Contrary to popular belief and my previous reports, Crunchyroll did not get rid of their free with ads (aka. AVOD: Advertising Video on Demand) catalogue. Not entirely. They apparently use some kind of system where 3-episode seasonal samplers for each new anime season would be temporarily available to free tier subscribers. This is on top of over 1000 hours’ worth of free with ads anime.
Unfortunately, because of how Crunchyroll constantly rotate and change both the samplers and the AVOD catalogue, there is no consistency. At any point in time, the average free subscriber has no idea which anime series are free with ads or not. It is entirely possible for a free viewer to be watching an anime series, and then suddenly have the anime locked behind the paywall mid-view because of how they have structured their AVOD catalogue.
Fortunately, it looks like Crunchyroll recognizes how inconvenient their AVOD catalogue is for free subscribers. Even better, they want to do something about it. How else do you explain them teaming up with GSN to bring us more free with ads anime?
Crunchyroll x GSN For Free with Ads Anime: Details
Crunchyroll and GSN (both owned by Sony) are proud to announce that they are teaming up to launch a new “24/7 anime streaming channel”. What does this mean, you might ask? Well, according to them, this means that there’s a new Crunchyroll channel available for free users as of today on October 11, 2023. This channel is available on Amazon Freevee, LG Channels, the Roku Channel, and Vizio WatchFree+. Note that all of those services are entirely AVOD, or free with ads. So this is essentially Crunchyroll expanding its AVOD catalogue into other services, and hopefully, in a much more consistent manner. No more revolving anime series or anything of the like.
AVOD List
So which anime series is Crunchyroll introducing to these other free with ads services, you might ask? Well, Deadline provides a list of the anime titles available at launch. The list is short and likely incomplete. Tune back in to THS later to learn more about this growing AVOD catalogue when we do. In the meantime, you can check out that list of available anime series below:
- Horimiya
- Ranking of Kings
- Moriarty the Patriot
- PSYCHO–PASS
- Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest
- Sugar Apple Fairytale
- To Your Eternity
- Code Geass
Source: Deadline
