Crunchyroll will launch a localized anime service in Taiwan in summer 2026 and in South Korea later in the year, announced at the APOS 2026 summit held in Bali from June 11–13, 2026. Taiwanese subscribers get the full catalogue and simulcast lineup from day one. The plan extends a localization push that has already quadrupled viewership in Thailand and tripled total watch time in India, two markets where dubbed content now dominates.
Crunchyroll, owned by Sony, frames the move around fan community rather than catalogue size. Both markets share a deep, youth-skewed anime culture that the company is betting will spend across film, games, and merchandise.
In South Korea, more than half of people aged 15 to 29 streamed Japanese animation in the past year. That is the number Crunchyroll built its plan around. At the APOS 2026 summit in Bali, the streamer told the room it would launch a fully localized service in Taiwan this summer, with South Korea following later in the year.
This is not a company chasing a gap in the market. It is chasing a habit that already exists. The audience in both places is young, organised, and fluent in a shared cultural language that runs from Tokyo through Taipei and Seoul. What Crunchyroll wants to do is stop renting that audience to local platforms and start owning the relationship directly.
The question is whether owning it pays. Plenty of fans in these markets already watch anime for free, or through generalist services that bundle it with everything else. Crunchyroll is asking them to choose the specialist.
A fandom that already pays its own way
The financial target is concrete. Taiwan’s streaming video-on-demand market generated about NT$16.9 billion — roughly US$520 million — in 2024, with subscription services taking more than 70% of that. South Korea is larger still, its paid online video market worth around US$2 billion the same year. These are mature markets with money already moving through them.
Rahul Purini, Crunchyroll’s president, frames the strategy around identity rather than convenience. He argues that anime fandom has become a marker of who people are and how they connect, not just a viewing preference. The pitch is that a fan who feels they belong to a community will pay to stay inside it.
The evidence from neighbouring markets supports the bet. After a fully localized launch earlier in 2026, viewership in Thailand quadrupled, and the country now ranks fourth globally in anime engagement. In India, dubbed content already accounts for more than 65% of viewing. Daisuke Iijima, senior analyst at Media Partners Asia, notes that anime has become a genuine differentiator in East Asia, with dedicated platforms pulling share from generalist services that treat it as one genre among many.
What the research cannot yet settle is price. Junghwan Kim, a research fellow at the Korea Information Society Development Institute, has tracked rapid growth in Korean youth watching Japanese animation through streaming since the late 2010s — but discovery through a free or bundled platform is not the same as a paid subscription. Whether that habit converts to recurring revenue is the open question.
| Jurisdiction | Current rule | Effect on launch | Effective date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Taiwan | Foreign OTT services must appoint a local representative for regulatory and tax purposes | Requires a registered local entity before launch | NCC guidance, 2024 |
| South Korea | Japanese animation imports governed under general broadcasting and online content rules | No anime-specific statute; standard OTT compliance applies | KCC framework, ongoing |
Why the moment finally adds up
Five years ago, this launch would have been premature. Broadband and paid streaming were not yet deep enough, and younger viewers still drifted between linear television and pirate sites. Both conditions have now flipped. The audience is online, it is paying, and it prefers on-demand.
The cultural ground was already there. In Taiwan and South Korea, anime is not an imported novelty but a shared language — one that links Japan, Taipei, and Seoul through characters, conventions, and fan practices borrowed from Japan’s Comiket model. Fans run doujinshi markets, cosplay events, and university clubs. KISDI’s survey data shows how closely this tracks Gen Z media habits, and scholars at National Chengchi University point out that official recognition of anime, comics, and games as a creative-industry priority has legitimised hardcore fandom.
What changed is not the love of anime. It is who collects the money for it.
So the bet is less about discovering an audience than about converting one already fluent in the form. Crunchyroll is wagering that fans who built this culture themselves will pay to keep it close.
Beyond the headline
The bigger picture
Crunchyroll’s moves into Taiwan and South Korea show how niche global fandoms are reshaping what globalisation in entertainment looks like. Instead of exporting one Western catalogue everywhere, major rights-holders now follow tightly knit fan communities across borders, mixing streaming with events, gaming, and merchandise. Japanese-origin stories increasingly circulate through regional hubs like Seoul, Taipei, and Bangkok as much as through Los Angeles.
The reach
Sony’s ownership means this is not just one app reaching new viewers. It plugs Taiwanese and Korean fans into a larger machine spanning PlayStation, film distribution, music, and licensing. That integrated reach matters because performance in these mid-size markets can justify bigger bets on anime-based games and theatrical releases, shaping which franchises get renewed or rebooted worldwide.
The money trail
Behind the talk of fandom sits a plain logic: anime libraries are long-tail assets that can be re-monetised each time they enter a new language. By controlling distribution rather than wholesaling rights, Crunchyroll captures recurring revenue, viewing data, and cross-sell chances for films, mobile games, and collectibles. The company is betting that deeply engaged fans will spend across that whole stack, not just pay for another subscription.
What to watch as the launches land
With Taiwan going live this summer and South Korea following later in 2026, two groups have specific reasons to track what happens next.
- Western anime fans
The localization model being tested in Taipei and Seoul — dubbing depth, community features, simulcast speed — is the template likely to reach your market next. Watching what Crunchyroll prioritises in these launches tells you what its global service will look like in a year. The mix here is read as a preview, not a one-off.
- Investors tracking Sony
Review Sony Group’s investor materials at sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR for how Crunchyroll’s “Asia and other regions” line is broken out after launch. If Q4 2026 or Q1 2027 releases show strong double-digit quarter-on-quarter growth, the fan campaigns are working. If Taiwan and Korea stay folded into “rest of Asia” with only qualitative mentions, expect questions about the return on spend.
- Media and policy watchers
Check Taiwan’s National Communications Commission at ncc.gov.tw and the Korea Communications Commission at kcc.go.kr for new OTT guidelines. These rules shape how Crunchyroll prices, censors, and localizes its catalogue, and any change there is an early signal of friction the company will have to absorb.
Explainer
- Rahul Purini
- President of Crunchyroll, the Sony-owned anime streaming service. He has led the company’s Asia localization push, arguing that anime fandom now functions as a form of cultural identity rather than a casual viewing choice. Before the Taiwan and Korea announcements, he oversaw the India and Thailand expansions, where dubbing and community features became the testing ground for the regional strategy.
- APOS
- An annual media and telecoms summit that gathers Asia-Pacific streaming and broadcast executives to set industry direction. The 2026 edition ran in Bali from June 11 to 13, where Crunchyroll outlined its Taiwan and South Korea plans. The conference has become a key venue for announcing regional content and distribution strategy before it reaches public markets.
- OTT
- Short for “over-the-top,” meaning video delivered directly over the internet rather than through cable or broadcast. In Taiwan and South Korea, regulators now treat foreign OTT services as a distinct category requiring local representation and tax compliance. The term matters here because Crunchyroll’s entire expansion depends on OTT penetration already reaching most households in these markets.
- Doujinshi
- Self-published fan works — comics, novels, or art — based on existing anime and manga, often sold at fan conventions. The practice originated in Japan and spread through events modelled on Tokyo’s Comiket fair. In Taiwan and South Korea, doujinshi markets are a core part of the participatory fan culture that makes legal streaming demand measurable rather than hypothetical.
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