Crunchyroll, LLC
Crunchyroll, LLC is an American entertainment company. It currently operates the anime-focused eponymous over-the-top subscription video on-demand streaming service.
The company was founded as Funimation in May 1994 by Gen Fukunaga and his wife Cindy in Silicon Valley, with funding by Daniel Cocanougher and his family, who became investors in the company. The company then relocated to the Dallas–Fort Worth metropolitan area, first to North Richland Hills, then Flower Mound and later Coppell, before moving its headquarters to San Francisco in its Chinatown district. Funimation was acquired by Navarre Corporation in May 2005; in April 2011, Navarre sold Funimation to a group of investors that included Fukunaga for $24 million. The company was acquired by Sony Pictures Television in 2017 and rebranded to Crunchyroll, LLC in March 2022 after acquiring the eponymous streaming service in August 2021.
The company also releases titles on home video either directly or by having select anime titles released through its distribution partners.
History
As Funimation
Early history
In the early 1990s, Japanese-born businessman Gen Fukunaga was approached by his uncle, Nagafumi Hori, who was working as a producer for Toei Company. Hori proposed that if Fukunaga could start a production company and raise enough money, Toei Animation would license the rights to the Dragon Ball franchise to the United States. Fukunaga met with co-worker Daniel Cocanougher, whose family owned a feed mill in Decatur, Texas, and convinced Cocanougher's family to sell their business and serve as an investor for his company.The company was founded on May 9, 1994, as Funimation Productions. The company was originally based in Silicon Valley, but eventually relocated to North Richland Hills, Texas. They initially collaborated with other companies on Dragon Ball/''Dragon Ball Z, such as BLT Productions, Ocean Studios, Pioneer and Saban Entertainment. After two aborted attempts to bring the Dragon Ball franchise to television via first-run syndication, Cartoon Network began airing Dragon Ball Z as part of its Toonami programming block in 1998, which quickly became the highest-rated show on the block and garnered a large following. The success of Dragon Ball Z is credited for allowing Funimation to acquire other licensed titles. Funimation also produced and distributed the direct-to-video movie Chuck E. Cheese in the Galaxy 5000, the company's first non-anime product.
In May 2002, the company secured its first third-party home video deal when fellow anime dubbing company 4Kids Entertainment appointed Funimation as their exclusive home video distributor in the United States. The deal included a majority of products 4Kids licensed at the time, beginning with Yu-Gi-Oh!, Cubix, Cabbage Patch Kids, Tama and Friends, and Kirby: Right Back at Ya!. The deal was later expanded to include Sonic X, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Ultraman Tiga.
Following the success of the 4Kids deal, Funimation entered into a strategic partnership with the Canadian-based Nelvana on September 26, 2003. The deal allowed the two companies to work on the production of prospective new anime, and for Funimation to distribute over forty-four titles from Nelvana's library on home video; including Redwall, Pecola, Tales from the Cryptkeeper, Timothy Goes to School and the Disney Channel TV special The Santa Claus Brothers.
In July 2004, Funimation expanded its family-friendly offerings by launching a new division entitled Our Time Family Entertainment, which provided high-quality entertainment properties to the burgeoning preschool and children's market. Products released under the division included the film Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, several holiday specials, and select offerings from Nelvana, WGBH, and Alliance Atlantis.
Funimation continued into licensing non-anime material when the company was appointed as the North American license holder for the British series Make Way for Noddy'' by franchise owners Chorion in January 2005.
Acquisition by Navarre Corporation
On May 11, 2005, Funimation was acquired by Navarre Corporation for US$100.4 million in cash and 1.8 million shares of Navarre stock. As part of the acquisition, Gen Fukunaga was retained as head of the company, transitioning to the position of CEO, and the company's name was changed from Funimation Productions to Funimation Entertainment. In 2007, Funimation moved from North Richland Hills, Texas to Flower Mound. Funimation moved into the Lakeside Business District with a ten-year lease.According to an interview in February 2008 with Navarre Corporation CEO Cary Deacon, Funimation was in early stage negotiations to acquire some of the titles licensed through Geneon's USA division, which ceased operations in December 2007. In July 2008, Funimation confirmed that they had acquired distribution rights to several Geneon titles, including some that Geneon had left unfinished when they withdrew from the U.S. market. At Anime Expo 2008, Funimation announced that it had acquired over 30 titles from the Sojitz catalog that had previously been licensed by ADV Films. In 2009, Funimation signed a deal with Toei Animation to stream several of its anime titles online through the Funimation website.
