Ah, Crunchyroll. An anime platform that’s pretty much hated by fans across the board. But friends, fret not, because now we have even more backup on the horizon. Even the people working with Crunchyroll are starting to give up and turn on the company. The talk of Crunchyroll’s payment controversies was thrown back into the spotlight this week when Kyle McCarley, the voice of Mob in Mob Psycho, posted a short video on YouTube announcing that he probably won’t be reprising his role any further due to the fact that Crunchyroll has refused to negotiate with his union. He makes it clear that Crunchyroll did offer a good sum of pay, but that he doesn’t typically work non-union. However, since they did offer a good pay, he had hoped to instead say he’d do it not under union protection this time around, in the event that Crunchyroll would be willing to come to the table and sit down with representatives from his union to come up with some solutions for future contracts. It wouldn’t have been anything binding for sure, just a negotiation to find a middle ground. To which Crunchyroll said “nah fuk u”, thus leading to this current situation where he is saying goodbye to the series. His full video is posted below.

I will be the first to admit that I don’t fully understand union terminology, the benefits and drawbacks, etc. But I do know one thing. Voice actors are often paid like shit, and treated like shit. There’s a reason that so many VAs do (either publicly or privately) NSFW commissions and it’s because god damn it’s nice to be able to afford a $5 Biggie Bag from Wendy’s sometimes instead of a 4 for $4 deal. It’s no secret that VAs don’t actually get paid that much, and fellow VA Faye Mata (Aqua, Astolfo) came to Kyle’s side declaring that she would probably do the same considering she has had to rely on another career for stability. Ultimately English dubbing is in a shit spot where most anime fans don’t care about dubbing at all anyway and will shit on any performance regardless of quality, and yet on the flipside it’s a HIGHLY sought after career by many which means if you even say “Crunchyroll kinda stinky” you can be replaced in an instant by someone who has been waiting their whole life to get a few lines performed in an anime.

Will anything be resolved by this? Probably not. But it certainly has put more pressure on Crunchy than they have faced in a while. Perhaps it will at least be enough for them to worry they might have to offer better working conditions in the future, but this is the same company that greenlit High Guardian Spice so I really am not holding my breath for any sort of competent decision making. Do you think Crunchy will reconsider their stance down the road? Would you want to be a VA despite seeing the low pay where many need a second side job? Are you hyped for the next season of Mob Psycho? Hop in the studio, spend four hours doing a cold read on lines you were given that morning to dub, and collect an immaculate $5 in the comments below!