In 2026, the world of anime has never been bigger – with millions of fans falling in love with the vast fantasy worlds defined by the distinct Japanese art style.
With a "if you can imagine it, it can be created" attitude, anime throws viewers into a universe where imagination is unstifled and ever-expanding. You can sail the seas as part of a ragtag team of pirates in shows like One Piece, go on an epic adventure to fight back against a dystopian world in Attack on Titan, or become cursed with the soul of an ancient sorcerer in Jujutsu Kaisen.
And online platform Crunchyroll has become the go-to destination for fans across the globe to delve into the medium like never before.
Boasting over 50,000 episodes of anime, Crunchyroll has become the world's largest dedicated platform for the art form, expanding to include online manga graphic novels on which many animes are based, as well as games and merchandise.
Last year, Solo Leveling – a tale of supernatural monster-hunter Sung Jinwoo across his adventures battling demons and ghouls – became the service's most streamed show of all time on the release of its second season, toppling titles Attack on Titan and One Piece from the top spot.
And, according to Rahul Purini, the president of Crunchyroll, the service is only just beginning to reach its potential.
Speaking exclusively to Radio Times ahead of the 10th Anime Awards, Purini reflects on the continuing rising success of anime, the dedication of fans, and what shows are ones to watch.
Anime has seen such a resurgence over the past few years. What do you think has contributed to that?
This is the 10th anniversary of the Anime Awards, and the fandom 10 years ago versus the fandom now is completely different. It's much bigger globally.
I think huge credit goes to the Japanese creators. The stories they've been telling and how they are connecting with fans worldwide is the biggest factor for the growth. Fans tell us across the world these stories are unique and different, but real and relatable, and they can't find these unique themes in any other medium. That is a huge part for the fandom growing so fast.
Accessibility is another big part of it, it's made anime accessible for global audiences. In a small way, we have contributed to it by doing simulcasts, where we subtitle it very quickly, we are dubbing it very quickly and making it accessible on our platform. Then obviously it's the younger audience coming into the medium faster because of the stories and the art style.
Are there any shows you would personally credit a little bit to that expansion?
Yeah, I think there have been shows over the last decade that have contributed. Last year, Attack on Titan [was] a huge show, a huge contributor to the growth of anime, My Hero Academia, another big show that's been great.
Demon Slayer is another amazing show that has built the anime audience. You saw that with the theatrical release and the box office that movie did globally. So a ton of shows have been foundational for the growth of anime.
What coming anime titles are you most excited for and why? Are there any you think could be the next Solo Leveling?
2025 was an amazing year. We started off with Solo Leveling, then we had the Demon Slayer theatrical release [and] Chainsaw Man.
This year, we started off with Jujutsu Kaisen's next season. We are currently active with two shows I'm really excited for: Daemons of the Shadow Realm, again, a huge manga hit, amazing anime, that show will continue throughout the year. Another show is called Witch Hat Atelier, a Kodansha manga. Amazing animation, beautiful, beautiful characters and story that I'm really excited for.
We've announced we are getting Black Torch in July. I can't wait for fans to see that show. We're also hoping Solo Leveling comes back!
Any news about Solo Leveling?
Nothing to announce, but we are just as eager as the fans for the next show! We know the creators are actively working on it, so hopefully we can announce something soon.
The Anime Awards is celebrating its 10th Anniversary this year. Out of the nominees, do you have any favourites you want to see win big?
Tough question, I'm biased towards all of them! There's almost 50 unique series when you go through the nominations. All of the shows are amazing.
There's a couple of categories that I'm eagerly waiting to see who wins. Obviously, anime of the year is a big category, there's some amazing shows in there, but best continuing series and best animation are also categories I'm excited to see.
Where is Crunchyroll investing most right now? How has that changed since Crunchyroll's inception?
Content continues to be our biggest area of investment. It's the foundation for why fans come to anime, why fans come to Crunchyroll, and so we are very keenly focused on building and continuing to extend our catalogue. So that's the big area. That's no different from where we were focused a decade ago. Global expansion, serving global fans, is going to be an area of investment.
We like to say we want to be everything for the anime fan. We're not interested in being something for everyone, but we want to be everything for someone. That means creating experiences beyond video streaming. We have Game Vault, theatrical releases, consumer products and merchandise. One of the areas we added last year, [which] we announced at New York Comic Con, is digital manga. We're excited to bring that to global fans.
What's it like being among fandoms at ComicCons?
So energetic! It's such high passion, such energy, such commitment, such community and connection. It just reinforces why we do this.
I can imagine it being fun knowing you've had an input into that community
I think you feel good you're part of this positive, passionate community, and you are adding some value, but we also use that as an opportunity to listen. What are our fans saying? What do they want? What can we do better? It works both ways. It's a little bit of reinforcement, but a lot of opportunity to learn.
Crunchyroll has said before you'll never use AI. How difficult is that to navigate in an industry swinging towards that a lot of the time?
I would say it's not that difficult! We are very clear in terms of what we will and will not do. We have always said creator authenticity is really important for us. We want to make sure creators get to tell the stories the way they want to tell them, whatever technology they want to use, but it is the creator intent. They get to tell the story, and we want to be authentic to their storytelling, and so that's why we're not using AI in our creative process – whether it's subtitling or dubbing.
At the same time, we are a technology company, we are building experiences for our fans, and we wouldn't be doing our jobs if we were not using technology to create those amazing experiences. So we're looking at AI in terms of, how can we help with discovery, how can we help with recommendations and personalisation? How can we build a platform more engaging for our fans? That clarity makes it easy for how we use AI.
What are your thoughts on other streaming services putting new focus on anime? KPop Demon Hunters was big for Netflix last year, even going to the Oscars. How do you plan for Crunchyroll to maintain its edge on the competition?
The fandom is growing really fast, and it's a big, young audience highly engaged and willing to spend money in the medium. That obviously attracts attention. [Netflix], like a lot of companies, want to serve that fandom, want to be part of that, and so we're not surprised other entertainment companies are interested.
This is not a genre for us, this is our entire medium, and so our differentiation is the fact we are focused on this. We have 30 years of history in relationships with Japan, in connection with our fans. We want to build experiences that feel custom and purpose built for the anime fandom. We want them to have a 360 experience, rather than just the streaming experience. All of those things give us an advantage, so we feel really good we have something compelling to offer.
Did you feel KPop Demon Hunters' success have any impact for CrunchyRoll by drawing attention to anime?
I think KPop Demon Hunters is an amazing show. Our parent company, Sony Pictures, produced the show for Netflix. Massive global phenomenon. In our world, it's not anime, right? Like, it is anime style. It's popular, so we definitely have seen a surge of interest in that style, we have seen some folks come into anime because of that, but I think it is a completely different phenomenon.
Are there any mangas that you would like to bring to the screen that you haven't yet?
Wow. One of the things we feel like we can do is there's already a amazing set of creators in Japan looking at manga, and bringing manga to anime. Where we can play a role is taking stories outside of Japan we know our audience will resonate with, taking them back to Japanese creators and having them tell the stories.
Solo Leveling is a great example – Korean Manhwa we took to Japanese creators and have them go. We've announced Ghost of Tsushima, which is a PlayStation game IP we've taken to Japanese creators and said, 'Hey, let's create an anime for it'. You will hear from us on that wane.
Anything you can tease?
Not right now! But I’m looking forward to some announcements soon.
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