Crunchyroll (company)

Crunchyroll
legal form	Limited Liability Company
founding	2006
Seat	San Francisco
Branch	Media company
Website	https://www.crunchyroll.com/about/index.html

The US media company Crunchyroll (formerly Ellation), headquartered in San Francisco , operates the video-on-demand platforms Crunchyroll , Anime on Demand , Anime Digital Network and VRV. The company belongs to AT & T's media group WarnerMedia via Otter Media . The company specializes in the licensing of anime and manga as well as anime-like video games and acts as an international distributor of anime. With Crunchyroll Games , the company has a department for smartphone games with an anime connection. The Crunchyroll LLC. produces some anime itself, for which the Crunchyroll Studios were founded. The Crunchyroll LLC. has offices in Los Angeles , Tokyo , Chișinău , Paris , Lausanne and Berlin . The company includes AV Visionen GmbH as well as the Kazé (France) , Kazé Germany and Eye See Movies labels . The European branches of Crunchyroll LLC. are the largest manga and anime publishers in France and Germany .

history

On June 6th, 2006 the company was founded as Code Mobs Inc , which was responsible for the operation of the VoD service Crunchyroll . In August 2008 the name was changed to Crunchyroll Inc. The Chernin Group acquired a majority stake in Crunchyroll Inc. in 2013. In 2014, Crunchyroll took over the video service provider Redux. Redux then stopped its video service and its employees were integrated into the Crunchyroll team. On April 22, 2014, AT&T and the Chernin Group announced the formation of a joint venture to acquire, invest and launch over-the-top video services (OTT). Both companies have raised over $ 500 million for the company. The new company was Otter Media called and became the majority owner of Crunchyroll Inc . The Crunchyroll Inc. was the newly founded in 2015 ella tion Inc. assumed.

Crunchyroll Inc. and Sumitomo Shōji entered into a joint venture in autumn 2015 and founded a production company to co-produce anime. Crunchyroll expanded this opportunity by entering into a partnership with Kadokawa in 2016 and a partnership with the Japanese branch of the American media company NBCUniversal ( NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan ) in 2017 . Crunchyroll previously acted as an international distributor for series for NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan.

On May 16, 2016, the operating company Crunchyroll Inc merged into ellation Inc. , which is now responsible for the Crunchyroll platform. In January 2018 it became known that the holding company Otter Media had completely bought out Ellation Inc. On March 14, 2016, Ellation launched the multichannel subscription video-on-demand platform VRV, which shows content from Crunchyroll and Roostert Teeth, among others. In January 2017, Ellation took over the Moldovan branch of the German company Yopeso and renamed the branch to Ellation. Before that, Crunchyroll had already worked on VRV with the Moldovan Yopeso branch for a year. In August 2017, Ellation entered into a cooperation with Gree in order to be able to bring their own video games to the market outside of Japan together with Sumitomo. The first implementation of the game is the smartphone game Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? MEMORIA FREESE and is produced for iOS and Android operating systems. For the western release, a new department was set up with Crunchyroll Games . On 15 November 2018 brought Crunchyroll Games entitled Bungo Stray Dogs: Tales of the Lost his second game on the market and at the same time entered the European market. The American mobile operator AT&T announced in August 2018 that it had bought the remaining shares in Otter Media and wanted to subordinate its streaming services to WarnerMedia . Also in August, Crunchyroll announced the formation of ellation Studios. ellation Studios is to serve as the production facility for shows to run on Crunchyroll and VRV. One of the first production will be High Guardian Spice , which will be made for Crunchyroll. Meanwhile, ellation Studios operates as Crunchyroll Studios. Crunchyroll Studios has manufacturing facilities in Burbank and Tokyo .

