Redundancies Reported at Funimation/Crunchyroll UK & More
Multiple employees of Crunchyroll/Funimation UK (formerly Manga Entertainment UK) have taken to social media this morning to announce that their positions, predominantly in PR and social media marketing, have been made redundant as a result of recent corporate acquisitions and the consolidation of Crunchyroll and Funimation, which was first announced last month. We are currently uncertain of the scope of this redundancies in regards to both job disciplines and demographics, but some reports are indicating that these redundancies may also apply to employees of Crunchyroll Inc’s Australian operations, formerly known as Madman Anime Group.
This marks the latest development in a currently 5-year+ journey of Crunchyroll/Funimation becoming a global powerhouse in the western anime industry. The North American distributor Funimation was acquired by Sony Pictures in August 2017. Two years later, as part of an acquisition of various regional anime distributors worldwide, Funimation announced that they had acquired the historic British anime distributor Manga Entertainment UK, who officially rebranded to Funimation UK last year.
Last August, Sony Pictures’ Funimation Global Group grew even larger with their $1.175 billion acquisition of the global genre streaming giant Crunchyroll, their former collaborator-turned competitor. Earlier this year, the Funimation Global Group announced that they would be consolidating their streaming business with Crunchyroll, and rebranding to Crunchyroll, LLC.
If you are a former Crunchyroll/Funimation employee affected by this, and wish to speak to us (with guarantee of anonymity), you can contact us HERE.
