Nearly a year ago, I posted an article called “How Can I Read Manga Online Legally?” which covered various digital manga services that allowed you to read manga online legally. I’ve recently decided that now would be a good time to discuss some of the options that you have when it comes to ways you can watch anime online legally.
Even a cursory search for ways to watch anime online legally will likely bring you to Crunchyroll. Crunchyroll offers a catalogue of hundreds upon hundreds of anime series and has recently begun to produce anime and animated series under the label “Crunchyroll Originals“. The service is available for free although you will come across plenty of advertising although subscribing to the service will remove the ads amongst various other benefits. It’s worth noting that series on the service can be restricted by region and the majority of their catalogue is Japanese language only with various subtitles provided.
Funimation, a company responsible for dubbing and distributing various anime series, also runs an online streaming service. The majority of their catalogue comes from titles that Funimation distributes for home video although they do partner with other distributors such as their recent partnership to stream the Gundam franchise on their service. You can watch a limited part of their catalogue for free although ads will be present. Subscribing will give you access to their full catalogue without ads and, as you might expect from a company specialising in dubbing, most of their shows feature an English dub. Unfortunately, the number of countries that can access the service is quite restricted, that being the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and, recently, Brazil and Mexico.
Netflix, unlike the other services mentioned so far, doesn’t specialise specifically in anime with a large variety of content such as live-action TV series and films, animated TV series and films etc. However, Netflix also has a considerable catalogue of anime series that they have licensed and/or produced (if you live outside of the U.S., Canada or Japan, you’ll be able to watch the exceptional Studio Ghibli movies on the service). Much of their catalogue is available in multiple languages when it comes to either dubbing or subtitles although the service requires a subscription.
RetroCrush is a much more specific anime streaming service than other entries on this list, specialising in older anime series and movies such as the Lupin the Third franchise, Kimagure Orange Road, Great Teacher Onizuka etc. Some of their series have English dubs but, as you might expect of many older anime series, a considerable amount of their content are Japanese only with English subtitles. The majority of their catalogue is free to watch but subscribing to the service not only removes the ads but allows you to watch anime movies and series that feature mature content. Unfortunately, as of the writing of this article, the service is only available in the U.S. and Canada.
HIDIVE is an anime streaming service that streams various anime series and movies from Sentai Filmworks. A lot of the content is available as either an English dub or Japanese with English subtitles. It does seem that the content requires a subscription to view although a 30 day trial is available. Hidive is available in North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Scandinavia, Netherlands, Germany, France, U.K., Spain, Portugal and Ireland.
I hope that this article has been helpful and I would love to hear whether you use any of these services, what other anime streaming services are out there, which ones are your favourite and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs!