[AFA23] Crunchyroll Director of Marketing APAC and India Akshat Sahu on Regional Catalogues, Anime Piracy and More

During our time at Anime Festival Asia 2023, we had the opportunity to speak with Akshat Sahu, the Crunchyroll Director of Marketing APAC and India in an interview.

Regional Catalogue

Considering that Crunchyroll offers a different catalogue of anime depending on the region, we asked Akshat what Crunchyroll’s plans were to make people subscribe to Crunchyroll Premium so they feel they’re getting their money’s worth compared to regions that offer a bigger catalogue.

Akshat mentions that that they are now focusing on growing the brand and the service in the APAC and India, which also affects the growth of the catalogue.

“We want to continue to increase our catalog offerings, get the best shows, and we have done that very recently. We got One Piece which we just recently launched in the region, we had the Attack on Titan finale.”

He continues by saying that in the fall season, Crunchyroll has almost 39 simulcast shows which has been the biggest offering yet in this region, on top of almost 10 exclusive shows which are not on any other service.

Akshat ensures to the viewers that Crunchyroll are very fair and open about their services and are confident that most people who use their services or start a free trial would eventually convert to their premium subscription.

“As we build our library, we believe that we’ll get more and more subscribers, and Crunchyroll as you know is not just a streaming service. We have an entire flywheel of offerings which we actually provide to our fans.”

Catalogue Parity

Going on a similar vein, we asked Akshat whether Crunchyroll in APAC would reach a point of catalogue parity with every region, especially the US and Canada.

Akshat ensures us that’s their current aim and they will eventually get there.

“Obviously there are processes and there are ways in which you secure rights with our licensors, and there are a lots of legacy rights which are already existing in the region which we need to get to.”

He continues by saying that not only in Southeast Asia but that’s the aim globally that Crunchyroll should have catalogue parity across the world in all countries.

Challenges Faced

The next question we asked Akshat was what are some of the challenges that Crunchyroll had faced regarding the services in APAC.

To which Akshat replied by saying that one of the challenges they had faced is the fact that Crunchyroll is present in the region with so many titles.

“I think while we have some resonance with the very very hardcore anime fans, but the larger anime fans may or may not know about Crunchyroll being present in the country, and how it is easy to access and easy to stream content.”

He continues by saying that one of Crunchyroll’s goals is to drive awareness for Crunchyroll as a home for anime in the region, however that’s also one of their biggest challenges.

Eventually they want to come out and launch content in local languages and want to improve their offering with dubbing anime and providing subtitles going forward.

Anime Piracy

Anime piracy has existed ever since the early days, we asked Akshat how he feels about it especially when it comes to the APAC regions where it’s less accessible compared to the west.

Akshat mentions that piracy is a global phenomena and it exists when fans don’t get easy access to content.

“Piracy also shows us the opportunity which we have and the the potential for us to actually serve the fans who are actually striving so hard to actually pirate the content.”

Akshat says that when you provide an experience for fans and they value that experience, they will start converting. He continues by saying that there will always be a set of fans they will never want to pay for content, and that’s fine and that segment of fans will always be there.

“But we have generally seen that the mass fan looks for convenience and they will convert. So piracy is there. It’ll exist. It’s part of our ecosystem. We will only try and make sure that our offering is strong enough and attractive enough for them to switch to us.”

Adding Mobile Games

Crunchyroll had recently announced that it’s going to be adding mobile games to its subscription, we asked Akshat what was the decision process behind this.

To which Akshat says that when looking at anime and gaming, they’re very adjacent categories and in a sense a symbiotic relationship.

Akshat wants to make sure that Crunchyroll becomes a destination for all their fans to do multiple things, and while they have both a digital manga and store where people can buy merchandise globally, gaming was an obvious extension to what they want to do.

In terms of the catalogue of games that Crunchyroll offers, the catalogue for that is at parity worldwide.

Localisation

Next question we asked Akshat was whether Crunchyroll has plans on venturing into localising anime in their catalogue for a wider audience whether it be subtitles or dubbed, and would that lead to more Crunchyroll Premium subscriptions.

Akshat replied by saying that it’s definitely a very big part of their strategy globally.

“Once we start rolling out a lot more content and start growing in the region, we definitely intend to localise and that’s in different languages wherever we believe that there is critical mass. So subtitling and dubbing both are a part, a big part of our strategy globally as well.”

In terms of it leading to more Crunchyroll Premium subscriptions, Akshat mentions that he’s seen that in India and in other markets like LATAM already.

“At the end of the day, while there is a set of core fans who will always wanna watch subtitles because they’ve always watched and they have a habit, but a lot of not so core fans or casual fans or fans who are getting into anime now, they and who are used to watching content in their language, they prefer to watch content which is dub.”

One thing that Akshat mentions not a lot of platforms dub anime the way Crunchyroll does, and that’s something they provide as value add to their subscribers. Akshat continues by saying that the good thing about their dubs is that they make sure they don’t lose the essence of the character, the storyline, and the mood.

They go one step further where they also localise the jokes, intonations, colloquial words and even changing pop culture references that fit within the regions; all of which are the expertise Crunchyroll puts in their dubs and why they’ve become very popular as it retains the essence of the show.

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We would like to thank Akshat Sahu for taking the time to answer our questions.

Crunchyroll now offers three different Premium plans in Malaysia, ranging from MYR 9.00 to MYR 11.00 per month, along with a yearly offer of MYR 110.00.

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