The new subscriber-only Crunchyroll store has officially launched after a controversial overhaul, and it's left every book and most Blu-rays behind.
Last month, Crunchyroll, now owned by Sony's Funimation after a 2021 deal, announced a new store portal that will only allow Crunchyroll Mega and Ultimate-tier subscribers to make purchases. An everything-must-go sale accompanying the news implied that reams of physical media would be delisted with this relaunch, and, if anything, the outcome is even worse than expected.
As MangaAlerts flagged on Bluesky, all manga, light novels, manhwa (Korean comics), and danmei (Chinese yaoi literature, basically) have vanished from the Crunchyroll store after today's update.
With a clear focus on figures, clothes, and similar merch, the categories under the new store's "shop all" page are limited to:
- New
- Accessories
- Apparel
- Collectibles
- Games
- Home
- Home Entertainment
- Music
Physical media is hard to come by in this selection. The music page reveals just 10 CD and vinyl options. Home entertainment hides a scant 387 Blu-ray and DVD sets (with those CDs and vinyl mixed in), representing a massive reduction from the store's previous catalog.
It's worth noting that the whole store is looking pretty piecemeal at the moment, with just one entry for the whole games category – the Naruto Shippuden Clue board game. Thank goodness we have that.
More items will surely be added, even outside the rotating limited-time merch drops heavily emphasized in the new store, but it's unclear whether entire categories – like, say, for the books that are now harder to buy since Crunchyroll absorbed popular Asian goods shop RightStuf a few years ago – will be restored. I'm not expecting a big danmei button in the store, but the complete abandonment of books makes me wince.
Likewise, the countless missing Blu-ray options – which, MangaAlerts rightly points out, tend to be from studios not under the Sony anime empire – may remain absent.
I've reached out to Crunchyroll for comment on the store's selection of physical media. As it stands, Sony has simply destroyed RightStuf and yet more of its own physical goods lineup as PlayStation marches toward the 2028 death of discs.
