Crunchyroll announced today that it has acquired Right Stuf, a popular online video publisher and distributor of anime products. The anime streaming service announced its merger that would result in an expanded e-commerce platform that would allow it to serve a wider range of customers with anime goodies. However, the CEO of FAKKU, the world’s largest distributor of adult manga, said Crunchyroll left out a key detail of its acquisition: the removal of hentai.
Crunchyroll, the web’s leading anime streaming service, contains explicit content — to an extent. Over the years, as anime has grown in popularity, the streamer has become more conservative in what it offers, particularly when it comes to its characters and shows. However, the rise in popularity of anime has also allowed it to take on the status of a space juggernaut. March, Crunchyroll merged with its then competitor Funimation to become the largest anime conglomerate. And now it’s added another anime infinity brick to its gauntlet with the purchase of another online anime distributor, Right Stuf.
Jacob Grady, the CEO of FAKKU, tweeted that the merger of Crunchyroll and Right Stuf was a “major blow” as Crunchyroll removed all adult hentai, manga and anime content from Right Stuf’s business shortly after the announcement . This also includes decluttering FAKKU landing page on the website.
Before the Crunchyroll merger, the relationship between FAKKU and Right Stuf was like that of an online retailer offering another company’s products, similar to Steam or Amazon. In a post on The Right Stuf FAQ pagethe distributor said it would be “phasing out adult genre content and products” from its website and would no longer be accepting new orders.
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“Right Stuf has been a big customer for FAKKU and one of the few retailers that really went for 18+ anime/manga. Not good,” Grady tweeted.
In conversation with my boxGrady said it’s a shame to see Right Stuf moving to Crunchyroll as it has a good relationship with FAKKU, where the two companies have been working on many exclusive distribution projects.
“[Right Stuf] have long been a proponent of hentai anime and manga and have been selling mature content since the days of their print catalogs,” Grady said.
In lieu of FAKKU and hentai products, which are no longer available from Right Stuf, a Crunchyroll representative said my box that customers can find previously available “mature themed content” on a new storefront that I was anime store. Corresponding The Ero Anime Store FAQ pagethe company has been working with the Right Stuf team for “many years”.
“The goal is to make this step as easy for you as possible and to ensure you get the items you’re looking for,” Wendy C, president of Ero Anime, said in a statement posted on the site. “We will carry the full range of erotic anime, manga, games, figures and other merchandise. We will continue to offer anime products under the Critical Mass Video label, and some items will be exclusive to the website. Stay tuned for details.”
Though Right Stuf serves as the anime community’s “one-stop shop” for merchandise, Grady said my box where customers can still find FAKKU’s physical media his personal website. Although Crunchyroll’s anime consolidation hasn’t impacted FAKKU so far, Grady said it will actively pursue any future corporate mergers in the industry.
“As an aside, we’d love to have our titles available at any online retailer like the Ero Anime Store,” Grady said, “but none of them will have the same reach as Right Stuf.”
Continue reading: Funimation and Crunchyroll’s anime mega-merger is complete
Back in March, Crunchyroll broke the internet with its announcement that this was the case Merged with Funimation. Although the merger meant that Funimation’s and Crunchyroll’s anime catalogs could be found on one site, people in the anime community worried that Crunchyroll’s consolidation of its then-competitor would negatively affect the medium.
Kate Sanchez, the editor-in-chiefAnime Critics Publication Chief But why?equated Crunchyroll’s merger with Right Stuf Disney buys a local comic book store and limits its catalog.
“A company, no matter how much I like that company, shouldn’t be in control of THIS product,” Sánchez said tweeted.
