Shopping Guide
Crunchyroll is expanding its service!
In November 2012, Crunchyroll, an online service that distributes Japanese anime overseas, started distributing Japanese anime simultaneously to Brazil. The service now includes Portuguese subtitles for 30 of its titles, which are available immediately following their Japanese broadcast. The Portuguese titles are diverse and include highly popular overseas titles such as Naruto Shippuden, Bleach, Hunter x Hunter, Sword Art Online, and Oshiri Kajiri Mushi. With their new expansion, it seems that Crunchyroll has accomplished not just delivering the latest news to anime fans in Brazil, but also expanding the community of anime fans as well.
From its foundation, Crunchyroll has expanded the industry by distributing anime in English. In April, the company set out to become multilingual with their expansion to Latin America when they began distributing anime with Spanish subtitles. Their new Portuguese service is another step in this expansion. With this expansion, Crunchyroll now offers anime in three languages: English, Spanish, and Portuguese. The expansion also means that Crunchyroll now covers the majority of North, Central, and South America. Their expansion to Brazil was heavily fuelled by Brazil’s large nikkei (2nd generation Japanese emigrant) population. The cultural connection between Brazil and Japan is strong due to the 15 million nikkei that live in Brazil, and Crunchyroll’s expansion strengthens this connection even more. The anime fanbase in Brazil is also huge, with a mainstream anime convention that attracts 120,000 people taking place yearly in São Paulo.
Other than their multilingual expansion, Crunchyroll is expanding its business in other ways as well. In September 2012, Crunchyroll’s total number of paying viewers surpassed 100,000, and Crunchyroll projects that this number will continue to climb. Crunchyroll is also expanding its service to other platforms. In October 2012, they began implementing their service on the PS3. Other platforms soon followed including iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Google TV.
For overseas anime fans, Crunchyroll is a great way to watch your favorite anime.
Crunchyroll’s official site: http://www.crunchyroll.com/
This article contains translated excerpts from: http://animeanime.jp/article/2012/11/24/12167.html (Japanese)