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As the anime streaming industry becomes more crowded, Crunchyroll is finding itself squeezed by increased competition from direct competitors like HIDIVE. However, the biggest threat to its title as the place for anime is Netflix, which is continually upping its anime content every season. However, Crunchyroll sees Netflix’s presence in the anime world as a “boon” rather than a threat.

Terry Li, Crunchyroll’s Executive Vice President of Emerging Content, told us at an event at New York Comic Con 2024 that they pride themselves on having the most hit anime shows each season. “We have, you know, the deepest catalog there is, right, so for us… if you want to dive deep into anime, you can… Our offering isn’t meant to be a little bit of something for everyone, right? Our offering is we want to be like everything for someone. It goes much deeper.”

The strategy makes sense for Crunchyroll, who, even with their established place in the anime industry and Sony’s money backing them up, will have difficulty competing with Netflix’s massive subscriber base. However, it sounds like they are instead trying to use Netflix as the gateway drug to anime for fans and positioning themselves as the place to go for the hard stuff. When talking about the live action One Piece, Li explained that it created a “big surge of interest in the anime.” New fans looked up the anime, found Crunchyroll’s library of over 1000 episodes, and signed up. Crunchyroll's place in the industry, according to Li, is providing an "anime as a lifestyle" for fans, giving us the merchandise, films, series, and games that we are jonseing for.

“A running joke is ‘hey, we should pay attention to when they’re producing a live action to make sure we have the anime show’ because it’s sort of a natural corollary to the fandom,” Li explained before confirming to us that Crunchyroll doesn’t have any interest in delving into live action themselves. Instead, they’re focusing on delivering more anime so they can give fans their fix. Just let someone else spend the money and the energy to create the show that will drive people to the increasingly vast number of anime series on offer every year.

Relive New York Comic Con 2024 with Popverse's all-star crew of writers, editors, and video producers right here.