Anime lovers — like me — can choose from 81 anime TV series and movies on Netflix but even with its selection, the service doesn’t offer much new content, nor does it provide subscribers with complete series of many of its popular anime, including Naruto Shipuuden, Fairy Tail and Bleach.
Since Netflix can’t giving anime-lovers what they need, I’ve turned to other streaming services for my anime needs.
Funimation, a popular anime streaming service, offers more than 400 options for anime — but that is only half of Crunchyroll’s more than 800 anime titles, which can all be accessed through its easy-to-use app or web platform.
The Crunchyroll app supplies users with most of their anime needs at their fingertips, offering many popular and indie anime titles among its massive library — though it doesn’t offer very many movies or any Netflix Originals, like Seven Deadly Sins.
The home tab on the app offers ‘My Queue’ and ‘My History’ options, which is where users find the anime series they have selected for future viewing and what the user last watched, respectively.
Switching to the ‘New’ tab gives users the option of seeing what’s new this season and the newest episodes of titles.
Going to the next tab dubbed ‘Anime’ is where users can find the most options for the Crunchyroll app. Users can see a list of all of Crunchyroll’s anime from most popular to least and choose what genre of anime they would like to watch. This filter allows users to pinpoint what anime they would like to watch with genres such as mecha, romance, comedy or fantasy.
After choosing an anime, users can decide what episode they want to watch, share what they’re watching, cast it to a device and bookmark the show. Bookmarking the show will put the series into ‘My Queue’ on the home screen.
Through a beta feature, users can also choose if they would like to buy a chapter of a manga series with the app by going to the next tab.
Those who are interested in Crunchyroll can download the app right away and use it to watch many of its shows for free.
However, Crunchyroll will only let its paid subscribers watch the newest episodes of its shows, and non-subscribers will also have to sit through commercials throughout the broadcast of their show. Additionally, there are some series that are only available with a paid subscription.
The Crunchyroll app can be downloaded on Wii U, Xbox One and 360, PlayStation 3,4 and Vita, Windows Phone, Apple TV, Roku Box and from the App Store and Play Store, for free. A ‘Premium Membership’ is $6.95 CAD.
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