There are four ways to get Crunchyroll onto a TV screen: the native app on a smart TV or streaming device, Chromecast from a phone or browser, AirPlay from an Apple device, and a plain HDMI cable. Which one you should use depends on what hardware you already own, so each method below has its own steps and its own fixes for when it does not work.
Quick Guide
- Native app: Crunchyroll runs on Samsung Tizen 3+, LG webOS 4+, Android TV 5.1+, Hisense VIDAA, Fire TV (Fire OS 5+), Roku, Apple TV, PlayStation and Xbox.
- Chromecast: phone and Chromecast on the same Wi-Fi, then tap the cast icon in the Crunchyroll app.
- AirPlay: Apple device and an AirPlay TV or Apple TV on the same network, then use Screen Mirroring or the in-app AirPlay icon.
- HDMI: laptop or phone to TV with a cable. Most reliable, zero Wi-Fi involved.
Method 1: The Native Crunchyroll App (Best Option)
If your TV or streaming device can run the Crunchyroll app directly, use it. Native playback avoids every casting failure mode: no network pairing issues, no phone battery drain, and full subtitle and quality controls from the couch. The app is available on Samsung smart TVs (Tizen OS 3 or later), LG TVs (webOS 4 or later), Android TV devices (Android 5.1+), newer Hisense VIDAA TVs, Fire TV devices running Fire OS 5 or later, Roku, Apple TV (4th gen+), and PlayStation and Xbox consoles. On Vizio sets, the app is available through the built-in SmartCast platform rather than as a cast target, which Vizio owners can access directly from the app row.
Setup is the same everywhere: open the TV’s app store, search Crunchyroll, install, sign in. If the app does not appear in the store, your TV model is too old for support and you should use one of the casting methods below or a cheap streaming stick.
Can’t Access Crunchyroll in Australia?
Crunchyroll’s library varies by region, and some of the best anime is only available in Japan, the US, or the UK. A VPN lets you connect through one of those countries and watch the full catalogue from Australia. NordVPN is consistently the most reliable for Crunchyroll: it works with the app on Fire TV, Android TV and casting, and its NordLynx protocol is fast enough for 4K streaming without buffering.
Method 2: Chromecast (Android, iPhone, or Chrome Browser)
- Plug the Chromecast in and set it up in the Google Home app if you have not already.
- Connect your phone or computer to the same Wi-Fi network as the Chromecast. This is the step that fails most often: if your router broadcasts both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks, both devices must be on the same one.
- Open the Crunchyroll app (or crunchyroll.com in Chrome), start playing the episode, and tap the cast icon.
- Select your Chromecast. The video moves to the TV; your phone becomes the remote.
If the Chromecast does not appear as a target, rename it in the Google Home app to something simple like “Living Room”. Special characters and emoji in device names are a known cause of discovery failures. Also check that neither device is on a guest network, since guest Wi-Fi usually blocks device-to-device traffic.
Method 3: AirPlay (iPhone, iPad, Mac)
- Confirm your TV supports AirPlay 2 (most Samsung, LG and Sony models from 2019 onward do) or that you have an Apple TV connected.
- Connect your Apple device and the TV to the same Wi-Fi network.
- Start playback in the Crunchyroll app, tap the AirPlay icon in the player, and select the TV. If there is no in-app AirPlay icon, use Screen Mirroring from Control Centre instead.
AirPlay mirrors at whatever quality the network can sustain. If video stutters, move the router closer or switch both devices to the 5 GHz band.
Method 4: HDMI Cable (Most Reliable)
No pairing, no Wi-Fi, no discovery problems. Plug an HDMI cable from your laptop into the TV, set the TV to that input, and play Crunchyroll in the browser. On Windows, press Win+P and choose Duplicate or Second Screen; on Mac, the display mirrors by default when a cable is connected. Phones can do this too with a USB-C to HDMI adapter (most modern Android phones) or a Lightning Digital AV Adapter (iPhone). The picture quality is whatever your device outputs, and because nothing travels over Wi-Fi, this method is immune to every network issue listed below.
When Casting Fails: The Fix List
Work through these in order. The first two solve most cases.
- Same network check. Open the network settings on both the phone and the TV or casting device and read the actual network names. “Home” and “Home-5G” are different networks for casting purposes.
- Restart everything. Close Crunchyroll fully, reboot the phone, and unplug the Chromecast or TV for 30 seconds. Discovery caches go stale.
- Update the apps and firmware. An old Crunchyroll app on a newly updated Chromecast (or the reverse) breaks casting. Update both, plus the Google Home app if you use Chromecast.
- Check Crunchyroll’s servers. If nothing casts and nothing else is streaming either, check a status site before changing settings.
- Try a different episode. Individual titles are encoded separately; a broken stream affects one title, not the whole app.
- Band and signal. Prefer 5 GHz Wi-Fi for casting; it has shorter range but far less interference. If the TV is far from the router and the picture buffers, that is a network strength problem, not a casting problem, and HDMI is the honest workaround.
A Note on Travelling
Crunchyroll’s catalogue varies by country, and casting does not change that: the library you see is the one for the region your connection is in. If you watch with a VPN for access to another region’s catalogue, note that casting a VPN connection from a phone does not extend the VPN to the TV’s native app, which is one of the geo-blocking limitations that applies across streaming services generally, not just anime platforms.
The Short Version
If your TV can run the Crunchyroll app, use it. If not, Chromecast from Android or Chrome, AirPlay from Apple devices, and HDMI when nothing else behaves. When casting fails, the cause is the Wi-Fi network nine times out of ten: same network name on both devices, 5 GHz band, simple Chromecast name, everything updated.
