The popularity of anime is growing every year. An increasing number of people are discovering this amazing fusion of fairy tale, art, music and animation. Still, many people don't want to spend regularly on Japanese animated films, and streaming services dedicated to anime cost money..
There are several legal free anime streaming sites. Each of them has its own advantages, so it makes sense not to dwell on one, but to get acquainted with all. With a little research, you should be able to watch the best anime without paying a dime.
Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll is a legal streaming service that specializes in streaming anime. You can watch the video even without registering and without creating a profile on the site. If you register an account on the service, you can track your browsing history and queue up movies and shows for later viewing. The service also has an iOS and Android app that lets you watch anime on your phone..
Besides the basic free version, Crunchyroll also offers several paid packages. The site contains an excellent collection of videos of the genres of shonen (anime, light novel and manga for boys 12-18 years old), shojo (manga and anime for girls 12-18 years old) and seinen (manga and anime for men over 18 years old).
Crunchyroll also offers a good selection of manga and comics. The site also has a good collection of Southeast Asian dramas and anime-based games for mobile phones. In addition to streaming videos, games, and comics, Crunchyroll publishes news, has a thematic forum and an online store..
The $ 8 a month package has no ads while watching, Full HD streaming, and a full manga library. It also offers shows recently filmed in Japan and not yet available to other viewers.
Funimation
Funimation competes with Crunchyroll. Many fans of the genre are well aware of this resource, on which new seasons of the Dragon Ball Z series and other exclusive anime appeared shortly after filming ended. If you haven't found something new on Crunchyroll, chances are you'll find it on Funimation.
Like Crunchyroll, Funimation has Android and iOS apps, and both versions allow you to watch anime streaming videos. The functionality is similar, but there are even more settings. Unfortunately, the service is not available in Russia, so you need to use a VPN and there are no subtitles in Russian - only in English.
Funimation has more options in the menu (entry by the icon in the form of three stripes in the upper left corner of the page). Through the menu, you can call the view queue or view your favorites. It is possible to sort and filter search results.
Also Funimation has more choice of paid plans. For example, the $ 8 subscription package includes offline video viewing. If you only want the option to browse online, you can pay less, at $ 6 a month.
Anime-planet
Over 45,000 episodes can be viewed on the Anime-Planet website . Before you start watching, the service will inform you that the streaming video demonstration is completely legal. Anime-Planet does not have a collection of its own. The content provider is the Crunchyroll service described above.
Anime-Planet also has a unique advantage over the "parent" resource. The service focuses on recommendations to users. It is more of an informational site where video streaming acts as a bonus. When you search for any movie or show by name, you will be shown not only what you are looking for, but also other recommended anime. It is because of this "trick" that it makes sense to look for videos on Anime-Planet, and not on the "parent" Crunchyroll.
HIDIVE
If Crunchyroll and Funimation offer a huge selection of anime and bet on quantity, then HIDIVE takes others. On this service, in a separate section, small free excerpts from full-length animated films are grouped. Like the Crunchyroll Collection YouTube channel.
You will see a section with free episodes as soon as you visit the site. In each series presented in this section, you can watch the first episode for free. All episodes are divided into categories: anime with subtitles, dubbing or new episodes.
To compensate for the small selection in this section, HIDIVE shows ads-free videos. HIDIVE offers a 14-day trial period, after which you can continue using the service for a subscription fee of $ 5 per month.
Youtube
Finding anime on YouTube is not easy, but it is there. All of the major streaming services have their own channels, but not all of them have free videos.
Funimation uploads entire series to YouTube in SD quality (720 x 576 resolution), with subtitles or dubbed. You can find them in the channel's playlists. The second Crunchyroll channel offers clips and snippets.