Netflix Is Winning Globally, But Crunchyroll Still Owns Anime – Here’s Why

Credits:- Netflix, Crunchyroll

The anime streaming market is now more competitive than ever! While Netflix has become a major anime player globally, but many dedicated anime fans still prefer Crunchyroll for its larger catalog and stronger simulcast habits. Even though Netflix provides high-budget animation like Arcane (a Western animated series) or anime like Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, true cultural anime fans continue to rely on Crunchyroll as their preferred anime destination.

So we are going to look at many of the reasons the “Big Red N” continues to lose out to a niche platform that simply understands its audience better. We will examine the vast differences between their libraries, their release model, and so on. Let us explore in detail.

1 Crunchyroll’s Massive Catalog Outshines Netflix’s Curated Hits

If we look at the number of series Netflix and Crunchyroll are offering, the difference becomes pretty clear. Netflix’s anime library does not look so good compared to Crunchyroll. Yeah, Netflix does spend a lot of money to develop its “original” content, with millions of dollars being allocated to its projects. However, when we see the total number of anime titles, it would come to hundreds.

Crunchyroll on the other hand offers over 1300+ titles (via Deadline), especially this number was increased a lot after the recent merger with Funimation. Netflix may have some glossy series like Blue Eye Samurai or Pluto, which may be fine for a Saturday night binge. But it is absolutely not enough for a hardcore anime fan.

If you go to Netflix and try to search for a less popular OVA from the 90s or even perhaps an old classic series, chances are very high that you will not find it there. Honestly, Netflix appears to consider anime as a premium item in its whole collection. Crunchyroll, on the other hand, considers it as an entire library that needs to be preserved. We don’t go to Crunchyroll just to find major hits; we go there because we simply know they have everything.

2 Crunchyroll Captures the Niche Audience Netflix Ignores

Think of anime as a massive tree with several branches – it has multiple genres from action to adventure to romance to slice of life to sports to many more. Netflix usually tries to follow the safe route by simply adding the shows that will appeal to Western audiences – action, sci-fi, or dark fantasy. They very rarely pick those “weird” titles that make the anime community so unique.

Rimuru Tempest from That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime. | Credit: 8 bit

Think about how many times you tried to search for a slice of life or romance anime title on Netflix and could not find it there? When it comes to these genres, you usually find them on Crunchyroll. Whether they are about girls camping, guys being reincarnated as vending machines – Crunchyroll gives these niche titles a platform to reach their audience.

Basically, Netflix is like a five-star restaurant, which is good if you want a certain kind of dish once in a while. However, when you try to look for all types of food, we usually visit those local marketplaces – Crunchyroll is basically structured like that. Crunchyroll is not afraid of “weird” because they understand that for every fan of Stranger Things, there is an anime fan who simply wants to watch 12 episodes of a girl playing a niche board game.

3 Crunchyroll Beats Netflix in the Race for Seasonal Favorites

For anime fans, the release schedule is the major source of frustration. Whenever a popular series releases a new episode, you will see discussions about it almost immediately on platforms like Reddit or Twitter/X. Anime fans tend to discuss the episode’s story, theories, and characters almost immediately after every episode’s release.

Monkey D Luffy from One Piece. | Credit: Toei Animation

Crunchyroll, which usually follows a very robust simulcast model, releases the subtitled episodes typically within one hour of Japanese TV broadcast. This gives the fans around the globe the opportunity to experience the episode and share their experiences as soon as it gets released.

Netflix’s release pattern, on the other hand, is very irregular, and they often release multiple episodes at the same time or sometimes release them without any proper timeline. Although they are now trying to develop a weekly release strategy. For example, recently Netflix released the first episode of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run, and after that, there was complete silence for weeks. No updates about when the second episode will get released until recently, after so much fan backlash on social media, they announced that the series will be following a weekly release starting in Fall 2026.

Thank you for all the incredible support for STEEL BALL RUN JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. The series is currently in production and will be available for everyone to enjoy. We are planning a split‑cour release across the entire run of episodes. The next cour (2nd STAGE) will begin…

However, even with all that, they still lack the consistency that makes Crunchyroll the default tab on any anime fan’s browser. On several occasions, episodes get released with a one-week delay. For example, One Piece‘s Elbaf Arc anime adaptation is being released on Crunchyroll on the same day as Japan’s TV broadcast. However, Netflix is releasing the same episode one week after the original episode release, which is not suitable when you are trying to capture the core anime audience.

Ultimately, Netflix itself says over 50% of its global members now watch anime, and viewership has tripled over the past five years. That means Netflix has absolutely penetrated the anime audience, even if hardcore fans may still prefer Crunchyroll.

Here are some of the questions you may have –

So, which platform do you use to stream your favourite anime? Let us know in the comments section below.