What parents need to know about Crunchyroll, the anime streaming platform, including mature-tagged content, the account-age versus profile-age gap, and Discord crossover.
Crunchyroll is a subscription streaming service specialising in anime, offering thousands of Japanese animated series and films, popular with teens.
Official age
16+
We recommend
16+
Developer
Crunchyroll LLC (Sony)
Risks
4
Crunchyroll is the largest dedicated anime and manga streaming service in the UK, owned by Sony. The catalogue includes children's titles like Pokemon and Bluey-equivalent slice-of-life shows, family-friendly action series, and mature-rated titles intended for adult viewers. Mature titles carry an in-app tag and are gated behind the profile's stated age. The account holder must be at least 16 in many regions; below that requires parental consent. The crucial setting is the profile age - within one account, an adult can set up a profile for a younger child, and that profile is then filtered. A large third-party Discord community exists around individual series and the platform; Crunchyroll does not moderate those servers.
Children watch series they already know from school playgrounds and YouTube - Pokemon, Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, My Hero Academia - and progress to longer-form titles as they grow older. Many keep a watchlist, follow simulcasts of currently-airing seasons, and read the manga adaptations through the linked Crunchyroll Manga catalogue. Older children and teenagers join fan Discord servers to discuss episodes the day they release. A growing subset use the platform as the gateway to the wider anime community on TikTok, Reddit, and Instagram, which can quickly surface fan-art and edit content well outside the BBFC age rating of the original series.
Profile Age
Location: Account -> Profiles -> Edit -> Date of Birth
Set to: Set to your child's real age
Profiles set to a younger age automatically hide titles tagged as mature. This is the single most important Crunchyroll setting.
Mature Content Filter
Location: Account -> Parental Controls -> Mature Content
Set to: Off for under-16 profiles
Hides mature-tagged titles from the catalogue, search, and the recommendations row entirely.
Profile PIN
Location: Account -> Profiles -> Edit -> Profile PIN
Set to: Set a PIN on the adult profile
Stops a child switching from their own filtered profile to an unfiltered adult profile on the same account.
Comments
Location: Title page -> Comments toggle
Set to: Hidden
Crunchyroll comments under episodes are not heavily moderated. Hiding them avoids spoilers, fan-fiction prompts, and arguments.
Subscription Auto-Renew
Location: Account -> Subscription
Set to: Reviewed monthly
Crunchyroll has a Mega Fan and Ultimate Fan tier. Make sure the chosen tier matches the family budget and is renewing on a card you control.
Create a separate child profile with the correct date of birth and set a PIN on the adult profile so it cannot be opened by the child
Time: 10 minutes
Open Parental Controls and confirm mature content is filtered for the child profile
Time: 5 minutes
Talk through which series are on the watchlist and check the BBFC or Common Sense Media age rating for any that look mature
Time: 15 minutes
Agree a rule about joining external Discord servers tied to a series - and link to /apps/discord for those settings
Time: 10 minutes
In immediate danger: call 999. For non-emergency police matters, call 101.
Concerned about a child but it's not an emergency? NSPCC helpline 0808 800 5000. Childline for young people 0800 1111.
Myth: Crunchyroll is basically just Pokemon and other kids' cartoons.
Fact: The same catalogue also carries series made for an adult audience, with graphic violence or sexual content, sitting alongside family-friendly titles. It's the profile's set age — not the app as a whole — that decides which of these a child actually sees.
Myth: Turning on the mature content filter means I don't need to check individual shows.
Fact: Fan service — sexualised framing, suggestive outfits, lingering shots — can appear inside a series that still carries a lower age rating, so the tag alone doesn't always flag it. It's worth spot-checking a new series your child is following rather than relying on the rating tag on its own.
Myth: My child can't be affected by Crunchyroll's age rules until they're old enough to hold their own account at 16.
Fact: Crunchyroll's account holder minimum is 16, but one adult's account can have several profiles under it. A profile set to a child's real date of birth gets the mature filter applied automatically — that's the setting to check now, not something to leave until they're older.
Set up a profile under your account with their real date of birth so the mature filter applies automatically, and hide comments under episodes. At this age they're mostly after titles they already know from school or YouTube, like Pokemon.
They'll likely move on to longer-running action series that classmates are watching, such as Demon Slayer or My Hero Academia. Keep the mature filter on and a PIN on any adult profile, and spot-check a series occasionally — some popular titles carry more violence or fan service than their surface look suggests.
Talk about fan service appearing inside otherwise-ordinary-looking shows, and about the external Discord servers many fans join to discuss episodes on release day — Crunchyroll doesn't moderate those. This is also close to Crunchyroll's own 16-plus account minimum, so it's worth deciding together whether they move to their own account or stay on a filtered profile under yours.
Most of the catalogue, including 18-rated titles, is available to them directly now, so the settings conversation is largely done. What's worth keeping an eye on is time spent bingeing simulcast backlogs, and the wider fan communities on Discord, TikTok and Reddit that Crunchyroll itself has no control over.
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