On September 6, 2019, Crunchyroll announced that it would become the main investor of the Viz Media Europe Group, which includes Viz Media Europe , Viz Media Switzerland , AV Visionen , Anime Versand, Genki Store and the French publisher Kazé . The Hitotsubashi Group , which was the previous main owner of Viz Media Europe Group, retains a minority stake . Crunchyroll and Viz Media Europe Group will initially operate independently of each other. On October 1, 2019, the Federal Cartel Office gave its approval for the takeover and the Austrian Federal Competition Authority gave its approval on October 14, 2019. On December 4, 2019, Crunchyroll and the Viz Media Europe Group announced that Crunchyroll has now officially taken over the majority stake. The Hitotsubashi Group, with a minority interest, relocated the manga license business to a company founded specifically for this purpose, VME PLB SAS. Since the beginning of 2020, Ellation Inc. has been restructuring itself and its subsidiaries, under which the legal form from Inc. to LLC. was changed. Meanwhile, Crunchyroll is no longer promoted as a brand by Ellation Inc., but as a subsidiary of WarnerMedia , during which Ellation Moldova is referred to as a Crunchyroll company. The domain ellation.com now redirects to crunchyroll.com/about. In February 2020 it was announced that the French Viz Media Europe was renamed Crunchyroll SAS and will operate under this name in the future. On April 2, 2020, Viz Media Switzerland SA changed its name to Crunchyroll SA. The German AV Visionen GmbH is currently in the phase of changing its name to Crunchyroll GmbH. On April 17, 2020, it was announced that Ellation will be renamed Crunchyroll.

When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in the Republic of Moldova in early 2020 , the Moldovan Crunchyroll branches initiated the project together with the City Hall of Chișinău , the Ministry of Education, Culture and Research of the Republic of Moldova , the Technical University of Moldova, and a few others Educație Online , so that Moldovan schoolchildren could be taught even during the pandemic.

structure

AT&T

WarnerMedia

Otter Media

Crunchyroll

Hitotsubashi Group

Citel

Crunchyroll Moldova

Crunchyroll Studios

Crunchyroll Games (Label)

Crunchyroll EMEA

VME PLB SAS

VRV

Crunchyroll (VoD)

Crunchyroll SA

Crunchyroll SAS

AV visions

Kazé (France)

Anime on Demand

Anime Digital Network

Kazé Germany (label)

Eye See Movies (Label)

Asuka (label)

Crunchyroll LLC (USA)

Crunchyroll LLC, based in San Francisco, is the parent company. He is part of WarnerMedias Otter Media. Crunchyroll LLC is the operator of the VoD platform of the same name, Crunchyroll .

Crunchyroll EMEA

Crunchyroll EMEA is the network for Europe, Middle East and Africa . It includes all activities in these territories.

Crunchyroll SAS (France)

→ Main article : Crunchyroll (company, France)

The French branch of Crunchyroll is the operator of the VoD platform Anime Digital Network . The company emerged from the acquired Viz Media Europe SAS. The French label Kazé belongs to the company. The Hitotsubashi Group has a minority stake in the company. It acquires national and international licenses for mangas , animes , films and series and exploits them via the Kazé label and in the video-on-demand segment.

Crunchyroll SA (Switzerland)

→ Main article : Crunchyroll (company, Switzerland)

The label Kazé Deutschland and Eye See Movies belong to the Swiss branch. Its headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland . It acquires national and international licenses for anime , manga , board games, films and series and evaluates them in the cinema, home video, video-on-demand segment and in the literature sector . Crunchyroll SA is the largest anime publisher in German-speaking countries. The German sales subsidiary AV Visionen is responsible for sales and also takes over the film distribution. The Hitotsubashi Group has a minority stake in Crunchyroll SA.

Crunchyroll Games

Crunchyroll Games is the video game publisher of Crunchyroll and specializes in the localization of Japanese smartphone games with an anime and manga reference.

Crunchyroll Studios

The Crunchyroll Studios was founded in 2018 under the name Ella Transportation studios and have offices in Burbank of Los Angeles County and in Tokyo . Crunchyroll Studios provide original content for the VoD platforms Crunchyroll and VRV.

