Anime video site Crunchyroll has received a $750,000 investment from TV Tokyo, the company announced this week.  The new investment gives TV Tokyo a minority stake in the company, and will not lead to any changes in corporate structure, strategic management, or operations, according to the announcement.  Crunchyroll currently offers TV Tokyo content (such as Naruto Shippuden) as soon as one hour after its broadcast in Japan for its subscribers, and free a week later. 

 

“We will be able to cultivate new programs to a worldwide audience, strategically plan a global rights business, and leverage Crunchyroll’s innovation to discover new ways to generate revenue,” TV Tokyo President and Co-CEO Masayuki Shimada said of the investment.

 

It also sounds like Crunchyroll is going to get into the manga business (currently dominated by scanlation sites like Onemanga.com); the announcement also revealed that Crunchyroll expects a second tranche of investment from an “undisclosed group of major Japanese book publishers” to close soon.