Introduction
If you are looking to watch anime legally in 2021 then you picked a great time. Never before have there been so many ways to watch anime. It’s crazy to think there was a time where pirating anime was the best way to watch it. Luckily for you, anime is right at your fingertips.
The issue now is well which service is the best for watching anime. Well, I go through all the best options and give you my thoughts at the end.
This list goes through the obvious choices and other ways you may have forgotten about. With that in mind let’s get started.
Important Update:
I have been doing research into the copyright situation involving anime reaction channels.
- I learned that it’s illegal for an unlicensed YouTube channel to upload an entire anime.
- Doing this steals money from those who worked on the project.
- Because of this revelation, I am no longer promoting YouTube as a viable website to watch anime.
- There are plenty of other legal sites that have free anime to watch.
- Please support those sites and only watch anime on officially licensed YouTube Channels.
Subscription Only Streaming Services/ Sites
HIDIVE
1. What is it?
HIDIVE is a premium-only streaming service for anime from Sentai Filmworks. It features a large library of anime and tons of features.
2. Can you download a Videos for Offline Viewing?
you can only download videos if you have HIDIVE through VRV
3. English Subbed or English Dubbed?
There is a nice selection of both. For English Dub fans there is a whole section devoted to English Dubs.
4. Pros:
- Very affordable at $5 dollars month
- Excelent amount of exclusive anime.
- Large selection of Dubbed and Subbed anime
- The simulcasts allow you to watch anime as it comes out and chat with people at the same time.
- Each entry for an anime gives you all the details about the series.
- Has a simple and intuitive video player
- Borrows on the same idea as Netflix where you can learn all the information about the anime without going to another page.
- Very handy if you just want to learn about the anime.
- Many sites force you to have to go the viewing to get information about the anime and even view the episodes.
- It has really great filters including Dubs, Exclusive, and much more. I wish more streaming services had filters this good. It’s obvious this was made for anime fans.
- Unlike Prime Video and Vudu it lists each anime by season but right next to each other in the listing of the anime.
- I only dislike the approach of having the anime broken up into seasons when the seasons are not next to each other.
- It’s nice because you don’t have to go to the individual anime page to cycle through the seasons like every other service out there.
- You can view the library without having to pay anything most subscription base services do not allow this.
- Which makes no sense to me because why would not want someone to view what you have?
- I feel like that would make them more interested in subscribing.
5. Cons:
- The site has really slow load times
6. My Take:
HIDIVE really impresses me with their site’s construction and presentation. You could tell this was made for anime fans. It has a massive library of over 500 anime and the majority being exclusives. It’s very easy to find the different anime it has. Plus its five dollars a month. This is the one service that I would personally recommend over the other streaming options.