Crunchyroll, the Sony-owned anime streaming and global fandom business, on Friday unveiled plans for a first-of-its-kind invite-only industry summit to convene Japan’s anime sector leaders alongside their Hollywood, tech, gaming and music counterparts.
Dubbed the Crunchyroll Anime Future Forum, the one-day event will be held Oct. 7 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, adjacent to New York Comic Con. The theme is “Designing for Anime’s Future,” with sessions structured around fandom, technology, storytelling and IP protection.
“Over the last several years, it’s been clear that anime’s fandom, its cultural relevance and place within the entertainment industry cannot be underestimated and is a central part of the global entertainment industry fabric,” said Crunchyroll president Rahul Purini in a statement. “Crunchyroll is honored to host and curate a forum for exciting and innovative discussions from and between industry leaders around the amazing art form of anime. This is the first and only type of industry event outside of Japan where anime is front and center for discussion and everyone attending will push its prominence and success.”
The announcement lands as Crunchyroll’s parent, Sony Group, prepares to report fiscal-year earnings later Friday in Tokyo, with the anime business an increasingly prominent pillar of the Japanese conglomerate’s global growth strategy. Sony executives flagged anime as a central priority for the first time at CES in early 2025, when president and COO Hiroki Totoki appeared on stage in Las Vegas alongside Purini and Aniplex president Atsuhiro Iwakami to spotlight the company’s deepening commitment to the sector. Investment bank Jefferies has forecast the global anime market to reach $60.1 billion by 2030, up from $22 billion as recently as 2023, according to the Association of Japanese Animations.
The company’s anime ambitions got an emphatic real-world endorsement last September with the theatrical release of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba — Infinity Castle, which grossed more than $740 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing Japanese film of all time and the top-earning anime feature ever released. Sony Pictures handled distribution outside Japan, Aniplex co-produced with Tokyo studio Ufotable, and Crunchyroll activated its global fandom infrastructure as a co-distributor — a cross-Sony Group collaboration Purini has described as a model for the company’s broader IP strategy.
The Anime Future Forum, Crunchyroll says, is intended to bring potential new partners and allies into Sony’s growing anime ecosystem, pulling Japanese animation studios, creators, distributors and artists into the same room with their international counterparts across television, film, music, gaming, technology and merchandising. Specifics on speakers and programming have not yet been disclosed.
The summit also extends Crunchyroll’s growing portfolio of anime-centric events. The company has hosted its annual Crunchyroll Anime Awards since 2017; the 10th anniversary edition is set for Tokyo on May 23, with a guest list that in recent years has drawn Hollywood and music figures including Megan Thee Stallion, Bong Joon Ho, and Phil Lord and Christopher Miller alongside top Japanese industry talent.
Sony acquired Crunchyroll from AT&T in 2020 for $1.18 billion and merged it with Funimation, the anime industry pioneer that the Japanese conglomerate picked up in a prior deal in 2017. The combined platform’s subscriber base has grown from roughly 3 million at the time of the acquisition to more than 17 million, and Crunchyroll has steadily expanded beyond streaming into theatrical distribution, licensing and merchandising, manga, music, gaming, and live events, becoming a one-stop destination for the world’s growing legions of anime obsessives.
