These are the last weeks to watch Crunchyroll for free. The platform is ending its ad-supported streaming service

After fifteen years, Crunchyroll is officially ending its free, ad-supported streaming tier on December 31, 2025. Starting January 1, 2026, watching anime on the platform will require a paid subscription, and there will no longer be any titles available for free.

Goodbye free Crunchyroll

Crunchyroll’s paid subscription tiers give you different perks, like access to bigger libraries, offline viewing, and even discounts on anime merch. But there was always a free option too, where you could watch some of the most popular anime with ads. Of course, no one expected big movies like Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle to be free, but the early series being available at no cost meant a lot of fans really relied on the no-cost tier.

Over the past few years, though, Crunchyroll has been slowly cutting back on free access and more shows from the back catalog were gradually moving behind the paywall. Ending free streaming entirely is just the final step in Crunchyroll’s shift away from free-access anime.

There’s no official statement on Crunchyroll’s site, but these past days, anyone trying to watch something for free on the platform was greeted with a message: “Ad-supported streaming ends December 31, 2025. Upgrade now to ensure your viewing is 100% ad-free and uninterrupted.”

Source: Crunchyroll

Fans are now speculating about what Crunchyroll will look like once the free option is gone. Some think the platform might change its tiers, and that even a paid plan could include ads. Only time will tell if that actually happens.

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• streaming / cloud