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Crunchyroll: Some Home Video Releases May Be Unavailable While SKUs Refresh

Crunchyroll revealed to ANN on Monday that some stock keeping units (SKUs) for home video releases from Funimation will be retired and replaced with new SKUs. Subsequently, there may be a period of time when select titles are unavailable on home video.

Crunchyroll provided a comment to ANN:

There are current Funimation SKUs that will be retired and replaced with new SKUs as we continue to unify our home entertainment offerings through Crunchyroll. There may be a period of time when select titles will be unavailable before the SKUs refresh and are back in stock for fans to purchase.

The company did not specify which titles this applies to, or what the timelines for the SKUs are.

Crunchyroll announced in March that it would no longer offer free ad-supported viewing starting with its spring 2022 season line-up. Crunchyroll will instead require that viewers have a subscription to access new and continuing simulcasts. The company added that the first three episodes of each title will be available for ad-supported viewing for a week after their premiere on Crunchyroll until a certain point, and subsequent episodes will be limited to subscribers. Crunchyroll confirmed that with continuing anime, ad-supported viewing will not be available with episodes starting with the spring season, but episodes prior to the spring season will be available. The company updated its statement in September that "AVOD content will rotate and refresh regularly."

Funimation and Crunchyroll announced on March 1 that that Funimation and Wakanim's anime library and simulcast content have moved to Crunchyroll. Sony's Funimation Global Group completed its acquisition of Crunchyroll from AT&T on August 9 last year. The purchase price was US$1.175 billion, and the proceeds were paid in cash at closing.

Source: Email correspondence via WTK, email correspondence