Crunchyroll Moldova

The Moldovan Crunchyroll, based in Chișinău , emerged in 2017 from the bought Moldovan Yopeso branch. It was previously involved in the development of VRV. It is a product and engineering service provider and has specialized in interface technologies and media.

AV visions

→ Main article : AV visions

AV Visionen GmbH, based in Berlin , is the German sales branch and film distributor of Crunchyroll and the operator of the VoD platform Anime on Demand .

Associated companies

VME PLB

The VME PLB is not part of Crunchyroll, but is still associated with it. Its seat is in Paris and has the legal form SAS . This company was created in 2019 during the acquisition of Viz Media Europe Group by Crunchyroll. The Hitotsubashi Group outsourced the manga licenses from Viz Media Europe to VME PLB, which was founded for this purpose. VME PLB is responsible for licensing and managing the manga licenses of the Kazé label, which is part of Crunchyroll.

Logos

• 

  Old long logo (2006 to 2012)

• 

  Old compact logo (2006 to 2012)

• 

  Old long logo (2012 to 2015)

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  Old compact logo (2012 to 2015)

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  Ellation logo (2015 to 2020)

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  Current long logo (since 2020)

• 

  Current compact logo (since 2020)

Video on demand

The company owns several video-on-demand platforms.

Crunchyroll

→ Main article : Crunchyroll

Crunchyroll operates the video-on-demand platform of the same name, Crunchyroll , which specializes in animes .

VRV

VRV logo

VRV is Crunchyroll's channel-based video-on-demand service. It was launched on November 14, 2016 by Ellation. VRV is currently only available in the US. The platform bundles animes , cartoons and live-action films and series in its range . At the start, VRV offered channels to Rooster Teeth , Crunchyroll , Funimation , Seeso, Nerdist, Geek & Sundry, Cartoon Hangover, Adam Savage's Tested, RiffTrax, CollegeHumor, Machinima.com, Ginx TV, Shudder, and Mondo Media.

Current channels

• boomerang
• Cartoon hangover
• Crunchyroll
• Mondo Media
• Hidive
• NickRewind
• Rooster Teeth
• VRV Select

Former channels

• RiffTrax
• Ginx TV
• Machinima
• Seeso
• Tested
• Mubi
• DramaFever
• Funimation
• Geek & Sundry
• Nerdist — fandom
• Shudder — horror
• CuriosityStream

Anime on Demand

→ Main article : Anime on Demand

Anime on Demand is a German subscription video-on-demand platform owned by Crunchyroll SA and operated by AV Visionen GmbH, with a focus on streaming animes .

Anime Digital Network

→ Main article : Anime Digital Network

Anime Digital Network is a French video-on-demand platform and a joint venture between Crunchyroll SAS and Citel.

