Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll kills its free streaming service on 31 December 2025, leaving fans without free access to hit series like Chainsaw Man and Spy x Family Screenshot from X/Twitter

Free anime streaming on Crunchyroll is dead. Well, it will be after 31 December anyway. The platform dropped the news on ad-supported viewers this week via a pop-up message that's since gone viral on Reddit and X.

The message doesn't mince words: 'Ad-supported streaming ends December 31, 2025. Upgrade now to ensure your viewing is 100% ad-free and uninterrupted.' Translation? Pay up or get lost. No more watching with ads. No grandfather clause for longtime users. Just a hard cutoff on New Year's Eve whilst everyone's celebrating.

Your Favourite Shows Are Getting Locked Away

Dozens of popular series will disappear behind the paywall. That includes titles people actually want to watch like Chainsaw Man, Spy x Family, and Bocchi the Rock. Blue Lock, Code Geass, and Vinland Saga are on the list, too. Other titles anime fans will need to pay up for are: Beast Tamer, Bungo Stray Dogs, Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill, Don't Toy With Me Miss Nagatoro, Golden Kamuy, Lycoris Recoil, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch of Mercury, My Dress-up Darling, Ranking of Kings, The Reincarnation Of The Strongest Exorcist In Another World, Soul Eater, and Yona of the Dawn.

Here's what makes this especially frustrating. Remember when Crunchyroll let you watch new episodes for free with ads? Those days ended back in March 2022. They kept the back catalogue available with ads, though. That compromise is now over.

They've Been Doing This for Ages

Anyone paying attention saw this coming. Crunchyroll's been slowly strangling its free options for two years straight now. The One Piece paywall was probably the biggest blow, taking one of the most popular anime ever made and locking it away from free viewers. That's not just any show. That's the series that got millions of people into anime in the first place.

Then they axed the library programme in May. Libraries used to be able to give their members free Crunchyroll access. This made anime accessible for kids whose parents won't pay for streaming services or people in smaller towns without much anime access. Now, all of that is gone.

The AI Subtitle Mess Makes This Worse

Want to know what makes this whole thing extra insulting? The people already paying for Crunchyroll are furious about the subtitle quality. There has been growing backlash over what subscribers claim are lower-quality subtitles allegedly produced with AI. During one episode of The Banished Court Magician Aims to Become the Strongest, a technical error exposed the name 'Ollang' in the file source, an Israeli AI company that Crunchyroll is alleged to have partnered with.

Crunchyroll won't say whether they're actually using AI or not. Radio silence. But subscribers keep complaining about the translations, and the evidence doesn't look great. So now they want to push more people into paying for potentially AI-generated subtitles? Good luck with that.

What's Actually Left?

If you're committed to watching anime legally without paying, your options are limited. Crunchyroll's got some stuff on YouTube through their official channel, but it's a small selection compared to what's vanishing from the ad-supported library. There's also a FAST channel—one of those 24/7 free ad-supported streaming TV channels available on platforms like Samsung TV Plus. Better than nothing, but barely.

The real problem is where this leaves anime fans. You've got a service that's allegedly using AI to translate shows, that's systematically removed every free option it ever had, and that's now forcing everyone onto paid tiers whether they like it or not.

Crunchyroll built itself by offering accessible anime to Western fans. This 'new era' they keep talking about? It's the exact opposite of what made them successful.

Crunchyroll hasn't issued an official statement about the end of its free ad-supported service. The clock's ticking, though—31 December is less than a month away, and anyone still watching for free will need to make a choice: pay up or find their anime somewhere else.

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