Crunchyroll is getting into the live-action game. Sony Pictures Entertainment has unveiled Crunchyroll Storyworks, a new division that will develop original anime and — in a striking reversal for the company — live-action adaptations of Japanese anime series. The announcement signals that the world's biggest anime streamer wants a piece of the adaptation boom Netflix ignited with its hit live-action One Piece.
Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman and CEO Ravi Ahuja announced the division on Wednesday at the inaugural Crunchyroll Anime Future Forum in New York, held on the eve of New York Comic Con. According to Deadline's coverage of the announcement, Storyworks will both adapt global stories into anime and turn Japanese anime into live-action productions, working in close partnership with Japanese creators.
Leading the new unit is Tohru Iokibe, a 25-year Sony veteran whose recent work connected Sony Pictures and PlayStation Productions on intellectual property development. Iokibe will report to Crunchyroll chief content officer Asa Suehira. The division will operate inside Crunchyroll's content group, pulling together creative partners across Crunchyroll, Aniplex, Sony Pictures, and Japan's creative community.
Sony is framing creator involvement as the cornerstone of the initiative. The company says Japanese creators will be closely involved in every adaptation, with preserving their original creative vision a stated priority. Ahuja described the company's responsibility as protecting what makes anime special while expanding its audience, telling the forum, "We have a responsibility to protect and amplify what makes it special while always keeping creators' visions at the center. That's the goal of Storyworks."
The move represents a genuine about-face. Just two years ago, Crunchyroll said it had no interest in live-action and was content to let Netflix and others adapt anime properties. Netflix's One Piece changed the calculus — the series proved that live-action anime adaptations could be both critically embraced and commercially potent when the original creators stay involved, with Eiichiro Oda participating in scriptwriting and casting decisions. With a third season, The Battle of Alabasta, set for 2027, the template for success now exists, and Crunchyroll clearly wants to build its own version of it.
Storyworks also has a clear production pipeline in mind. The division will develop greenlight-ready projects for HAYATE, the anime production joint venture Crunchyroll formed with Aniplex in March 2025. Headquartered in Tokyo and led by Aniplex's Masanori Miyake alongside president and COO Leo Watanabe, HAYATE focuses on planning and producing anime for Crunchyroll's global platform — and in April it acquired all shares of anime studio Lay-duce, making it a wholly owned subsidiary.
The launch is the latest step in Sony's steady consolidation of its anime empire. The company acquired Crunchyroll in 2021 for approximately $1.2 billion and merged it with Funimation, then expanded the brand across streaming, theatrical distribution, merchandise, and events. Crunchyroll's subscriber base surpassed 21 million earlier this year. Recent moves include a dedicated Crunchyroll hub coming to the PlayStation 5 home screen in spring 2027 and an expansion of Crunchyroll Manga into English-speaking markets including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and India.
No specific projects have been announced for Storyworks yet, and the company has not said which series might get the live-action treatment first. But with Crunchyroll's vast streaming catalog to draw from and a production apparatus now taking shape, the question is less whether live-action Crunchyroll adaptations are coming than which beloved series will go first — and whether fans will embrace them the way they did the Straw Hats.
Source: Deadline
