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Getting purchased by a massive company like Sony was bound to change a few things at Crunchyroll, but it seems like the past four years have been even more tumultuous than we thought.  The company has undergone multiple rounds of layoffs and has reportedly seen employee satisfaction plummet year-on-year. Things still aren’t quite settled, either, as another reorganization is reportedly planned for early 2025 at Crunchyroll.

This comes via a report from Bloomberg that commented on some of the recent developments at Crunchyroll. As well as confirming that the anime streamer had halted all promotion of Dan Da Dan after it was simultaneously streamed by Netflix, the report says that Crunchyroll employees have already undergone three rounds of layoffs since it was purchased by Sony in 2021. That is an average of one a year, with a fourth round planned for early 2025.

The impact this has had on employee morale isn’t exactly surprising. Only 39% of Crunchyroll employees said that management has communicated a strategy that motivates them, according to internal poll data shared with Bloomberg. That is down from 51% in the previous poll. That is a pretty rapid decline which could create employee retention problems that can quickly start to impact customers.

Aside from the fact that no one should have the looming threat of even more layoffs hanging over their heads, the lack of a clear directive from management couldn’t come at a worse time for Crunchyroll. They are facing increased competition from other streamers, both for subscribers and for the licenses to stream the anime that forms the backbone of Crunchyroll’s business. Another round of layoffs in 2025 won’t do anything to restore confidence that the company is moving in the right direction.

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

• Aggretsuko vs Chainsaw Man: Two Wildly different anine with the same anti-capitalist message
• The Summer Anime season return of Kaiju No. 8, Sakamoto Days, & Dan Da Dan are forcing me to break my vow of watching less anime
• From Tomo-Chan to Oshi No Ko: How some of your favorite manga creators got their start in hentai
• Piracy is baked into anime's past, but, like Crunchyroll, we should move on from it
• Flying whales, mechs, and Miyazaki vibes: Inside Netflix's Leviathan anime with the people who made it
• How AI translations of manga continues the 'enshitification' of the medium, and why Japanese publishers are "less precious" about it
• I never wanted a Cyberpunk Edgerunners sequel, but God help me I'm going to watch it
• The Summer Hikaru Died delivers its cosmic horror at an agonizingly slow pace
• The one thing that Dan Da Dan does better than Demon Slayer ever did
• Studio Ghibli movies have never been as cozy as you think they are and that's what makes them magic