Following Crunchyroll’s decision to disable comments, many anime fans feel they have lost a major platform for anime fans to communicate with each other.
According to Comicbook, the popular anime streaming service decided to disable the comments section a couple of weeks ago. Crunchyroll issued a statement explaining why the platform chose to do so.
“At Crunchyroll, we prioritize a safe and respectable community environment. To maintain this standard, we are removing all existing user-generated content, including comments, across all platforms and experiences,” said Crunchyroll.
As reported by Comicbook.com, Crunchyroll’s decision to ban comments came following the debut of a long-awaited anime series Twilight Out of Focus. While reviews of the anime were overall positive, a mass number of toxic comments promoting homophobia were found in the comment sections of this series.
The Anime News Network or ANN asked Crunchyroll if they decided to disable all comments due to hateful comments against Twilight Out of Focus, but the company declined to comment.
Many popular influencers within the anime community came out criticizing Crunchyroll. Chibi Reviews, a very popular anime YouTuber, believes Crunchyroll’s decision can hinder the growth and popularity of new anime.
In recent YouTube video, he said “One of the biggest aspects of any anime and its growth is the discussion. I didn’t use the community comments section for Crunchyroll a lot, but I did read it… For them to disable that, that really is going to cause a lot of disconnect with the actual site and with the actual audience.”
Geoff Thew, another popular influencer within the anime community with over one million subscribers on YouTube, posted his disdain for Crunchyroll’s move to erase the comments sections.
Thew posted on X,“ 1 day after I tweeted about review-bombing on Crunchyroll they have removed all comments? That’s got to be a coincidence, right? Like it takes more than one day to push a change this big… right? Either way, this is too far. They should be moderating, not nuking it all. Killing off the community’s years of history isn’t a solution.”