Three years after buying Crunchyroll for over $1 billion, Sony plans to capitalize on its purchase (and piss off countless anime fans) by shutting free users out of one of its most popular series. The company said that starting soon, you’ll need a paid subscription to watch past the first 206 episodes of One Piece. Cue the obvious jokes about locking a show about pirates behind a paywall. (Yo ho!)
Crunchyroll will use a tiered rollout to block free members from most of the anime, which has been in production since 1999. On December 23, the Water 7 to Fishman Island story arcs will become paywalled. On January 20, Punk Hazard to Whole Cake Island (and six specials) will be locked behind subscriptions, followed by Reverie and Wano Kuni to Egghead Island on February 17.
Until Sony’s new content lockdown takes effect, free users can (as they always have been able to) watch the entire series with ads. Snippets of One Piece are also available on Hulu and Netflix (the latter also hosts the live-action version). But Hulu’s library only reaches episode 384, while Netflix’s goes to 238. The series currently has over 1,100 episodes.
Sony is reportedly in talks to buy Japanese publisher Kadokawa. In addition to games like Elden Ring, Dark Souls and Bloodborne, the studio produces anime like Overlord and The Rising of the Shield Hero. If today’s news is any indication, watching much anime in the West that doesn’t go through Sony may soon require the digital equivalent of the Straw Hat Pirates.