Crunchyroll has removed all of its user-generated comments across its platforms' anime episodes and articles to supposedly make "a safe and respectful community environment."
The only user-provided that will remain on the platform is its user-star rating system for both shows, movies, and individual episodes.
The anime streaming platform did not provide an exact reason for removing the comments, although many users speculated that the move was in response to the growing homophobia on the platform.
Just a day before the comments were disabled, several notable anime content creators highlighted a review-bombing campaign on the platform's new boy's love anime, "Twilight out of Focus."
Many of the one-star reviews complained about the rise of LGBTQIA+ anime series, despite the genre being part of the anime community for many years, to "make something alien become accepted."
Similar copy-paste comments can earlier be seen in both English and Spanish across new LGBTQ shows on the platform, especially in the Boys' Love demographic.
Lot of deeply pathetic people review-bombing the new BL anime “Twilight out of Focus,” claiming “this isn’t about homophobia” from their profiles with single-digit review counts.
— Geoff Thew (@G0ffThew) July 6, 2024
They’re really going out of their way to claim crunchyroll is “shoving it in their face” pic.twitter.com/xqFup8ZwSZ
Crunchyroll Faces Backlash for Comment Section Removal
Crunchyroll's decision was immediately met with user backlash with many people lamenting the loss of the feature that often helps them reach other community members directly.
Crunchyroll removing comments, reviews, etc
byu/Taoutes inCrunchyroll
One user even accused Crunchyroll of removing the "best part of the site that helped the stand above the other services."
Others pointed out that removing the comments section would be detrimental to future anime watchers binging shows like "One Piece," "Naruto," or "World Trigger" where time stamps are needed to get through filler content and flashbacks.
The loudest voice, however, are people criticizing the Sony-backed Crunchyroll for its failure to moderate its comment sections against hate brigades, an issue other anime-related platforms have long since addressed.
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Crunchyroll Users Threaten to Leave Subscription
Following the comment removal, more people are now threatening to leave the platform in favor of pirate sites if Crunchyroll does not reverse its decision.
Many users have earlier left the platform after it raised its subscription fee for the first time in five years in time when most people were already complaining about subscription price hikes in other services.
The last report puts Crunchyroll at 13 million active subscribers, although many people think that the numbers could go down following the recent changes on the anime streaming site.
