel every month I've seen it show up. They are forcing me to get a new credit card which is INSANELY inconvenient because now I need to reset payment methods for everything in my life or else I'm paying a monthly tax to the scumbags at Crunchyroll for something that I didn't even want to use. I know these thieves are never going to give my money back, but even after trying to contact them my account is still active. This is because humans don't work there. In fact, there's no way to cancel a subscription at all: they just hope that people forget about their subscriptions and when the customer actually wants to cancel the only way for a them to do anything is to send an email that goes directly into their trash file. A waste of money on something that I never even intended to pay a cent for. The one thing I can say is that they helped me learn that even if you cancel things in time, never EVER do a free trial where they get your payment information first. I feel like I've been actually scammed.

4 years ago

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Nicholas moss

Could not find any titles dubbed in English, something that they don't advertise, there was no options to give feedback and you have to wait to cancel free trial. A very sloppy job in all, was exited for months to try it thinking that once I paid for it I would have an option to select English Dubbed titles as the descriptions and summary's are all in English. Spent the whole first day combing through them trying to find something that I didn't have to read to enjoy, what a massive disappointment! And then not to be able to give the company feedback so they might be able to remedy this was annoying as ..... Well I'm sure you get it.

8 years ago

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Rinny Fischer Ballwin, MO

I have a few complaints about Crunchyroll, mostly that they boast an extensive library of anime, but they lack most anime that was exposed to the US in the 1990's and early 2000's, which is what millennialis, who will be primarily ordering their service, want to watch. Not one of my top 10 animes are available, and for a streaming service specializing in anime that's quite a few. My next complaint would be the amount of ads that you have to sit through, I primarily watch anime that only streams for about 10 minutes per episode, and I have to sit through 4-6 ads per episode, depending on how many times it glitches out and shows me the same ad over and over! That too many ads for a service I pay for! My third complaint would be that the free trial is misleading. The 2 week free trial period was NOT supposed to be for the premium membership, but had all the features of the premium membership like having a que (which is bogus, and should be for the standard membership.) and ad-free, and with a much better streaming quality. Once you pay for the standard membership the quality drops off DRAMATICALLY. I would keep close track of your free trial membership and cancel fast once it's up, in my opinion it's not at all worth paying for.

8 years ago

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Lee Daphne, AL

Used the free service for a few weeks and decided to switch to the paid add-free account. My account is saved but I am not getting the add-free service because I "can only have one free trial per payment method" even though I never used the card. Me and MANY others have run into this problem without any means to navigate the issue. All prompts lead us back to the same message. Crunchyroll hasnt answered anyone asking for help and their customer service site is a joke. I dont know why people hype this site up so much...

7 years ago

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Laura Meghan Brooks Orlando, FL

Crunchyroll recently had a promotion in which you get a free japancrate for signing up. After months of emails to japancrate and crunchyroll they've decided not to honor the promotion. Japancrate stated that crunchyroll duplicated the promo codes and didn't generate more and will not respond to them. Crunchyroll stated that I can delete my account but they aren't honoring the promo anymore. Japancrate said there were many people with the same issue and they will send me free samples and coupons. I believe Crunchyroll was deceptive in this promotion and never had any intention in honoring it.

9 years ago

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Imperio Anderson Yuma, AZ

The Roku Crunchyroll sucks so much that I'm trying to find the most places to leave one star. I'm so mad. They have no subtitles on English dub and this anime I'm watching just started in Japanese and wont give me subtitles. AHH!!

2 years ago

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alberto villasenor Woodinville, WA

Their collection of old and new anime is solid. However they have the worst "Customer Service" ever it's very slow and its rare when they fix your issue. The service itself is also really awful at switching between devices and keeping track if your a premium member. would not recommend to anyone.

5 years ago

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Trey Farner Norcross, GA

My girlfriends nephew downloaded the app for crunchy roll on my phone and I remember nothing being wrong with my phone until I downloaded this app. Once it had installed my phone froze up and I couldn’t use it. I had to completely reset my phone. It was sad cause I did not want to be mean to the little guy but I just did not want to break my phone.

5 years ago

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wanda Saint George, UT

you can use this FREE or pay for the upgrade to avoid commercials and ads. i chose the FREE because i wanted to see what the difference was from all the others. in the first 20 minutes, i counted over 5 commercials and ads. due to the many ads it kept buffering which was so annoying. then i will just log me off for no reason. was not impressed with Crunchyroll.

6 years ago

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Brittany Elkton, MD

I downloaded the app and wanted to see the anime selections available. I clicked one anime and it asks to try prime for 14 days free. I said no. Proceeded to watch the anime but it rolled nothing but ads for half an hour.

9 years ago

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Donald Fencl

Way to many commercials for even free like 4 per 20 min flim BUT there 5 30 second ones per stop so do the math 4 x 5 about 20 30 second videos no thanks!

7 years ago

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J Cole Raymore, MO

Paid Subscriber for 3+ Years. Streaming quality is poor, Sundays the service is almost unusable. Customer Service is non existent.

7 years ago

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Christina Masterson Wallace, ID

Great anime selection. Too bad even as a premium member, you won't get to see it due to server errors.

6 years ago

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Matt Shea

Account downgraded to free user but still pay for premium. Xbox one app always crashes.

7 years ago

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SqueezedRNG

Tons of ads, do not use the free service.

6 years ago