Where do you watch your favorite anime?

[CleverNickName]

It wasn't always easy to get access to your favorite anime...at least, not until the Internet came along. Now we have oodles of streaming services to choose from, DVDs for sale (or rent, or check-out at your local library), collectors, eBay...things have come a long way from the 80s and 90s.

When you're in the mood for some mellow Mushi-Shi, award-winning Studio Ghibli, or classic Akira, where do you get your fix? Check as many as you like. If you don't see your favorite option, vote "Somewhere else" and let me know; maybe I'll add it to the list.

Please do not post links to illegal downloads, pirated material, or other such websites. I'll report ya.

 

[Blue]

I voted, just wanted to expand "Somewhere else?" - MAX has a Studio Ghibli hub to watch a bunch there as well.

 

[CleverNickName]

Most of the time, when my spouse and I are in the mood to watch some anime, we will watch one of our boxed sets. We have the 25-movie collection from Studio Ghibli, the complete series of Mushi-Shi, the first few seasons of Fullmetal Alchemist...I could go on. I'd say that of all our physical media, a third of it is anime.

That said, we are really enjoying Delicious in Dungeon on Netflix, and there are a number of specialty stores in town that sell manga, anime, and other Japanese content. If we want to watch something in particular for date night, and we can't find it on any of our streaming services (and we don't want to wait for an online order to arrive), we can often find it at one of these brick-and-mortar shops. It's a rare, and often expensive, treat...but comparable to the cost of two movie tickets and popcorn.

 

[CleverNickName]

I voted, just wanted to expand "Somewhere else?" - MAX has a Studio Ghibli hub to watch a bunch there as well.

Good call. I've added it to the list!

 

[Deset Gled]

I've been a fan of anime for long enough to have a VHS collection, but I watch much less now than I used to. Hulu and Prime often have enough to fulfill my needs.

For the Somewhere Else list:

Movie theaters. One of our local ones occasionally shows Ghibli. We've done a couple family movie outings so the kids could enjoy Howl's Moving Castle and Princess Mononoke one the big screen.

YouTube: You can find a lot here. Even pure nostalgia bits like home recordings of Saturday Anime or old Just For Kids dubs.

 

[Vael]

I have a few anime through ... means, but generally if it's not on a streaming service I follow, I don't have access. I don't watch enough to warrant a Crunchyroll subscription (do they have a free account option?), so mainly stuff that's on Netflix/Amazon Prime, but I've been queueing up a bunch to watch on Tubi.

 

[Alzrius]

Crunchyroll for me. I'm still weighing whether or not to get a Hidive subscription also.

 

[MarkB]

Mostly Crunchyroll and Netflix. I did try a Crunchyroll subscription through Amazon when they had an offer on, but I can't recommend it. Too often, subtitles would go out of sync with the video, or just stop entirely on some occasions, and some series had subs missing for random episodes.

 

[JEB]

Largely Netflix and Hulu (though I anticipate the latter will lose a lot of anime once Disney fully assimilates it), but I (and my friends/family) do have various series on DVD/Blu-Ray. Been meaning to add to that library, in fact, to avoid depending on streaming so much.

 

[Alzrius]

Mostly Crunchyroll and Netflix. I did try a Crunchyroll subscription through Amazon when they had an offer on, but I can't recommend it. Too often, subtitles would go out of sync with the video, or just stop entirely on some occasions, and some series had subs missing for random episodes.

I've found that Amazon has problems with that, but using Crunchyroll by itself hasn't been an issue for me (well, not about subtitles at least; my biggest problem with it is how the damn app used to crash at the drop of a hat. Fortunately, they've gotten a lot better recently).