Crunchyroll's Annecy Moment: A Missed Opportunity for Industry Transformation

"It's a great time to be an anime fan," declares Mitchel Berger, Crunchyroll's EVP of Global Commerce and Theatrical, as he takes the stage at this year's Annecy Festival. Berger's confidence reflects his front-row seat to anime's evolution over the past decade from its days as a specialized hobby to its current status as a mainstream entertainment force.

His appearance comes during what is already a landmark year for Japanese participation at this 40th Anniversary edition of MIFA (Marché International du Film d'Animation), the international animation film market held alongside the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. This year's program features sixteen Japanese projects across all categories, plus five Tokyo Animation Pitch Grand Prix winners, representing one of the strongest Japanese showings in festival history. Yet watching Berger's 40-minute presentation unfold, one can't help but feel that Crunchyroll fundamentally misunderstood the assignment.

Annecy is primarily a celebration of the art and craft of animation. It is one of the world's busiest creator conventions. It is a celebration of people who create or who aspire to create. It is a recruitment market for animation graduates from across Europe and beyond. It's where many of the world's leading academies and schools recruit new students. It's a place where established artists can meet, compare notes, brainstorm their next collaboration, and mentor the next generation of creators. Annecy is an animated cavalcade of creatives and storytelling, and it is wonderful. But the undeniable buzz of the festival masks the very serious crisis running through the animation industry.

The animation production industry has experienced a dramatic contraction across Europe, North America, and Asia since Netflix's pivotal subscriber drop of 970,000 users in July 2022, which marked the effective end of the streaming wars as platforms shifted focus from growth to profitability. By the second quarter of 2024, US-based animation production had dropped by 40% compared to 2022 levels, while The Animation Guild estimates that one-third of TAG's animation workforce has been laid off in the past year. Major studios have implemented sweeping cuts, Netflix axed about a third of its animation team, Pixar lost 20% of its staff, and Warner Bros Discovery laid off nearly 1,000 employees across multiple sectors. The global scope of this contraction extends beyond North America, with layoffs across European animation and video game production houses.

One bright spot for the animation industry has been Japan, despite the anime production industry facing its challenges, and Crunchyroll was present at 9 AM on a hot Thursday morning to tell us all about it.

With 17 million subscribers across 200+ countries and a projected 1.5 billion anime fans by 2030 (not including Japan and China), Crunchyroll has undoubtedly transformed from a scrappy startup to a global entertainment juggernaut. Berger's presentation was bursting with statistics from their recent National Research Group survey, and guaranteed to grab the attention of the mainstream media and entertainment press covering the event. If you are already an anime fan and part of the “Gen Z” cohort, it won't be that surprising to learn that most of your peers like anime more than watching sports, or fanboying out over Kendrick Lamar, and Beyonce.

It's wonderful to see how far and how deep anime has penetrated the global consciousness, especially amongst today's generation of teenagers, with 60% of 13-17 year-olds identifying as anime fans. Berger was on hand to remind the audience that Crunchyroll sits at the center of this massive ecosystem, and that's great if the assembled audience was here to pick their next streaming subscription, but here's the problem: this felt more like an investor presentation than a contribution to Annecy's mission of fostering international animation collaboration and artistic excellence. While Berger showcased clips from Anne Shirley, and Metallic Rouge, which are both in series competition, and the trailer for the highly anticipated Gachiakuta, the presentation read more like a marketing showcase than the kind of industry insight or creative exchange that MIFA is designed to foster.

The most telling moment came with the announcement of HAYATE, the production and development joint venture between Aniplex and Crunchyroll, with Ghost of Tsushima as their first project. It's a choice that exemplifies what makes Crunchyroll's current moment so fascinating. Taking a Western-developed game inspired by Japanese culture and bringing it full circle through anime production. Undoubtedly, one of their biggest wins to date has been Solo Leveling, an anime produced by A-1 Pictures and Aniplex, and distributed exclusively by Crunchyroll into over 200 countries. It is the perfect show for the platform and a majority of its subscriber base. The anime is now Crunchyroll's most viewed series in the platform's history, and it is based on a Korean web novel that became a webtoon, and then a Japanese language manga series.

This reverse cultural flow should have been the perfect launching pad for discussing international co-productions, cultural fusion storytelling, or how European creators might access Crunchyroll's platform. Instead, Berger doubled down on the "authentic anime experience" messaging, missing a massive strategic opportunity as the rest of the world's animation community pivots towards adult genre animation and “anime adjacent” content. If there will indeed be 1.5 billion anime fans by 2030, it seems likely that a sizeable percentage will be open to also watching complementary series and movies produced outside of Japan. The crossover audience for Arcane or Invincible with the general anime viewership is large, and based on the projections, it will also continue to grow.

