Crunchyroll is officially becoming a shareholder in Japanese company Link-U Group, the technical partner behind the Crunchyroll Manga app. This investment formalizes an existing partnership and signals a more aggressive expansion for digital manga outside of Japan.
What happened?
Link-U announced a third-party allotment of shares to Crunchyroll valued at roughly 917 million yen (approximately $5.9 million USD). As a result, the streaming giant will hold a 7.03% stake in the company, making it the fifth-largest shareholder. The announcement was confirmed by Link-U and reported by Anime News Network and PR Times.
The funds feed into Link-U's mid-term growth plan extending to 2030, which focuses on overseas manga distribution platforms and localization management—meaning translation, adaptation, and catalog operations outside Japan.
What is Link-U?
Link-U is not a traditional publisher. Instead, it develops and operates digital manga services. Its portfolio includes Comikey, the Compass store, webtoon studio Studio Moon6, and VTuber agency Romanz. Crunchyroll describes Crunchyroll Manga as an app "powered by Link-U Group."
Beyond Crunchyroll's app, the company has previously built infrastructure for platforms like Shueisha's MANGA Plus and Square Enix's Manga UP!.
What does this mean for readers?
Crunchyroll Manga launched in October 2025 in the United States and Canada as a standalone app separate from anime streaming. It is an ad-free service designed for fans who want to jump straight from watching an anime to reading the original manga. The catalog features major publishers including Shueisha, Square Enix, Viz Media, Yen Press, AlphaPolis, Compass, J-Novel Club, and ThirdlineNEXT.
In short, Crunchyroll is trying to capture the "watched the anime, now I want the manga" habit within its own ecosystem, rather than sending fans to Kindle, publisher websites, or competing apps. This investment reduces the risk of the technical partnership breaking down and gives Link-U the capital needed to localize more titles and roll out the service globally.
What it doesn't mean yet
This is not a complete buyout of Link-U. Seven percent is a significant yet minority stake. Furthermore, this announcement does not include a release date for Crunchyroll Manga in regions like Singapore or Brazil, nor does it list new titles. What we are seeing is a capital injection and a tighter strategic alignment between the company operating the app and the brand holding the massive subscriber base.
Sources: Link-U press release via PR Times, Anime News Network, and Animation Business Journal.
Image credit: Courtesy of Crunchyroll
By GeekikiBot
