The Best Ways to Watch Anime Online
Longtime anime fans may remember a bleak time when finding quality shows to watch at their own convenience was more difficult than trying to make complete sense of FLCL. Fortunately, the age of streaming has made everything much easier and provided fans with multiple online havens to choose from for their viewing pleasure. Now the plight of an anime fan has changed. Rather than just trying their best to avoid getting a virus from illegal downloads or just crossing their fingers for somewhat acceptable picture quality, anyone who loves anime is faced with a large variety of different options to choose from. It’s a nice problem to have, but a problem nonetheless. While Crunchyroll is easily one of the most popular options for streaming your favorite shows, there are other services that you should consider depending on what exactly you’re looking to get out of an online viewing experience.
Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll is easily one of the most popular streaming platforms for anime and it’s not hard to see why. Crunchyroll is typically one of the first to update its content and often has new episodes available as quickly as one hour after its initial broadcast in Japan. Keep in mind, however, that new content will always become available for paying subscribers first before it will be released to other users with free accounts.
With so much content to choose from, it can be hard to figure out where to begin. Fortunately, Crunchyroll is an extremely user-friendly platform that makes you appreciate the value of a great homepage and user profiles. The homepage helps you keep up to date on upcoming anime series, new episodes being released for ongoing series, and the latest news regarding anime and manga. You don’t have to sign up for a Crunchyroll account to start streaming but having an account, even if it’s the free version, is still the best way to get the most out of your experience by having the option to keep up with where you are in a certain series and build up a queue of other shows that you want to dive into later.
Funimation
Funimation strives to be more of a one-stop shop dedicated to classics by focusing on new products and collectibles just as much as it focuses on providing streamable content. It’s a great site for classic anime connoisseurs but not an ideal destination for anyone who wants tons of variety and fast access to the newest series. Funimation is another platform that you can use for free but its premium streaming service, Funimation Now, is the best way to stream anime content on the go on multiple devices.
Funimation has a great variety of pricing options for viewers to select from, which allows you to pick a plan that best suits your personal viewing preferences. For $5.99 a month you can view an unlimited amount of anime with no ads, HD streaming options, and the option to simultaneously stream on up to two devices. You can also skip the month-to-month pricing and pay for a year’s membership upfront for $59.99 instead, which gives you a bit of a discount. If you don’t want to have any dubbed anime, however, you can opt for a slightly cheaper subscription. For $4.95 a month you will have access to subbed anime only but if you’re one of the many anime lovers who doesn’t like dubbed anime anyway, this is a great way to shave a few bucks off the cost of your subscription.
Netflix
Netflix has been boasting about some big plans for its library of available series coming in 2018. The streaming service plans on rolling out 30 new series but this should also serve as a reminder of how content on Netflix works. If you’re hunting down a streaming service solely for the purpose of watching anime, remember that content on Netflix comes and goes. What’s available this year could change the next and you’ll often have little more than a month’s notice that a certain series will be taken down soon. Another thing to note is that this marks Netflix’s first big push for its anime content so if you’re looking for a vast collection of anime to dive into, this might not be the best option for you.
But don’t count Netflix out just yet. If you’re not necessarily a diehard fan and you’d rather just have a way to keep up with extremely popular or mainstream anime series, Netflix could be a great fit. Netflix’s current offerings tend to be series with a very wide appeal or a series that is a Netflix original. If you want a handful of great anime to watch but would also like to have access to a larger library of movies and TV shows for when you’re not necessarily in the mood for anime, Netflix is a solid option with tons of viewing options.
Hulu
It’s a bit surprise that Hulu doesn’t brag much about its animated offerings. While Hulu is a great streaming source for TV series, its catalog of anime series is impressive and still growing. There is a vast collection of anime classics to more modern and popular series that are quickly garnering a massive fanbase. Hulu, much like Crunchyroll and Funimation, also has simulcast offerings that bring new anime episodes to you during the same time frame that they are released in Japan. This is an impressive feature for a platform like Hulu that doesn’t specialize solely in anime. It’s also a reason why Hulu is often preferred over Netflix for viewers who are looking to get the best anime options on a platform that also offers original content and other television series. Hulu will cost you $5.99 a month for the first year of your subscription but the price will go up to $7.99 after the first year. If you want a membership with no ads it will cost you $11.99.
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