At first glance, Sony Group's $1.2 billion acquisition of the anime streaming site Crunchyroll in 2021 looks like a success. Subscribers to the $8-a-month service have tripled to 15 million since then, and the number of new shows has doubled to more than 50 every quarter.
But the rising popularity of anime — Japanese cartoons featuring complex plots and colorful characters — has attracted competition. Netflix, Walt Disney and Amazon are all digging into their deep pockets to license shows, making it more expensive for Crunchyroll to compete and giving fans less reason to subscribe to the niche service.
Internally, employee support for management and its vision has trailed downward in recent months. Expensive forays into video games and e-commerce aren’t going well. And the company’s ambitious goals for new subscriber additions seem unlikely to be met.
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