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Getting purchased by a massive company like Sony was bound to change a few things at Crunchyroll, but it seems like the past four years have been even more tumultuous than we thought.  The company has undergone multiple rounds of layoffs and has reportedly seen employee satisfaction plummet year-on-year. Things still aren’t quite settled, either, as another reorganization is reportedly planned for early 2025 at Crunchyroll.

This comes via a report from Bloomberg that commented on some of the recent developments at Crunchyroll. As well as confirming that the anime streamer had halted all promotion of Dan Da Dan after it was simultaneously streamed by Netflix, the report says that Crunchyroll employees have already undergone three rounds of layoffs since it was purchased by Sony in 2021. That is an average of one a year, with a fourth round planned for early 2025.

The impact this has had on employee morale isn’t exactly surprising. Only 39% of Crunchyroll employees said that management has communicated a strategy that motivates them, according to internal poll data shared with Bloomberg. That is down from 51% in the previous poll. That is a pretty rapid decline which could create employee retention problems that can quickly start to impact customers.

Aside from the fact that no one should have the looming threat of even more layoffs hanging over their heads, the lack of a clear directive from management couldn’t come at a worse time for Crunchyroll. They are facing increased competition from other streamers, both for subscribers and for the licenses to stream the anime that forms the backbone of Crunchyroll’s business. Another round of layoffs in 2025 won’t do anything to restore confidence that the company is moving in the right direction.

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

• Why the finales of My Hero Academia, Jujutsu Kaisen, and One Piece feel like the end of an era in manga
• Why is One Piece more popular now that the anime is 25 years old? We asked around and found out
• Dan Da Dan is weird, profoundly inappropriate, and the perfect anime this season
• Why One Piece's Monkey D. Luffy is the perfect anime hero for the dark times ahead
• 40 years after its debut, Dragon Ball is a pop culture force like few others
• Dan Da Dan's most emotionally devastating sequence proves that sometimes words aren't necessary
• Gnosia, the "Among Us meets Everything Everywhere All at Once" visual novel is getting an anime adaptation that needs to be as weird as possible
• Assassination Classroom is a Shonen anime well worth revisiting, ten years on
• Sony is making big moves to own the anime industry by buying Kadokawa, publisher of Oshi no Ko, Sword Art Online, and Konosuba
• 2025 is the year One Punch Man season 3 finally adapts the cosmically weird Monster Association Arc and I can't wait