Now that Sony has successfully rolled Funimation into Crunchyroll in an attempt to create the one anime streaming service to rule them all, it’s leveraging that consolidation to raise prices, right? Wrong, apparently! The company just announced price cuts in 95 different territories around the world, including the UK, China, India, and many, many more.
The price of a Mega Fan subscription is dropping 25 percent in the UK, 37 percent in Brazil, and — at the current exchange rate — it’ll cost nearly 88 percent less in India, where the company was previously charging $9.99 USD and will now charge 99 Indian rupees instead. The company isn’t saying how much every territory will pay, but there’s a full list of territories here.
Oh, but if you were hoping for a price cut in the US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, etc., you’re out of luck. North America and much of Western Europe appear to be missing from the deal. (The company suspended service to Russia this spring, by the way.)
It’s not entirely clear why Crunchyroll is cutting prices at all — much less only in some territories The company’s own FAQ page completely dodges the question, but company spokesperson Bianca Doria says it doesn’t have to do with inflation or subscriber churn. “To create consistency for Crunchyroll memberships and to offer fans more value as we continue the unification of Crunchyroll and Funimation, fans in select markets are receiving price decreases,” she writes.
The company has been trying to boost subscriptions since the Funimation merger: one of its first moves was to get rid of its free ad-supported streaming for newly released episodes, making those viewers sign up for a subscription to watch new shows instead.
Update, 5:21PM ET: Added Crunchyroll statement.