Here's what Crunchyroll isn't talking about, but which desperately needs addressing: Japan has fewer than 6,000 animators, and that number is predicted to drop according to the Japan Research Institute. With demand for anime content exploding globally, the math simply doesn't work without international collaboration. Japanese producers face a stark choice between AI automation and international partnerships to scale capacity. Speaking to industry professionals at the festival, there is real concern that the key anime industry stakeholders will simply “chase the money” and disregard the craft despite the tremendous value the global audience places on the medium's authenticity and artisan reputation. Will the audience be satisfied with an explanation of “Hey! It's OK. We are using a Japanese AI”?

Crunchyroll is part of a publicly listed company (Sony), and it does perform an ambassadorial role for many large Japanese entertainment companies, so I do have some sympathy for the position they find themselves in. Nonetheless, it feels like they will continue to resist the obvious solution to Japan's capacity problem.

In an ideal world, Crunchyroll will abandon its brand myopia, which conflates "anime" with "exclusively Japanese-made content," and truly embrace its position as “thought-leaders” and innovators. Surely they understand that anime is a storytelling medium and aesthetic approach that can transcend geographic boundaries? They're treating their anime identity as fragile rather than leveraging it as a bridge to expand the medium globally. If Crunchyroll “knows anime,” why can't they produce the first truly successful international anime co-productions? They're already making them.

This resistance becomes particularly problematic when you consider Crunchyroll's legal obligations under French law. As a streaming platform operating in France, they must reinvest 20% of their annual French revenues into local audiovisual production under the “CNC quota” requirements. This creates a fundamental conflict between their brand identity and legal compliance, a challenge that international co-productions could elegantly solve.

Instead of viewing these quotas as burdensome regulations, Crunchyroll could pioneer anime-influenced European content, fund Japanese-European animation collaborations, or support productions that adopt anime storytelling conventions while featuring European narratives. The potential audience is massive, within that 1.5 billion "anime curious" global audience, there are likely several hundred million people who would embrace anime-adjacent content.

Imagine if Berger had used his Annecy platform to announce a European co-production fund, reveal plans for European animation content on Crunchyroll, or discuss mentorship programs connecting European animators with Japanese studios? Picture the impact of showcasing successful European-Japanese animation collaborations or offering distribution pathways for European animated content. Sony and Crunchyroll have already announced many initiatives to help ease the burden on Japanese production houses as well as some international training programs, so why didn't they bring any of this to Annecy?

Instead, we got promotional trailers (that are already available online) and box office projections. The presentation of Gachiakuta - complete with behind-the-scenes footage of creator Kei Urana discussing hidden "poops" throughout her manga, felt more suited to a fan convention than the world's premier animation festival.

Crunchyroll's resistance to international co-productions represents a strategic blind spot. They're sitting on a platform that could become the global nexus for anime-style storytelling while clinging to an artificially narrow definition that limits both creative potential and business growth. The success of projects like Castlevania, Devil May Cry, WAKFU, Blue Eye Samurai, and Arcane (all part of Netflix's anime-adjacent Western content offering) and Amazon's Hazbin Hotel, LoliRock, and INVINCIBLE proves that anime-influenced Western animation can achieve massive success. With regional markets showing a clear appetite for culturally fused content, Crunchyroll could lead this evolution rather than be forced into it by competitors, and if their Japanese-based production partners move now, they can secure a piece of that action.

Berger's emphasis on creating "marquee fandom moments" and "cultural landmarks" through theatrical releases like the Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle trilogy demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of event programming. The MCU-style build-up and cross-platform engagement strategies are genuinely impressive, but this approach feels disconnected from Annecy's values of artistic exchange and creative innovation. The festival celebrates animation as an art form, not just as content to be monetized across multiple platforms.

Perhaps Crunchyroll should have joined in on the celebration and brought some of the actual creative talent from Japan to Annecy with them to talk about their current work in progress, or perhaps they could've announced a European animation scholarship and mentorship program for young animators? There were plenty of Japanese creators present at the festival, and the largest number of Japanese industry delegates (243) attending MIFA.

Crunchyroll's Annecy presentation showcased a company at the height of its commercial success, but seemingly unaware of its cultural responsibilities and strategic opportunities. While Berger's confidence and the platform's growth metrics are undeniably impressive, the missed opportunity to meaningfully contribute to international animation collaboration feels like a profound miscalculation.

As anime evolves from subculture to mainstream phenomenon, the industry needs leaders who understand that global success requires more than just bigger numbers - it demands genuine cultural bridge-building and creative partnership. Crunchyroll had the perfect stage to demonstrate this understanding. Instead, they delivered a victory lap that left the industry wondering what could have been.