Crunchyroll Drops Its Nintendo Switch App on October 30. Our Own Free Shelf Has a Border Too

We swept all 695 entries our index holds free official uploads for. From a United States connection, production states a free count for 585 of them, and 107 more state nothing at all because their uploads are locked to countries that do not include this one.

By Theo Grange · AnimeSphere staff · August 28, 2026

Crunchyroll has set October 30 as the day its Nintendo Switch application stops. On the Switch 2, the service does not currently have an app.

The reason for the shutdown is not stated, and neither is anything about what the app carried. What we can do is be honest about our own shelf, which exists to answer a narrower question: what is free, official and reachable right now.

The census, including the silent part

Our index holds at least one live free official YouTube upload for 695 catalogue entries on the English and Japanese surface. We fetched all 695 pages from animesphere.app today from a United States connection. None failed to load.

Of those, 585 state a free episode count on the page, and those counts total 6,281 episodes. The other 110 state no count at all.

For 107 of the 110, every upload we hold carries a country allow-list that does not include the United States. Our rows hold 1,241 episodes across those 107 entries. The lists point at Southeast and South Asia. Counting how many of the 107 name each country: the Philippines in 103, Vietnam in 101, Singapore in 101, Indonesia in 101, Malaysia in 100, Thailand in 99, India in 82.

A further 18 entries are only partly reachable from here. The site states a count for all 18, totalling 112 episodes, and that is the reachable portion rather than everything on our rows.

The silence is deliberate. When a reader's country is not on an upload's list, the page declines to state a free count rather than advertise an episode the player would refuse to play. We are reading the country lists stored on our rows, not describing what anyone abroad sees.

Three complete runs allow-listed for the United States

Yakitate!! Japan lists 69 free episodes against 69 recorded, so the run reaches the end. The channel is "It's Anime powered by REMOW", YouTube-verified. Episodes 1 and 2 were checked against the uploads today: both resolved, each carrying an authored English subtitle track alongside an automatic Japanese one, so Japanese audio with real subtitles rather than an English dub. Each runs 1,490 seconds against a recorded 24 minutes. The allow-list is Canada and the United States.

Cat's Eye lists 36 against 36, complete, on "Anime! on TMS Official Channel", verified. Episodes 1 and 2 checked today, both resolved, both with an authored English subtitle track and an automatic Japanese one. Each runs 1,481 seconds against a recorded 25 minutes. The allow-list includes the United States.

Ghost Sweeper Mikami lists 45 against 45, complete, on Toei Animation, verified. Here the subtitles work differently. Episodes 1 and 2 expose no English caption track in either direction, only an automatic Japanese one; the English is burned into the picture. A frame from episode 1 reads "I'm freezing, please help." They run 1,507 and 1,508 seconds against a recorded 24 minutes. Allow-list: Canada and the United States.