Crunchyroll announced, verbatim:

Thanks to the good folks at Media Blasters and Anime Works we will launch the first four episodes of MORIBITO: Guardian of the Spirit today!

The first four episodes of MORIBITO, directed by Kenji Kamiyama and produced by Production I.G., will be available to premium anime and all-access members, while only the first episode will be available to free users. The other three episodes will become available one month later on September 7 for free users. MORIBITO will be available to everyone in the US, Canada and all outlying US territories.

Looks like they are going to show 4 episodes only even for paying subscribers. What is the point of doing this? When ANN engaged in such stunts, it made sense because they were building up their capacity and learned to get into agreements. But for Crunchy it is just retarded.

P.S. My first thought was "What Will Beveridge Say". He is a self-styled expert in the supriority of streaming, so surely he'd have something to say about this erzatz. As it turned out he have said his peace, and there is absolutely nothing there. Just no opinion at all.

UPDATE: Tim Peters e-mailed with a suggestion that it's "a basic business practice for Media Blasters" that aims at selling DVDs. Obviously. The question is, what is in it for Crunchy? How much did MB pay them? ANN was desperate, Crunchyroll is not.