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Founded by Cédric Littardi in 1994, in Paris.1
Kazé was first founded in 1994 and debuted by publishing Record of Lodoss War on VHS.
In 2005, Kazé launched its music label, Wasabi Records, specializing in J-Pop. In the last few years, the company has diversified its activities by publishing Japanese animated feature films, such as Appleseed, Origin: Spirits of the Past and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. In 2007, Kazé released Shinobi, its first live-action film, to theaters in France, and in July 2009, Kazé launched its own television channel, KZTV (Kazé TV), devoted to anime. Around the same time, Kazé experimented with online streaming with the launch of its anime streaming service, KZPlay in October 2009, which would later merge with another streaming service, Genzai, to form a new anime streaming service known as Anime Digital Network (today known as Animation Digital Network) in 2013.
On August 28, 2009, Kazé announced its acquisition by Viz Media Europe, a subsidiary of Shogakukan and Shueisha.
Kaze changed its name to Kazé in 2010, in hopes that the addition of an accent would allow for a better pronunciation of its name. It published numerous series of Japanese animations in French and became one of the largest independent publishers of video and manga in Europe.
Before the purchase, the company's manga was published under the Asuka imprint. Since January 2010, only yaoi titles have been released under the Asuka imprint; the majority of titles were moved to the company's new Kazé imprint, including later volumes of non-yaoi series started under the Asuka imprint. Asuka's current licenses include a broad spectrum of manga: popular shōnen and shōjo series such as After School Nightmare, more mature seinen and josei titles such as Bokurano, and classic manga such as Black Jack and works by Osamu Tezuka. They also publish several yaoi and yuri titles, including a French edition of Be x Boy magazine.
The company also published in Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, Spain, Austria, Russia & Poland.
In May 2012, Cédric Littardi, the founder and long-time head of the company, announced his departure.
Kazé and Média-Participations (via its Dargaud and Citel, and Kana subsidiaries) launched Anime Digital Network in October 2013, a French anime streaming service which formed from a merger between two previous anime streaming platforms Genzai and KZPlay. During the Sony ownership in July 2022, Kazé relinquished its ownership of ADN, leaving Média-Participations as the full owner. Anime Digital Network changed its name to Animation Digital Network following Kazé's departure from ADN.
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On June 1, 2022, Crunchyroll announced that Kazé and its labels will be rebranded as Crunchyroll. The rebranding became effective on October 1, 2022.
On July 16, 2025, HarperCollins announced that it has acquired the French and German Crunchyroll manga publishing business (including Kazé), with the acquisition being closed on September 30, 2025.
On December 10, 2025, HarperCollins announced that the Kazé label would be brought back for new licenses from April 2026.
From Wikipedia’s article on Kazé, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4