It’s been two years since the initial announcement that Funimation would be absorbed into rival animation service Crunchyroll.
“When we brought Funimation and Crunchyroll together last year, our top priority was to put fans first,” said Colin Decker, then-CEO of Crunchyroll. “Unifying all of our brands and services under the Crunchyroll brand globally enables us to offer more value than ever before as we combine subs, dubs, simulcasts, library, music, movies, manga–into one subscription.”
Crunchyroll announced today that as part of its unification with Funimation, the Funimation app and website will sunset on April 2, 2024.
“Rest assured, this transition will not impact your access to the vast library of anime available on Crunchyroll,” the company made in a statement. “We remain committed to delivering the best anime streaming experience and will continue to expand our offerings to cater to your diverse interests!”
The end of the Funimation services report breaks down things like refunds for Funimation, getting your Funimation history and queue over to Crunchyroll, but it also reveals some bad news for people who bought physical copies and redeemed the digital codes. Those are no longer valid and will not transfer.
“We understand that you may have concerns about your digital copies from Funimation. These Digital copies available on Funimation were a digital access to the content available on the DVDs or Blu-rays purchased,” the answer read.
“Please note that Crunchyroll does not currently support Funimation Digital copies, which means that access to previously available digital copies will not be supported. However, we are continuously working 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.”
So while you might have the physical copies, that digital library will be wiped. It was originally feared that digital libraries that were purchased on Funimation’s store would also be gone completely, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Still, the removal of digital copies even after you’ve purchased them as part of the physical is included in that purchase. For fans who bought the physical movies then sold them or downsized since they were still able to keep the digital, now those entries in the library are gone completely. There are two months until the Funimation app will be gone so anything is possible for Crunchyroll to reconfigure.
Source: GameSpot
