Anime is booming in popularity, but animators aren't being compensated in proportion to that success. That's where Crunchyroll is stepping in, with a new program designed to help studios who license their content to the streaming service.

It's certainly no secret that anime is becoming increasingly mainstream in Western countries, thanks in part due to the increased availability that services like Crunchyroll have provided. But what's also become increasingly well known among fans of anime is that the working conditions and pay for animators and other creatives involved in making these series is generally abysmal. Many fans, especially abroad, would like to see conditions improve, but have little way to impact Japanese studios. Crunchyroll's new program, however, could change all that.

Crunchyroll Institutes A New Program for Licensing Series

The New Approach Allows for Surprise Hits to Be Rewarded

Japanese outlet Toyokeizai reported that Crunchyroll has announced a new initiative to help studios afford to pay their employees better. President of Crunchyroll, Rahul Purini, said, "Crunchyroll wants to build a sustainable anime ecosystem. We want to win together with our fans and creators." He then described their new approach to licensing content, which typically involves negotiating a fixed fee, where studios are paid a certain amount regardless of how the anime performs. That can be fine for big series, but surprise hits often suffer as a result of this arrangement.

Instead, Purini described Crunchyroll's new system as a "minimum guarantee plus revenue sharing," explaining that licensing agreements would now have both a fixed minimum fee, and a percentage of the revenue generated by the series. The idea is that studios will definitely get a certain amount of money in licensing fees, but if the series turns out to be a hit, they will also be additionally compensated with a portion of the revenue, ensuring that the studio will get the additional funding that a hit deserves, allowing them to pay employees better and better invest in the next project.

Will Crunchyroll's New Licensing System Be a Win for Studios?

The Jury is Still Out On How Well This Will Help the Situation

Crunchyroll's proposed licensing system does have some upsides. Series that unexpectedly took off, like Dandadan or Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, would likely benefit greatly from such an arrangement. Big series like My Hero Academia will likely be largely unaffected, since they have much larger fixed licensing fees. For most smaller series, though, such an arrangement is unlikely to have a huge impact on the studio's overall profits.

The concern with such an arrangement is that the promise of revenue sharing could lead studios to accept lower fixed rates, which the series may not be able to recoup, meaning that in those cases, the studio would actually lose out on a bit of money compared to the prior arrangement. On the other hand, this may also encourage Crunchyroll to localize more niche series, on the off chance that one of them takes off. Just how well this new system will work is something only the future will reveal, but at least Crunchyroll is attempting to help the situation.