Navarre divestiture; Nico Nico partnership
On May 27, 2010, Navarre Corporation announced that it began negotiating a potential sale of Funimation. It was also announced that if the sale took place, Funimation would be reclassified as a "discounted operation" starting in the first quarter of 2011. On September 16, 2010, Navarre announced that six potential buyers were interested in acquiring Funimation. In the first quarter of 2011, Navarre reclassified Funimation as "discounted operations". On April 4, 2011, Navarre released a statement announcing that Funimation had been sold to a group of investors that included original owner Gen Fukunaga for $24 million. It was also announced that Navarre would remain as exclusive distributor of Funimation's titles.On October 14, 2011, Funimation announced a partnership with Niconico, the English language version of Nico Nico Douga, to form the Funico brand for the licensing of anime for streaming and home video release. From this point on, virtually all titles simulcasted by Niconico were acquired by Funimation. On February 18, 2012, Funimation announced that it would launch its video streaming app on April 6, 2012. In 2014, Funimation released Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods to theaters in partnership with Screenvision. Based on its success, Funimation launched its own theatrical division in December 2014. On June 22, 2015, Funimation and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment announced a multi-year home video distribution deal. The deal allowed UPHE to manage distribution and sales of Funimation's catalog of titles. Universal began distributing Funimation's titles in October of that year.
In January 2016, Funimation introduced a new logo and announced their streaming service, FunimationNow. In April 2016, they launched their service in the UK and Ireland. On September 8, 2016, Funimation announced a partnership with Crunchyroll. Select Funimation titles would be streamed subtitled on Crunchyroll, while select Crunchyroll titles would be streamed on FunimationNow, including upcoming dubbed content. In addition, Funimation would act as the distributor for Crunchyroll's home video catalog.
Sony ownership
In May 2017, it was reported that Universal Studios and Sony Pictures Television were interested in purchasing Funimation; however, Universal decided not to proceed with the bidding. On July 31, 2017, Sony Pictures Television announced that it would buy a controlling 95% stake in Funimation for $143 million, a deal that was approved by the United States Department of Justice on August 22, 2017. This deal allowed Funimation to have synergies with Sony's Animax and Kids Station divisions and "direct access to the creative pipeline". The deal was closed on October 27, 2017.On February 16, 2018, it was reported that Shout! Factory's Shout! Studios division acquired the U.S./Canadian distribution rights to Big Fish & Begonia and partnered with Funimation Films again for distribution. On July 12, 2018, it was announced that Funimation Films had picked up licensing rights for Dragon Ball Super: Broly in North America and that its English dub would premiere in theaters sometime in January 2019 in the United States and Canada, only around a month after its national premiere in Japan.
On August 7, AT&T fully acquired Otter Media, owner of Crunchyroll. On October 18, 2018, Funimation and Crunchyroll announced that their partnership with would end on November 9, 2018, as a result of Sony Pictures Television's acquisition of Funimation. Despite the home video releases being unaffected and still going on as planned, select Funimation content would be removed from Crunchyroll, and subtitled content would return to FunimationNow. Additionally, it was also announced that Funimation would be removed from Otter Media-owned streaming service VRV entirely, being replaced by Hidive. In December 2018, it was reported that another reason the partnership ended was due to a dispute concerning international expansion. On December 4, 2018, Funimation inked an exclusive multi-year first-look SVOD deal with Hulu.
On February 1, 2019, Gen Fukunaga announced that he would be stepping down as general manager, and transitioning to chairman of the company, with Colin Decker assuming the role of general manager in May 2019. On March 23, 2019, at AnimeJapan 2019, Funimation announced that they had partnered with Chinese streaming service Bilibili to jointly license anime titles for both the U.S. and Chinese markets. On May 29, Funimation announced that they had acquired Manga Entertainment's UK branch, and immediately consolidated the former's UK business into the latter's. On July 5, 2019, Funimation announced at Anime Expo that they had reached a streaming partnership with Right Stuf, with select titles from Nozomi Entertainment being made available on FunimationNow later in the year. On August 31, 2019, Aniplex of America announced on Twitter that they would be partnering with Funimation Films to co-release Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl theatrically in the U.S. on October 2, 2019, and in Canada on October 4, 2019.