New York Comic Con 2025 came and went, including the return of Crunchyroll’s industry breakfast. This year instead of being held at Legacy Records, it was held at Crunchyroll’s very own booth on the convention show floor, and the focus was on the new Crunchyroll Manga mobile app.
Overall the breakfast was a nice way to get fueled up and refreshed to tackle the eventful day ahead. But the main purpose of the industry breakfast is to also get industry news on what Crunchyroll is up to as well as any announcements.
Crunchyroll Manga launched on iOS and Android devices on Thursday and the booth had various tablets and mobile devices available for people to get hands-on impressions.
After trying it, I have some thoughts. The UI layout and design are really neat, and it has a lot of manga available to read. The titles were very easy to find and access. There is the option to download the manga chapters to read offline, but that is mostly for paid subscribers to the app.
Crunchyroll Manga has three types of plans. By default many users will use the free plan, but users can also upgrade to one of the following:
- Fan+Manga plan: For $11.99 USD/mo which allows users to watch ad-free anime, stream on 1 device, watch new episodes after they air in Japan, access hundreds of manga titles, and download manga for offline reading.
- Mega Fan+Manga: For $15.49 USD/mo, same perks as the previous tier + access to Crunchyroll’s Game Vault.
- Ultimate Fan: For $15.99 USD/mo, same as previous tiers + offline anime viewing, exclusive swag bag after 12 consecutive months of subscription.
The devices at the event had Ultimate available. I tried it out with Myself and fellow Beat writer, Marion.
My only critique as of now is the app’s algorithm. I’m unclear if it’s because of AI or the tagging system, but when you read certain titles, the recommendations for what to read next are nowhere close to the same genre or style.
For example, if you read My Hero Academia and navigate to “More like this,” you will get series such as Tsukimichi, Highschool of the Dead, and The Witch and the King. Obviously those titles are nothing similar to My Hero Academia, but I am sure over time the algorithm will become more refined so the recommendations are more accurate.
Overall, the industry breakfast was smaller so as to focus on rolling out the Crunchyroll Manga app. Overall the UI is easy to navigate and understand, is responsive, you got plenty of manga to read. If you’re an avid manga reader and are a fan of Crunchyroll as a platform then you now have a viable option to access hundreds of titles on the go and even offline.
You can download Crunchyroll Manga for iOS and Android.
Stay tuned to The Beat for more coverage from NYCC ’25.