Web links

Commons : Crunchyroll  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Company homepage
• Former Ellation homepage ( Memento from October 20, 2019 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Crunchyroll Inc. In: open coporates. Retrieved March 19, 2020 .  
2. ↑ Ryan Lawler: The Chernin Group Nabs A Majority Stake In Anime Video Distributor Crunchyroll. In: techcrunch.com. December 3, 2013, accessed March 19, 2020 . 
3. ^ Troy Dreier: Crunchyroll Acquires Redux for Video Discovery Expertise. In: streamingmedia.com. June 12, 2014, accessed March 28, 2020 . 
4. ^ The Chernin Group and AT&T Create New Venture to Acquire, Invest In and Launch Online Video Businesses. In: AT&T. April 22, 2014, accessed March 19, 2020 . 
5. ↑ Todd Spangler: AT&T Chernin Group's Otter Media Online Video Venture Acquires Creativebug for $ 10 Mil. In: Variety. July 14, 2014, accessed March 19, 2020 . 
6. ^ Janko Roettgers: Chernin, AT&T Set Brand for New Online Video Venture: Ellation (Exclusive). In: Variety. August 3, 2015, accessed March 19, 2020 . 
7. ↑ Micha: Crunchyroll announces partnership with Sumitomo. In: Sumikai. October 22, 2015. Retrieved September 22, 2017 . 
8. ↑ Can Karakoc: Crunchyroll and Kadokawa enter into partnership. In: Anime2You. April 11, 2016. Retrieved September 22, 2017 . 
9. ↑ Robin Hirsch: Crunchyroll and NBCUniversal announce cooperation. In: Anime2You. July 13, 2019, accessed September 22, 2017 . 
10. ↑ Geoff Weiss: Otter Media buys remaining shares fullscreen-ellation. In: tubefilter. January 25, 2018, accessed August 14, 2018 . 
11. ↑ Jeff Baumgartner: Ellation's 'VRV' Platform Sets Sights on SVOD Surge. In: multichannel.com. June 14, 2016, accessed March 25, 2020 .  
12. ↑ Nicoleta Banila: US-based digital video firm Ella Transportation buys Moldovan unit of Germany's Yopeso. In: SeeNews. January 26, 2017, accessed April 19, 2020 . 
13. ↑ kayserlein: Crunchyroll and GREE enter into cooperation for video game implementations of anime. In: Crunchyroll. August 26, 2017. Retrieved September 22, 2017 . 
14. ↑ kayserlein: "DanMachi - MEMORIA FREESE" Game Launches! In: Crunchyroll. March 30, 2018, accessed December 5, 2018 . 
15. ↑ kayserlein: Crunchyroll Games announces Bungo Stray Dogs: Tales of the Lost! In: Crunchyroll. November 15, 2018, accessed December 5, 2018 . 
16. ↑ Haris Odabasic: AT&T becomes the sole owner of Crunchyroll's parent company Otter Media. In: anime2you. August 8, 2018. Retrieved August 14, 2018 . 
17. ↑ kayserlein: Ellation announces a new department for its own content. In: Crunchyroll. August 22, 2018, accessed September 13, 2019 . 
18. ↑ Endymion: "Crunchyroll Originals" announced. In: Anime Sushi. February 25, 2020, accessed February 25, 2020 .  
19. ↑ Robin Hirsch: Crunchyroll becomes the main investor in the VIZ Media Europe Group. In: anime2you. September 6, 2019, accessed September 8, 2019 .  
20. ↑ Bundeskartellamt - ongoing merger control proceedings (as of October 11, 2019) (archived on archive.org) . In: bundeskartellamt.de. October 13, 2019, accessed October 13, 2019 . 
21. ↑ Merger registration BWB / Z-4589. In: bwb.gv.at. Federal Competition Authority, September 16, 2019, accessed on October 14, 2019 . 
22. ↑ Endymion: Crunchyroll completes majority takeover of Viz Media Europe Group. In: Anime Sushi. December 4, 2019, accessed March 25, 2020 . 
23. ↑ Endymion: Restructuring at Ellation. In: Anime Sushi. March 22, 2020, accessed March 23, 2020 . 
24. ↑ Endymion: Viz Media Europe SAS will operate as Crunchyroll SAS in the future. In: Anime Sushi. February 10, 2020, accessed March 20, 2020 . 
25. ↑ Endymion: Viz Media Switzerland changes its name. In: Anime Sushi. April 2, 2020, accessed April 2, 2020 . 
26. ↑ AV Visionen - About us ( Memento from April 19, 2020 in the Internet Archive )
27. ↑ Ellation, лучший работодатель 2019 года, переименовывается в Crunchyroll. In: ru.diez.md. diez, April 17, 2020, accessed April 19, 2020 (Russian). 
28. ↑ Crunchyroll - Moldova: Kicking off the Education Online Project in 6 weeks! In: Crunchyroll Blog on medium.com. July 16, 2020, accessed on July 16, 2020 .