Earlier today, Crunchyroll announced that it will soon be paywalling specific arcs of the megapopular One Piece anime arc on the streamer for premium subscribers.
Crunchyroll issued the surprise announcement today, December 2, on its official X/Twitter account. In its tweet, Crunchyroll revealed that the show’s first 206 episodes will remain available to its ad-supported tier for Crunchyroll users “at no cost.” However, to continue watching the remaining 1,151 episodes of One Piece, subscribers must upgrade their membership to Crunchyroll’s premium tier.
Later in the post, Crunchyroll revealed the rollout phases of its One Piece update. Starting December 23, One Piece‘s Water 7 to Fishman Island arc will require a premium membership. Subsequently, fans must have a premium membership on January 20 to watch Punk Hazard to Whole Cake Island arc (including its six specials). Lastly, February 17 will be the date when One Piece‘s Reverie, Wano Kuni, and Egghead Island arcs will be behind a premium membership.
Crunchyroll’s premium membership is divided into three tiers, and the service raised the prices of each tier for the first time in five years earlier this May. Here’s a breakdown of the monthly prices: Fan ($7.99); Mega Fan ($11.99); Ultimate Fan ($15.99).
When io9 contacted a Crunchyroll representative for comment asking what led the streamer to the decision to isolate One Piece as an anime that would require a premium subscription despite being available through its other subscription tires until this point, they replied, “We have no further information to share or comments at this time.”
🚨 Heads up, One Piece fans!
Starting soon, some One Piece arcs will require a Premium Membership. But the first 206 episodes (East Blue to Sky Island) will stay free, so new fans can still start Luffy’s journey at no cost.Mark your calendars for each phase of this update:
🔶…— Crunchyroll (@Crunchyroll) December 2, 2024
While Crunchyroll isn’t the exclusive streaming home of One Piece, it does have the distinction of being the only one to house all of its episodes and movies. In contrast to Crunchyroll, competing streamers like Hulu and Netflix only have a set amount of anime arcs on their respective platforms. As of the time of publication, Hulu’s One Piece catalog only goes up to the Dressrosa arc. Likewise, Netflix has been slowly backfilling anime arcs while airing the show’s Egghead Island arc in tandem with Crunchyroll, leading the streamer to only go up to the Punk Hazard arc before jumping into the newest episodes.
Seeing as how One Piece is rising in prominence, breaking into the mainstream with the help of Netflix’s live-action series and its upcoming anime remake on the horizon, it’s hard not to read Crunchyroll waking up and choosing violence by paywalling the anime as anything other than a capitalistic move. This move is made all the more harrowing when you consider that Crunchyroll owner Sony aims to further monopolize the anime industry by acquiring Kadokawa.
As one might assume, Crunchyroll’s announcement was met with an uproar from viewers accusing the streamer of nickel-and-diming them to continue viewing one of anime’s most popular series when they didn’t have to before. Rather than convincing viewers to prepare to pay extra cash for Eiichiro Oda’s magnum opus, Cruncyroll’s announcement has instead driven viewers to swear to take to the seas and start pirating the series in protest.
Crunchyroll’s 2024 has been mixed. In April, the streamer finalized its merger with Funimation, leading users to no longer digitally own content on the shuttered platform after merging their accounts. In tandem with the sunsetting of Funimation, Crunchyroll ushered in multiple profiles to the platform. While that addition was deemed a plus, putting the platform on par with competing streamers like Hulu and Netflix, Crunchyroll drew ire from fans in July when it announced the removal of its comment section. All this, plus complaints over Crunchyroll’s unreliable and often erroneous auto-closed captioning, has made the biggest anime platform one of the most loathed by fans.
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