Type of site | Video streaming service |
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Founded |
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Dissolved | April 29, 2023 |
Headquarters |
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Area served | United States |
Owner | |
Key people |
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Industry | Video on demand |
Parent |
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URL | Archived official website at the Wayback Machine (archived 2023-04-04) |
Registration | Optional |
Current status | Defunct (consolidated into Crunchyroll) |
VRV (officially pronounced "verve", though it is also referred to by its letters) was an American over-the-top streaming service launched in November 2016 by AT&T and the Chernin Group. Owned by Crunchyroll, LLC, run by Sony through a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Aniplex, the service bundled together anime, speculative fiction, and gaming-related channels aimed at fans of such content. [1]
Some of VRV's content could be streamed for free, while other content required a subscription. The subscriptions to its channels were available for purchase individually, or in a premium bundle. VRV was available only in the United States, despite some of its partnered content being available for viewing worldwide outside the platform.
In April 2023, it was announced VRV would merge with Crunchyroll, which was completed later that month. [2] [3]
Ellation, owners of Crunchyroll, formally announced the launch of VRV on June 14, 2016. Its initial partners included Rooster Teeth, Seeso, Nerdist, Geek & Sundry, and Frederator's Cartoon Hangover. [4] On September 29, 2016, Funimation, Adam Savage's Tested, RiffTrax, CollegeHumor, Machinima, Ginx TV, Shudder, and Mondo Media were announced as new partners. [5] VRV would officially launch on November 14, 2016. [6]
On August 9, 2017, the VRV Select channel was launched, featuring content from other sources. It was also announced that Machinima, Ginx, and Rifftrax were being dropped from the service. [7] On the same day as VRV Select's announcement, Seeso announced via its Facebook page that it would be shutting down by the end of 2017. [8] Though RiffTrax, Machinima and Seeso's channels were dropped, some of their content, including Seeso's The Cyanide & Happiness Show , HarmonQuest , Hidden America with Jonah Ray , and My Brother, My Brother and Me would migrate to VRV Select. [9]
On November 21, 2017, CuriosityStream and Mubi joined VRV. [10]
On December 12, 2017, DramaFever joined VRV. [11]
On May 3, 2018, it was announced that Tested was being dropped, with its content moving to VRV Select. [12]
On August 28, 2018, VRV launched NickSplat, named after the TeenNick programming block, featuring classic Nickelodeon series from the 1990s and early 2000s. [13]
On October 12, 2018, Shout! Factory's content, such as Mystery Science Theater 3000 and ReBoot , were made available to watch on VRV Select. [14]
On October 18, 2018, Funimation announced that they would be leaving VRV, as their partnership with Crunchyroll ended, and all of their titles would disappear on November 9, 2018. On that same day, VRV announced that Hidive would be joining the service to replace Funimation. [15]
On November 1, 2018, Hidive was launched on VRV and it was announced that Boomerang would be joining the service on November 13, 2018. [16]
On November 7, 2018, season 1 of TBS's Final Space was made available to watch on VRV Select. [17] On the same day, Otter Media announced Mike Tyson Mysteries and Jabberjaw were also going to be added to VRV in 2018. [18] [19]
On August 9, 2021, Crunchyroll was acquired by Sony-owned Funimation, making Sony the new owner of VRV. [20] [21]
On September 8, 2021, Hidive announced that it would be leaving VRV on September 30, 2021. [22] On December 13, 2021, Rooster Teeth left VRV. [23] Cartoon Hangover was also removed at the same time. [24]
On March 1, 2022, it was announced that VRV would be merged into Crunchyroll itself, alongside Funimation and Wakanim. [25] VRV ceased operations on April 29, 2023. [2] [3]
Title | Genre | Premiere | Seasons/episodes | Status |
---|---|---|---|---|
Shadowstone Park [lower-alpha 1] | Animation | December 15, 2017 | 1 season, 3 episodes | Ended |
Slug Riot | Animation | January 5, 2018 | 1 season, 5 episodes | Ended |
