AFAIK they bought their only real competition (funimation). Regarding recommendations: I personally find piracy streaming sites have the best recommendations, I mostly use them just for recommendations and don’t even watch there, also you could take a look at [email protected], specifically the recommendation threads

Absolutely not.

I like classic anime and they don’t really have a lot of Tenchi-related shows on there. They also do not have the 1997 Berserk classic, you still have to scrounge around on streaming sites for that. Crunchyroll can boast about having a lot of this and that, but they do not have everything.

I am not great at the advice “paid thing”. Can I interest you in a sarcastic comment torrent tracker?

You should checkout secondhand shops for anime DVDs you can get some good quality ones

Technically it may be, in terms of library.

However there are a few alternatives to look into that, while not matching the scale of their library, still have enough to consider.

For older anime there’s Retrocrush, which offers a fair amount of shows to watch for free (but with ads), no account required. Some are only accessible with an account and via subscription, however.

Interestingly though, some of those shows are available on other services no subscription required, like Tubi or Pluto.

Speaking of, it turns out Crunchyroll apparently cut a deal with Pluto, so there’s a Crunchyroll channel on there where you can catch some of their anime freely (again, with ads though). Besides that there’s also a separate anime channel and a few dedicated marathon channels to more popular series like Naruto, One Piece, Sailor Moon, etc.

There’s also lower amounts still to be found on the other general streaming services like Netflix or Hulu, but it obviously doesn’t fully compare.

Also while not newer and their library is way smaller, for some anime movies you might see if your local libraries offer digital services like Hoopla or Kanopy. With those you may be able to check out some great anime movies.