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Crunchyroll has leapt out of the frying pan and straight into the fire with their latest move. While still reeling from the backlash over discarding fanmail for VA David Wald, their decision to impose paywall restrictions on One Piece has stirred up yet another storm
The anime streaming giant’s recent decision to move the majority of One Piece episodes behind a Premium Membership paywall has ignited backlash, with many fans accusing the platform of inadvertently promoting piracy.
This move will take effect in three phases, starting Dec 23.
In the first phase, episodes from the Water 7 and Davy Back arcs to Fishman Island will require a Premium Membership.
The second phase, on Jan 20, 2025, will extend the paywall to episodes from the Punk Hazard through Whole Cake Island arcs, along with six special episodes.
The final phase, which will take effect on Feb 17, will include every episode from the Reverie arc to the current Egghead arc.
However, the first 206 episodes, covering the East Blue to Sky Island arcs, will remain accessible for free on Crunchyroll’s ad-supported tier.
Frustrated fans say they’ll resort to illegal streaming:
Fans have expressed frustration, arguing that the move is driven by corporate greed, as One Piece has always been available for free with ads on the streaming platform.
Naturally, most of the comments on Crunchyroll’s post involved fans telling that they will resorting to illegal streaming options to watch One Piece from now on.
Many believed that Crunchyroll is capitalizing on the anime’s immense popularity for profit, especially given the ease with which One Piece episodes can be pirated.
This was also the final straw for those Crunchyroll users who were disappointed that the streaming giant had disabled comments on their platform.
Many claimed that they will cancel their premium subscription following One Piece‘s paywall restrictions.
The decision to paywall One Piece anime was also seen as a marketing fumble by some netizens, because according to the them, the themes of the show would dictate that users resort to piracy.
This is second move by Crunchyroll in a span of 6 months which has led to extreme fan disgruntlement.
The first one was the disabling of the user generated content on the streaming platform, which Crunchyroll claimed was “to create a safer and more respectful community environment.”
“We are hiding all existing user-generated content, including comments and reviews, across all our platforms and experiences. We’re always striving to enhance the user experience for our fans, including how they connect over the content they love. We encourage fans to share comments and connect with other fans on our social media channels,” the company had stated back then.
There are a bajillion episodes of One Piece. Putting them all behind a paywall just feels absurd not only given that pitacy exists but also the legal physical media will continue to exist for a long time. Even us legal media consumers have no feeling of urgency to subscribe to Crunchyroll just to get a show that’s so ubiquitous. The compamy should be leaving the entire series out there in the free version as a way to get novices to start watching all anime.
There are a bajillion episodes of One Piece. Putting them all behind a paywall just feels absurd not only given that pitacy exists but also the legal physical media will continue to exist for a long time. Even us legal media consumers have no feeling of urgency to subscribe to Crunchyroll just to get a show that’s so ubiquitous. The compamy should be leaving the entire series out there in the free version as a way to get novices to start watching all anime.