According to Nikkei Asia, Sony seems to have joined hands with American Crunchyroll Inc., which excels as a distributor and publisher of manga, anime, and dorama in the U.S.A.
Founded in 2006, Crunchyroll has delivered over 1000 anime shows, 200 Asian dramas, and several manga titles to 70 million users worldwide. In 2018, AT&T became its parent company, and rumor surfaced about Crunchyroll being sold to Sony for 1.5 billion dollars.
Although there has been a long pause in such action being taken over since 2018, Sony finally seems to have revived the deal to buy Crunchyroll for over $957 million.
With the onset of the pandemic, several popular Japanese contents have received special accolades from viewers. In fact, demand for channel distribution has especially increased, followed by Netflix’s attempt to buy Japanese content in response to its popularity as a genre amongst viewers.
The Association of Japanese Animations reports have confirmed that back in 2018, the global market for anime had reached up to 21 billion dollars, indicating a progressive growth compared to the last five year data.
Albeit, Sony’s own anime like “Demon Slayer” which has been licensed to streaming services, this new deal can put forth a new opportunity for Sony to battle with the exclusive and brilliant Anime contents that have surfaced over Netflix in these few months.
Right now, Sony has received exclusive rights to negotiate with Crunchyroll. If things go well, it might pull off the initiation smoothly and might deliver its entertainment offering that has been till now been dominated by Netflix and Hulu.
