The longtime anime entertainment brand, Funimation, is officially coming to an end. Due to parent company Sony Pictures Entertainment’s past acquisition of Crunchyroll and a unification of fan services that was first announced in March 2022, the Funimation app and website will officially come to an end on April 2, 2024. That means the Funimation brand as we know it will be officially over.
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The Funimation website offered details and answered various questions on the upcoming shutdown and the transition for users of the website’s vast anime library. The good news is that users’ accounts will migrate over to Crunchyroll. The bad news is that their digital library will not.
FUNIMATION APP AND WEBSITE TO CEASE ALL SERVICES IN APRIL
There’s a lot to unpack here. It appears that the vast library of anime that was previously licensed to Funimation will continue to be available on the Crunchyroll service, and it won’t impact any of the titles that are available. Speaking on the end of the Funimation service, the website issued the following statement:
“At Funimation, our mission has always been to provide our fans with an exceptional streaming experience and access to the largest anime library in the world. The collaboration between Funimation and Crunchyroll allows us to continue delivering on that mission and bring you the best of anime content.”
– Funimation
The Q&A also indicated that most of the content available on the app service has already migrated to Crunchyroll. Fans will still be able to check the website’s news page for additional updates. So it looks like the full library will eventually transition to Crunchyroll in the near future.
Also, fans who migrate their accounts should be aware that their content settings on the app will not migrate over to Crunchyroll. The Crunchyroll app sets an automatic default on the content available in the language of your region. Players can still alter the settings or language audio and subtitles for their video player based on these steps.
Anyone who is still subscribed to the old website will also see their subscription automatically transferred to Crunchyroll. Moving forward, the subscription fees will be reflected in the billing cycle through the Crunchyroll service or a third-party access platform based on Crunchyroll’s app pricing. Users will still need to log in and access Crunchyroll to access their subscriptions. However, they will be able to do this using the same credentials they had with the Funimation service.
The good news is that users with no prior watch history on Crunchyroll will see both their Watch History and Watch lists transferred over to the Crunchyroll service, which is a nice factoid to know. Users with an active Crunchyroll subscription or a free Crunchyroll free account will need to confirm the changes by following these steps:
- Log in to Crunchyroll using your Funimation credentials
- You will be prompted with three options to sync your account:
- Combine Funimation and Crunchyroll data
- Replace my Crunchyroll data with Funimation data
- Save Crunchyroll data only
- Confirm the changes by selecting YES, I AM SURE
- Or NO, TAKE ME BACK if you want to change the option selected
It was noted in the Q&A that users will only be able to merge the accounts if users use the same email address for both accounts. If users have a Crunchyroll account using different credentials, they should contact the Crunchyroll support team to explore what options they need to use that are available.
Users who need to do so can cancel their old subscription on or before April 2. After this date, they can still cancel their old subscription from their Crunchyroll account settings. If a refund is needed, they should contact the support team to see if options are available based on the method of payment.
WHAT ABOUT DIGITAL COPIES?!
A big question here is whether people who bought a lot of anime redeemed codes that came with the purchase of digital copies in their library. The Q&A did address this. Unfortunately, Crunchyroll does not support the Funimation Digital copies that were previously packaged with anime DVD and Blu-ray releases.
So the bad news of this transition is that any viewers who had a vast library of purchased anime on their Funimation app will no longer be able to access those digital copies after April 2. Crunchyroll also added that the service is looking to “continuously work to enhance our content offerings and provide you with an exceptional anime streaming experience. We appreciate your understanding and encourage you to explore the extensive anime library available on Crunchyroll.
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For the longest time, Funimation was one of the biggest anime distributors in North America and a fixture for anime fans. So seeing the Funimation app and brand come to an end is a little bittersweet. However, the spirit of Funimation still lives on in a way with Crunchyroll as they essentially merged into the same thing. It’s simply Funimation by a different name now. Also, Crunchyroll has started producing its own Blu-ray releases for the anime content it licenses, so that’s one positive change.
What do you think of the news? Are you sad to see that Funimation is finally coming to an end? Are you disappointed that your digital library is not migrating with the change? Let us know your thoughts about the news on The Illuminerdi’s social media.
SOURCE: Funimation
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