Posted in: Crunchyroll, TV | Tagged: anime, one piece

One Piece: Crunchyroll Moving Majority of Anime to Paid Premium Tier

Crunchyroll is moving most of One Piece to its premium subscriber tier, with episodes of the popular anime beginning the move this month.

Published Tue, 03 Dec 2024 07:37:07 -0600

by Adi Tantimedh

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One Piece, the hit manga that has spawned over one thousand episodes of anime and is still going, will be moved by parent streamer Crunchyroll from its free, ad-supported tier to its paid premium tier. According to IGN, not every episode of the series will be transferred to the subscriber tier, and it will be done in phases. However, fans will probably not be happy about this.

At the moment, all 1122 episodes of One Piece are available without a paywall on Crunchyroll and have been free on the platform for over ten years. The first 206 episodes will remain available to stream for free on the ad-supported tier, while the episodes after that will be moved to the premium tier in three phases that will roll out from December 23 to February 17.

This is the schedule for the One Piece move to to premium tier:

Phase 1 begins on December 23: Water 7, Thriller Bark, Summit War, and Fishman Island arcs (344 episodes)
Phase 2 begins on January 20 – Punk Hazard, Dressrosa, Zou, and Whole Cake island arcs plus 6 special episodes (305 episodes)
Phase 3 begins on February 17 – Reverie, WANO KUNI, and Egghead Island arcs (247 episodes)

Crunchyroll Premium has various tiers that start at $7.99 per month. The prices of two higher tiers, Mega Fan and Ultimate Fan, were raised early this year, but the lowest-priced Fan tier remains at the same price. Crunchyroll said that the transition is an attempt to retain accessibility to anime while providing a "best-in-class experience" for subscribers. The phased approach, too, should hopefully give fans time to rewatch their favorite arcs before they get put behind the paywall. This is the usual "make them pay more" model that all streaming services keep implementing. If you know one that hasn't done it yet, it will eventually.

The One Piece transition is only one of several changes Crunchyroll has made to its position on the streamer over the past year, including removing its comment section and finally adding the option for multiple profiles for subscribers.

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