Crunchyroll is closing its online store to most of the people who shop there. The company announced this week that the Crunchyroll Store will relaunch this August as a members-only shopping experience, open exclusively to Mega Fan and Ultimate Fan subscribers.
Right now, the store doesn't require a membership at all. Anyone can buy figures, manga, Blu-rays, apparel, and accessories the same way they'd shop any other online retailer, no subscription required. It's been the landing spot for everything from Aniplex figures to manga box sets to steelbook releases. That changes in August.
The base Fan plan is the tier caught in the middle. Fan members at $9.99 a month keep all of their streaming benefits, but they lose store access along with everybody else below the $13.99 Mega Fan line.
Ultimate Fan sits at the top at $17.99 a month, and both of the upper tiers will be able to shop the new store the day it opens. Mega Fan adds offline viewing and four simultaneous streams to the base plan, while Ultimate Fan tops out with six streams, the manga library, and an annual swag bag.
Crunchyroll is pitching the relaunch as a convention booth you don't have to fly to San Diego for. The announcement promises "curated drops, and Crunchyroll-exclusive merch you won't find anywhere else," and the company name-checks convention-exclusive collectibles and limited-release products as the model. It went up on the store's front page on July 14th, the same day a big summer sale started.
Here's the timeline:
- July 13th at 11:59 PM PT - select items switched to final sale, with refunds and returns accepted only for damaged or defective products
- July 14th - the summer sale kicked off with 50% off select items, and it's still running as of this writing
- August 14th - the last day the store accepts gift cards, and Anime News Network reports the standing member discounts (10% for Mega Fans, 15% for Ultimate Fans) end the same day
- Sometime in August (exact date TBA) - the current store closes and the members-only version opens
If you've got a Crunchyroll gift card sitting in a drawer, SPEND IT! After August 14th, the company's official guidance is to contact the Help Center about remaining balances, and that's not the same thing as promising that your balance will carry over. The 50% summer sale makes this a decent window to burn a balance down to zero.
Already ordered something? You're fine. Open orders will continue to process and ship as usual, including orders for items that release after the transition, and your account and order history stay accessible. If you're a Fan member who's been putting off ordering something, the window to lock it in under the old rules is right now.
There's plenty Crunchyroll hasn't said yet. We don't know the exact cutover date, whether member discounts return in some form inside the new store, or what happens to the free-shipping perks Mega and Ultimate Fans get today. The company also hasn't said whether the exclusive drops will carry convention-style pricing. I'd expect answers to trickle out as August gets closer, but for now those are open questions.
For the longtime collectors out there: this is the same store that absorbed Right Stuf. Crunchyroll bought the beloved anime retailer in 2022 and folded it into the Crunchyroll Store the following year, making it one of the biggest online shops for physical anime merch in North America. That's a big part of why putting it behind a paywall stings more than it would for a typical brand store.
If you're keeping score, this is the fourth move in the same direction since late 2024. Crunchyroll put hundreds of One Piece episodes behind the premium paywall, ended ad-supported streaming on December 31st, then raised prices on every tier by $2 a month in February. That hike took Fan from $7.99 to $9.99, Mega Fan from $11.99 to $13.99, and Ultimate Fan from $15.99 to $17.99. Each move made business sense on its own. Together, they point to a company betting on higher-paying subscribers, even if there are fewer of them.
I'll be honest - exclusive drops sound fun, but charging fans $13.99 a month for permission to spend MORE money is a little odd. The merch had better be special.
Does members-only shopping make the Mega Fan upgrade worth it for you? If you're holding a gift card balance, what are you grabbing before the August 14th cutoff?
Sound off in the comments below!
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