The Crunchyroll subsidiary of Warner Media (via Otter Media), has acquired a majority stake in Viz Media Europe, distributor of anime and manga (Japanese inspired comic style content) across Europe. Japanese media company Hitotsubashi Group will retain a minority stake.
Crunchyroll has 50m registered users of which 2m are said to be paying subscribers. It hopes to combine this user base with Viz Media’s expertise in distributing anime and manga. Viz Media has distributed over 40,000 hours of animated content across 100 countries. It also manages consumer product licensing, brand management and retail development in EMEA, and has manga publishing and DVD distribution. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
