Is Crunchyroll Safe for Kids? What the Ratings Actually Mean
Short answer: Crunchyroll can be perfectly fine for a child, but not on the settings it ships with. Every profile starts with a content restriction of 16 and up, a level Crunchyroll itself describes as including strong violence, harsh language and non-explicit nudity, with serious themes such as suicide, abuse and sexual assault. Anime is a medium, not a genre: the same service carries Chi's Sweet Home and Berserk. Making it safe takes about three minutes: create a teen profile (which defaults to 14 and up), set the content restriction to the level you actually want, and lock profiles with a PIN so your child cannot switch to an unrestricted one. Verified against Crunchyroll's help centre on July 23, 2026.
The part most parents miss
The single most useful fact here is the default. When you add a profile, Crunchyroll does not start it at a child-friendly level and wait for you to raise it. It starts at 16 and up, and you lower it. A parent who hands over a tablet without opening settings has, in practice, given a 16+ setting to whoever is holding it.
What each rating level actually contains
These descriptions and show examples are Crunchyroll's own, not our judgement of any series.
| Rating | What Crunchyroll says it means | Their examples |
|---|---|---|
| ALL | Appropriate for all ages | Bananya, ROOM CAMP, Chi’s Sweet Home |
| PG | Generally suitable for a younger audience, but may include rude humour, slapstick violence, or themes such as death and loss | Cardcaptor Sakura, My Love Story!!, Beyblade: Metal Fusion |
| 12+ | Older children and young teens. May include light swearing, mild violence, or topics like bullying and coming-of-age themes | Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon Crystal, Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac |
| 14+ | May contain stronger violence with some blood, swearing, and sexual themes or images. May touch on suicide or sexual assault, but indirectly | My Hero Academia, Naruto, Haikyu!!, One Piece, Fairy Tail |
| 16+ | Not suitable for younger teens. May contain strong violence, harsh language, and sexual content including non-explicit nudity. Serious themes like suicide, abuse and sexual assault may be depicted | Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, Attack on Titan, Tokyo Ghoul |
| 18+ | Intended for adults. May include harsh language, explicit nudity and sexual content, and extreme violence | High School DxD, Prison School, Hellsing Ultimate, Black Lagoon, Berserk |
A show's page displays the highest rating that applies anywhere in the series, so a single intense arc can lift the whole show's label.
Content descriptors
Alongside the rating, Crunchyroll shows short labels describing what is in a title. Scanning these is faster than researching each series, though they apply to a whole series or season and may not match every episode.
- Adult Themes
- Blood/Gore
- Drug/Alcohol Use
- Sexualized Imagery
- Fear
- Flashing Lights
- Nudity
- Profanity
- Self-Harm
- Sexual Content
- Sexual Violence
- Slurs
- Smoking
- Suicide
- Suggestive
How to set it up, step by step
- Create a teen profile. Go to Manage Profiles, choose Add New, enter a profile name, toggle on the Teen Profile option and save. Converting an existing profile works the same way and automatically sets its restriction to 14 and up.
- Set the content restriction to the level you actually want. Open the profile, click the Preferences tab, scroll to Content Restrictions and choose the age level. Only the primary account holder can change this, and their password is required.
- Lock the profiles with a PIN. This is the step people skip, and without it the whole setup is decorative: a child can simply switch to an unrestricted profile. Crunchyroll supports profile PINs for exactly this reason.
- Remember the primary profile. Your main account cannot be turned into a teen profile, because it is used for account management. If a child can reach that profile, they can reach whatever it is set to.
What these controls do not do
Crunchyroll is unusually straightforward about the gaps, and they are worth knowing before you assume the job is done.
- Restrictions limit playback, not browsing. In Crunchyroll's words, content restrictions set limits on what can be watched, but they do not filter which titles appear in your library, and some titles or cover images may still depict sensitive themes. Your child may still see artwork and thumbnails for shows they cannot play.
- Series ratings are blunt. The rating shown is the most mature one that applies to the series, so a generally mild show can carry a higher label, and a mostly gentle series can still contain a heavier episode.
- Descriptors are series-level too. A descriptor tells you something appears somewhere in the season, not where or how often.
- Ratings vary by country. Crunchyroll sets ratings itself or follows local standards bodies, so the level on a title can differ depending on where you live.
Where a parental control app fits, honestly
It is tempting to assume a monitoring app solves this. It does not, and it is worth being precise about why: monitoring tools read text, not what is happening inside a video stream. No parental control app is going to tell you what happened in episode 12. Crunchyroll's own content restrictions are the control that matters for what plays.
What a parental control app genuinely adds around it is different: blocking or time-limiting the app so viewing does not run until midnight, filtering the wider web, and monitoring the messaging and social apps where the conversations about shows, and the riskier contacts, actually happen. That is the layer parental control apps handle, and our comparison covers which ones do it well and where each falls short.
So, is it safe?
Crunchyroll is a mainstream streaming service with a published rating system, per-profile restrictions, teen profiles and PIN locks. That is a more complete set of controls than a lot of the apps children use. The risk is not that the tools are missing, it is that the defaults are set for an adult audience and nothing prompts you to change them. Spend three minutes in settings and it becomes about as safe as any streaming service. Skip that, and your child has a 16 and up account.
Frequently asked questions
Is Crunchyroll safe for kids?
It can be, but not on its default settings. Crunchyroll sets every profile to a content restriction of 16 and up out of the box, and its own description of that level includes strong violence, harsh language and non-explicit nudity. Made safe means creating a teen profile, lowering the content restriction to match your child, and locking profiles with a PIN so they cannot simply switch to an unrestricted one.
What age is Crunchyroll appropriate for?
That depends entirely on the rating level you set rather than on the service itself. Crunchyroll publishes six levels: ALL, PG, 12+, 14+, 16+ and 18+. A younger child can use it safely at ALL or PG. Teen profiles default to 14 and up, which Crunchyroll says may include stronger violence with some blood, swearing and indirect references to suicide or sexual assault.
How do I set parental controls on Crunchyroll?
Open the profile you want to change, go to the Preferences tab, scroll to Content Restrictions and pick the age level. Only the primary account holder can change it and their password is required. To create a supervised profile, go to Manage Profiles, choose Add New, enter a name and toggle on Teen Profile. Lock profiles with a PIN so a child cannot switch to an unrestricted profile.
Do Crunchyroll parental controls block everything?
No, and Crunchyroll says so directly: content restrictions set limits on what can be watched, but they do not filter which titles appear in your library, and some titles or cover images may still depict sensitive themes. Also, a series carries the highest rating that applies anywhere in it, and content descriptors apply to a whole series or season rather than to every episode.
Can a parental control app monitor what my child watches on Crunchyroll?
Not the video itself. Monitoring apps read text, not what is happening inside a video stream, which is why Crunchyroll’s own content restrictions are the control that matters here. What a parental control app does add is blocking or time-limiting the app, and monitoring the messaging apps where conversations about shows, and the riskier contacts, actually happen.
Every rating description, default and limitation on this page was taken from Crunchyroll's own help centre and verified on July 23, 2026. Show titles are Crunchyroll's published examples for each level, not our own assessment. How we research is on our methodology page. More guides are in our guides section.