On August 18, the Crunchyroll Store rolled out a major update that pissed off anime and manga lovers. Physical manga, light novels, manhwa (Korean comics) and Chinese danmei (boy love stories) have been delisted, meaning they can not be purchased on the storefront. Right now, their offerings are a mix of Blu-rays and exclusive steelbooks, figurines, apparel and the occasional plushie.
In a statement, Crunchyroll announced their intentions to revamp their store into an experience that “captures the excitement of convention-exclusive merchandise—collectibles, curated drops, and limited-release products inspired by the anime series you love.” So far, all they’ve managed to do is remove a good chunk of the things potential customers actually want to buy and replace it with collectible-focused drops nobody asked for.
And this is on top of locking the store behind a paywall. Only those who pay for the Mega Fan ($13.99 a month) or Ultimate Fan ($17.99 a month) subscription tiers are allowed to buy anything from the Crunchyroll Store. Anyone on the base Fan tier ($9.99 a month) or doesn’t have a subscription to Crunchyroll will still be able to browse and even add stuff to their cart, but they’re forced to upgrade to the more expensive tiers to make a purchase.
None of these changes come close to reflecting the “exciting” shopping experience the entertainment company promised. There’s no word on if Crunchyroll would go back to selling manga. Or if its absence is a warning that they’ll continue to delist physical media from its storefront.
This Has Been the Plan for Years
But how does this tie into Crunchyroll gutting their store? Back in August 2022 Sony Group Corporation acquired Right Stuf Anime, an independent publisher and distributor for anime, manga, Blu-rays and figurines. Founded in Iowa on July 1987, was an immensely popular go-to retailer for anime that was hard to find or out of stock in the West, famous for its discounts, large catalog and careful packaging.
A year after the acquisition went through, Crunchyroll announced it was merging Right Stuf into their Crunchyroll Store. Right Stuf’s standalone website was shut down in October 2023, with the URL redirecting to the Crunchyroll Store.
On February 23, 2026, @/MangaAlerts (a former Crunchyroll affiliate) shared the public listing of the Right Stuf warehouse for $5.7 million on their X/Twitter account. It turns out that Crunchyroll never fully acquired the warehouse following their acquisition of Right Stuf. They’ve been leasing it for $460,625 per year to the owner of the warehouse, former Right Stuf owner Shawne Klecker, with the lease set to expire in 2030. Before @/MangaAlerts made their tweets, Crunchyroll held a warehouse sale at the beginning of the month where a slew of items had their prices slashed by up to 70% each week until March 1, 2026.
While Klecker is the one initiating the sale, the timing of the listing ties into accusations @/MangaAlerts made back in January that Crunchyroll has implemented a “Slow Sellers” policy for the Crunchyroll Store. Basically, Crunchyroll flags products that fail to meet internal sales expectations, which leads to the product being delisted from the storefront and its orders canceled. And the publishers are not told by Crunchyroll beforehand about their products being delisted or labelled as a “slow seller”.
I want to make it clear that so far, there hasn’t been a single publisher willing to publicly confirm the existence of this business strategy, which @/MangaAlerts acknowledges. But the fact that Crunchyroll is shrinking its selection of physical media and books are disappearing from their storefront without any explanation is not reassuring.
Sony’s Ambitions Go Beyond Gaming
It may seem unrelated, but what’s happening with the Crunchyroll Store is an escalation of Sony’s war against physical media.
On July 1, 2026, Sony announced it will stop producing physical discs for all new PlayStation games starting January 2028. Games that have already been released are unaffected but new titles will only be available on the Playstation Store or as a code to download. The conglomerate framed this decision as their reaction to “consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift away from physical discs to digital.” The news came just days after Rockstar revealed that the “physical edition of Grand Theft Auto VI was actually a box with a code to download the game, no disc included.
The backlash has been intense. A “Don’t Kill the Discs” petition on Change.org demanding Sony to cancel their plans to end the production of physical discs has received over 370,000 signatures. DoesItPlay, an organization dedicated to video game preservation, has called for a one week boycott of PlayStation. The #PSBlackout asks players to turn off their PlayStation consoles or refrain from logging into their PlayStation account from August 23 through 30. And of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the mysterious Cyberleek, who’s been leaking clips of GTA 6 recorded from their build of the game to protest against digital pre-orders.
Despite all this pushback, unfortunately it doesn’t seem like it’s going to make so much as a dent into Sony’s plans. During a Q&A following their Q1 earnings report on July 31, Chief Financial Officer Lin Tao made it clear that Sony will “cautiously” move forward with their goal to end PlayStation discs. And that decision will have negative consequences that will be felt beyond the gaming community.
The Preservation Crisis
Without physical discs or cartridges, preserving games, anime, films, TV shows becomes incredibly difficult if not impossible.
The problem is how modern entertainment works. Games need regular patches and updates just to function. Films and shows exist in multiple cuts and versions. Manga and anime have regional variants due to being dubbed and translated in different languages. Which version is worth preserving? The original two hour film or the director’s cut? What do you do when a game receives a new DLC ten years after it was archived?
And let’s not forget that when it comes to digital downloads and streaming, you are renting a license to access the content you bought. A physical disc is something you own and can resell at will, something you’re legally prohibited from doing with a code.
Then there’s DRM-software that acts as a lock controlling how users can edit, share, and copy digital files. Since an online connection is essential, if authentication servers permanently go offline you’re just out of luck. When Crunchyroll merged with Funimation, customers lost the anime they had already purchased with no restitution. Consider it a cautionary tale for what to expect in the all-digital entertainment ecosystem Sony is trying to cultivate.
Major studios have cut new physical media SKUs (stock keeping units) by 44% compared to two years ago. Analysts are calling 2026 the year physical discs “officially” transition from being mainstream to a niche that only appeals to collectors and home theater purists. While films that get a theatrical run are also released on DVDs and Blu-rays, the same can’t always be said for the flicks that are streaming-only. That means a film can disappear once a streaming platform decides to pull it. Earlier this year, Sony confirmed they would stop producing recordable Blu-ray discs, a move data archivists viewed as another obstacle to preservation.
Is This the End of Physical Media?
Probably not. There will always be people who prefer physical media over digital. It’s just that Sony is trying to shrink the number of people who do feel that way to be as small as possible.
When physical media becomes too expensive or harder to come by, people are going to make the switch to digital because it’s simply more convenient. Why spend over $55 per set for DVDs of seasons 1 and 2 of Solo Leveling when you can stream it while only paying $10 a month? You’ll argue that not buying gaming discs saves space on your shelves and reduces clutter. That line of thinking leads to low physical sales, which companies like Sony use to justify a pivot to digital-only. Overall spending on physical media marked a year-over-year decline to 9.3%, a huge drop from over 23% drops in 2023 and 2024.
The one bright spot is that premium 4K Blu-ray releases for collectors have actually grown. 4K Blu-ray sales rose 12% in the US in 2025, thanks to the special collector’s editions and the rising cost of streaming subscriptions. Boutique labels like Criterion, Arrow Video, Shout! Factory, and Vinegar Syndrome are driving the surge by restoring classic films or selling custom metal cases or steelbooks.
In other words, the survival of physical media is due to the medium being rebranded as a “premium niche” rather than an easily accessible way to enjoy your favorite content. And this is all thanks to the same company that was once famous for co-developing and spearheading major formats like CDs and Blu-ray technology. How the mighty have fallen.