(not) Hero [lower-alpha 1] | Animated comedy/Adventure | February 9, 2018 | 1 season, 3 episodes | Ended |
Paradigms: How We Know What We Know | Science documentary | March 2, 2018 | 1 season, 1 episodes | Ended |
Chris P. Duck | Animated comedy/Slice of life | 1 season, 6 episodes | Ended | |
Gary and His Demons [lower-alpha 2] | Adult animation/Comedy | April 15, 2018 | 1 season, 16 episodes | Moved to Prime Video (internationally) and Freevee (United States) [26] |
Daddy and the Big Boy [lower-alpha 2] | Adult animation/Comedy | October 16, 2018 | 1 season, 13 episodes | Ended |
Allen's Pole | Adult animation/adventure | 1 season, 4 episodes | Ended | |
Brogan: Master of Castles [lower-alpha 2] | Adult animation/Comedy | March 26, 2019 | 1 season, 6 episodes | Ended |
Live From WZRD | Talk show | March 31, 2019 | 1 season, 8 episodes | Ended |
Bigfoot [lower-alpha 2] | Adult animation/Comedy | September 29, 2019 | 1 season, 8 episodes | Ended |
Epithet Erased [lower-alpha 3] | Animated comedy/adventure | November 8, 2019 | 1 season, 7 episodes | Ended |
Title | Genre | Previous network | Premiere | Seasons/episodes | Status |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
HarmonQuest (seasons 2–3) | Adult animation/Live improvisation | Seeso | September 15, 2017 | 2 seasons, 20 episodes | Ended |
Deep Space 69 (season 4) | Adult animation/Comedy | YouTube | December 22, 2017 | 1 season, 8 episodes | Ended |
Bravest Warriors (season 3-4) | Animated comedy/Science fiction | YouTube | December 25, 2017 | 2 seasons, 58 episodes | Ended |
Turbo Fantasy (season 2) | Adult animation/Comedy | YouTube | August 27, 2018 | 1 season, 3 episodes | Ended |
The Cyanide & Happiness Show (season 4) | Adult animation/Comedy | Seeso | September 18, 2019 | 1 season, 10 episodes | Ended |
Funimation was an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. Launched in 2016, the service was one of the leading distributors of anime and other foreign entertainment properties in North America. It streamed popular series, such as Dragon Ball, One Piece, YuYu Hakusho, My Hero Academia, Attack on Titan, Fairy Tail, Black Clover, Fruits Basket, Assassination Classroom and Tokyo Ghoul among many others. The service and its parent company were acquired by Sony, who ran the service through Sony Pictures Entertainment from 2017 to 2019 and then through SPE and Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Aniplex from 2019 to its closure in 2024. In 2021, Sony acquired Crunchyroll.
Boomerang is an American cable television network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery U.S. Networks, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. It primarily features animated programming from the Warner Bros. Animation library.
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Aaron Mitchell Dismuke is an American voice actor, ADR director and script writer. He is known for his role as Alphonse Elric in the English dub of the first Fullmetal Alchemist television series, whom he voiced when he was 12 years old. He is also known for his directorial work for the English dubs of Nanbaka, Shomin Sample, Tsugumomo, Cheer Boys, Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Black Clover, Dr. Stone and Luck and Logic.
Sony Entertainment, Inc. is the umbrella entertainment division of Japanese multinational conglomerate Sony Group Corporation and managed by its American subsidiary, established in 2012 to oversee the corporation's ventures in film, television and music.
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Aniplex of America, or Aniplex USA, is an anime distributor based in Santa Monica, California that serves as the American distribution enterprise of Aniplex, an entertainment company owned by Sony Music Entertainment Japan, where its goal is to reinforce the parent company's licensing business in the North American market. They operate the English language version of the Aniplex+ store, and from 2013 to 2017 operated a streaming service called Aniplex Channel through their website. The company most of the time only directly releases its titles in the Americas, however, some of its titles have been released in other territories by other distributors, such as Anime Limited, MVM Films, Siren Visual and corporate siblings Crunchyroll UK and Ireland and Crunchyroll Store Australia.
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