Crunchyroll reviews
What users love and hate, from real reviews
The biggest anime streaming service with a huge library and near-simulcast releases, yet a hard paywall, patchy dubs, and a broken billing system routinely outweigh users' love of the content.
What users love
Huge library and near-simulcast — the real draw
When it works, it's the best home for an anime fan: a massive catalog old and new, near-simulcast releases, plus manga. Many have stuck with it for years.
Anime library is expansive and has close to simulcast of new releases.
the greatness and quality of this app is just simply unmatched for an anime lover like myself the variety and the ability to read manga as well it is simply perfect and worth every penny
If you're an anime fan, Crunchyroll is one of the best streaming platforms available.
Cheap subscription and good streaming quality
For the satisfied crowd, the subscription feels very affordable and the video quality and load speeds are excellent. That often outweighs the bugs in their rating.
the subscription price is very affordable, the platform provides a huge collection of anime in one place, and the streaming quality is excellent with fast loading speeds
Premium services are inexpensive and the selection is damn near infinite.
the subscription is cheap 1 dollar for 30 days is good
Emotional attachment: a "second home" for fans
For part of the audience the relationship is almost personal — a place of peace at the end of the day, shared family viewing across generations. That's loyalty money can't buy.
love this app, its like my second home, I feel at peace while watching anime
this overall service has given me the piece of mind at the end of a long day.
my whole family loves it. My grandparents watch anime with us
What users hate
Hard paywall: almost nothing is watchable for free
Users sign up expecting "free anime" only to find every episode crowned and locked behind premium. That bait-and-switch feeling is the single biggest driver of the angry 1-star reviews.
not even a single episode is free to watch
all anime are prime, not a single anime that can watch free in there and I'm not going to pay to watch.
EVERYTHING is locked behind a premium paywall! Every single episode has a crown mark and demands money.
Billing that steals: charges after cancelling and double payments
People keep getting charged after cancelling, get billed twice for one subscription, and can't unlink payment. This isn't "too expensive" — it reads as outright theft from the card.
they are stealing from me. I unsucribed over a year ago and they still charge my Google account.
Ended up paying ₹950 for what should have been a single subscription.
they only have given me back 60 dollars in 4 years and now I got charged again these last couple of months.
Paid — but premium never activated
Money is taken, the confirmation arrives, yet the app still demands a subscription. Support says "wait 24 hours" then drags it out for days, with no refund.
I purchased the Crunchyroll Mega Fan subscription for ₹119 through Google Play. The subscription benefits were not activated
once after deducting the amount for the subscription the app is stating that I haven't subscribed yet
Even after getting a subscription,you are still telling me to get a subscription
Cancelling is impossible — the flow is broken and buried
The cancel button bounces between the app and Google Play and never works, and you can't delete the account without cancelling first. It escalates to threats of lawsuits.
there is no direct way to do so on google and its buried to even find it through many sub menus
The app wont let me cancel my subscription.
the cancelation of the subscription is broken now because when i go to cancel the subscription it sents me to google play and theres nothing there
Library gaps: marquee titles simply missing
You pay for a subscription and the iconic shows — Attack on Titan, One Piece, Tokyo Ghoul — are absent or only partly there. It hits hardest for people who came for one specific title.
worst app i have ever paid for don't even have tokyo ghoul
app doesn't even have attack on titan and many more anime,
they don't have full episode of old anime ( like one piece) they don't have that marinford arc and all. buyed subscription for one piece and got so disappointed
Patchy dubs: series left half-voiced
A title is tagged as dubbed, but half of it has no voiceover in your language and you can't finish the series. It stings most for the Hindi audience, where rivals do have the dub.
in general it show that the anime is available in hindi audio but in video player in audio there is no option of hindi at all
but beware of the unfinished dubed seasons[some are only last ep.] been out for months not finished
Listing an anime as dubbed when its not in your language is baffling.
Region locks and VPN just for the full library
In India, Indonesia and elsewhere only a slice of the catalog is available, forcing users onto a VPN to watch. In its country of origin the service is banned outright.
It's amazing, but the problem is there 's only a little amount of anime in indonesia. I hope you can somehow make a server in indonesia
Best overall but have to use vpn to access 100% Library
On top of that, it's banned from the country of origin.
Won't load or play: endless loading and API errors
On a solid connection it loads forever, claims "no internet", throws API 429/403 errors and green screens. You hit play and it just spins or kicks you back to the list.
whenever i try to watch something. i always run into api 429 error and after waiting 30 minutes still same error persists.
its allways loading when i press the app even if my network is stable and fast
it says try again in a moments or check your internet connection API 403 my internet connection is perfectly fine
Downloads break — offline viewing fails
A queue of 8-10 episodes comes back empty, downloads only start with the app open, and files expire or buffer. The whole point of offline viewing collapses.
downloads are constantly breaking making the app worthless. have to delete and redownload entire library to fix every time.
When I queue 8–10 episodes for download and come back later, sometimes none of them have been downloaded.
I downloaded episodes and im very busy so I get like and hour and sometimes no time to myself so I finally got to watching and it was all expired.
Player is bare-bones: no speed, gestures, or screen lock
No 1.5x/2x (and where it exists, only up to 1x), no double-tap-to-pause, no screen lock, no picture-in-picture. Basic conveniences users expect even after paying.
give playback speed options please for god's sake it's hell
canceled immediately after finding out the video player has zero gesture customization or a double-tap-to-pause feature
IT DOESN'T LOCK SCREEENNNAAAAA
Subtitles and AI translation fail; audio out of sync
Subs vanish, drift off timing, collapse to Arabic-only, and the AI translation is woefully wrong. On top of that, chronic audio-video desync across every device.
I really despise the AI generated caption. they are woefully inaccurate. for instance it translated "not today" as "nixoderm"
there is issue with subtitles. now only available subtitles is Arabic.
I am having a ton of sound sync problems. phone app, casting, tv app doesn't matter the delay ruins the shows.
Price goes up, quality drops — and there are still ads
Price jumped from 7.99 to 9.99, quality suddenly drops, and even on the paid tier you still get promo trailers and popup ads. "Ad-free" effectively doesn't exist.
so greatful I pay for no ads and still get ads (skippable trailers are still ads
i was happy when it was 7.99 a month i was able to keep up until now. I hate yall did that. so sorry yall lost me.
There is no real ad free version. Even if you pay, Crunchyroll still serves a ton of popup ads for their store