Sometime this August, the Crunchyroll Store, which houses products ranging from home releases and apparel to physical manga and figures, will become exclusive to Crunchyroll’s Mega and Ultimate Fan subscribers.
An FAQ section says that the new store “will feature curated drops, and Crunchyroll‑exclusive merch you won’t find anywhere else,” while the announcement mentions “convention-exclusive merchandise—collectibles, curated drops, and limited-release products inspired by the anime series you love.’
In the meantime, the Crunchyroll Store is offering a Summer Sale with a 50% discount for selected items. The cutoff date for ordering on the present store will be announced “in the future.”
Mega Fan and Ultimate Fan are respectively the middle and highest tier of Crunchyroll’s subscription options, with a monthly cost of US$13.99 for the former and US$17.99 for the latter. Both offer access to the Crunchyroll Game Vault, which features mobile titles, while Ultimate Fan also includes Crunchyroll Manga.
The move to paywall the Crunchyroll Store, which ended its affiliate program in late May, has drawn criticism online, with a number of social media users also pointing out that the store’s catalog had notably dwindled. After the announcement, anime and Japanese film distributor AnimEigo cheekily posted on X/Twitter, “We’ll sell you all the anime you want. We even have generous rewards points for discounts on future orders. No membership fee required to buy. Because that’d be CRazy.”
In 2022, Crunchyroll acquired anime video publisher Right Stuf (ditching its erotica offerings in the process, a move that a Bloomberg report attributes to Crunchyroll owner Sony) and merged Right Stuf’s online store with its own the following year.
Source: @ShopCrunchyroll
