What are you opinions on the best websites to watch anime? Please do not include Crunchyroll. I currently use [redacted] which works most of the time, but occasionally does screw up and it's a little of a pain to search for stuff sometimes, I just want to have some more options.
Hey, BluePedal.
It is nice to see you active on the forums, but do read the Anilist Community Guidelines fully before posting. They are short and sweet for a reason. :)
The part not followed this time would be the following, located under the Forum Guidelines section: "Refrain from posting 'Where can I find/watch/read *' threads."
I hear Crunchyroll and Netflix are sites for anime without ads!
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That's sort of true for some series, though they were usually simulcasted on other services beforehand. The only real exception to that is Fate/Apocrypha which was exclusive to Netflix and was released in chunks.
Violet Evergarden is still airing and is being released ~10 hours after the episode airs on Tokyo MX in Japan.
Edit: Apparently Netflix batch released some other series that they have exclusive rights to like LWA and Kakegurui too. RIP
I take it we can't post any names of sites for watching anime that don't include paying subscriptions? I'll never pay for Netflix or Cruncyroll when Fan subbers will do that stuff for free.
Yep, it's right there in the guidelines.
Linking or guiding others to copyrighted content is prohibited. This includes torrents, direct downloads, XDCC bots etc.
Since I have enough disposable income at the moment I figured I should give back and help support the industry that has given me so much entertainment throughout the years. But I don't judge ¯\(ツ)/¯
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCYGWeSh378&t=6s&ab_channel=Uniquenameosaurus
Here is a very good explanation of why some people would choose not to pay for crunchyroll and other legal streaming services. I found it very interesting.
Personally I prefer Funimation to Crunchyroll because CR's UX is pretty awful.
But despite all the flack Netflix had gotten from their initial anime launches, I still love their player and they are getting better at releasing things now.
Yeah I also agree that CR's UX needs lots of improvement, I mean they're still using flash players. Ughhhhhh. -_-
Also as much as I love Funimation's UX I really don't like watching dubbed. :( so I use vrv.co with my Crunchyroll account. Their UX is quite similar to Funimations and it offers the animes that Crunchyroll has.
Well it really depends on where you are in the world so I can't really recommend anything,
Crunchyroll has quite a few shows available in most countries, and Netflix has some good shows as well.
I'm in France so I would recommend Wakanim or Anime Digital Network to anyone living in France and that understands french.
Amazon Prime Video also has some anime available depending on where you live.
If you're looking for the service with the most content, I expect it will be either CrunchyRoll or Funimation. These two have an agreement to share most of their content. But thanks to other services having exclusive content, you may have to turn to others for some shows. I like CrunchyRoll a lot but have not tried Funimation yet. I like that CrunchyRoll has large subtitles that are easy to read. I currently have Hidive, which is a little less expensive since I subscribed in time to get the lower rate, and it is worth keeping as long as there is something I want to watch on it. My main complaint with it is that the subtitles are sometimes a little too thin and hard to read, though this varies from show to show. Among the major streaming services, Hulu is the best for anime, but Netflix and Amazon Prime have some exclusive content you can't watch on other sites.
I like using Taiga as a means to watch all the anime I obtained through legal means, I'd recommend downloading it as you can use it to update your list while you watch.
As for an actual player to work with it, I recommend MPV.
If you need any help getting this working, feel free to PM me someplace.
All you have to do is load your anilist account in to it, sync them both, and it will do everything for you.
Yeah like other people have mentioned Crunchyroll and Funimation are some of the best sites to stream anime in the US (not including any mainstream sites) Crunchyroll pretty much only streams Subbed while Funimation streams dubbed.
If you want to get the best of both worlds you might as well get a vrv.co account. Both sites have deals with vrv that allows vrv to stream subbed from Crunchyroll and dubbed from Funimation.
We are not allowed to talk about pirate streaming sites here, so I'll recommend you the official sources: Crunchyroll, Funimation, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Animelab, Hulu, HIDIVE, VRV, WAKANIM are the ones I know, just make sure some of these are available in your country and pay a monthly subscription or watch for free but with ads (CR and Funimation). You can also buy the blu-ray discs.
+1 for mentioning buying Blu-Rays, it feels like owning media is scarily undervalued these days.
Yeah, but for me buying blu-rays is unviable, I'd have it to import from US or Japan but then the price would be 100x times more expensive XD.
My country dosen't have a market for blu-rays, since the majority of people here only pirate anime and a few people prefer the streaming services.
So I only have CR and Netflix subscription, Funimation is coming to my country this fall so I'm wainting to get a sub on there too.
A lot of them have more downsides than upsides. Most people, myself included, have a distaste for Funimation given their censorship and buying of exclusivity. However, Crunchyroll also aren't good either. They pay their translators like shit. Though they seem to be more transparent about how they translate shows, and claim to give back with their store, they still aren't great. Their site design in some aspects are also a little dated.
A lot of streaming sites too have issues regarding licenses. Crunchyroll have this particularly bad. Places in Europe will be missing shows, sometimes parts or I've heard from friends even specific episodes of shows. Having said that, Crunchyroll give you some shows "free", the main ones that spring to mind are Fate/Zero and Re:Petit. Funimation may offer services like this but I'm not sure. I'm not even sure if Funimation let you buy Blu-Rays.
There's also HIDIVE. I didn't mention them because I have never attempted to use them and know virtually nothing about them. I had to double check to make sure it was a legal service. So your mileage may vary on that one.
In fact, the main takeaway here is that none of the sites are particularly good. Like any other streaming site (Netflix, Disney+, etc), none are really above "meh".
I agree with your points regarding Funimation and Crunchyroll, but at least they are giving some money to the anime industry unlike pirate sites and for someone like me who can't buy blu-rays and still want to support the medium I love they are the best option even if they make some big mistakes here and there, also Crunchyroll recently updated their app and is also working on a new design for the site.
Crunchyroll, Funimation, HiDive, AnimeLab, and VRV are some purely-anime Streaming Services. You can stream most titles for free, but with a lot of ads.
And then there are other more popular general Streaming Services which also include anime, like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Disney+ and HBO Max . These won't have ads, but you'll need a paid Subscription for these.
I recommend either [Redacted] or [Redacted]. If you can't find what you're looking for, use [Redacted] instead.