Everyone would chose watching something legally over illegally if not for the price. We all want to feel like we’re making a difference to the industry but the reality is that I support nothing that Crunchyroll does and your money goes to the complete wrong place.
I hate 95% of seasonal anime, and what does Crunchyroll spend most of their money that goes into the industry? Paying for these terrible shows, which I don’t want to encourage other studios making. Each simulcast on Crunchyroll is a show that they paid a licencing fee to get, if they could put their money in better places the site would be much better.
Quite frankly it’s a crime that Evangelion isn’t on Crunchyroll while shows like school babysitters take its place! Get rid of these terrible shows and replace your catalogue with the classics! I had Crunchyroll for a very long time and literally nothing I wanted to watch was on there, so I had to pirate anyway, I even ended up watching shows I wouldn’t ordinarily watch because of the rarity of it being on Crunchyroll. Its archive is complete shit, nothing is there, and on the off chance that it is good luck with it being licenced if you live anywhere outside of the US!
This is just a side rant which isn’t even what I’m meant to be talking about. Let’s say you disagree with me and you think Crunchyroll has enough shows on it to be worth paying for I still think you shouldn’t pay for it.
You can watch every single show on Crunchyroll for FREE! Don’t pay for something you could have for free! If you use adblock the viewing experience is identical to the paid version, and don’t buy into the hype that you need to pay to watch in 1080p, not only are most of the shows in 480p or worse anyway, 480p still looks excellent, when I was paying for Crunchyroll I switched from qualities to see and I could hardly tell the difference, maybe my laptop has a bad screen but 480p also looks great on my phone as well so I don’t know what the fuss is about. I like shows in the low quality aesthetic, sometimes shows look too clean for me to feel immersed.
The only possible reason you would want to stick with premium is access to the new anime a week early, but it really isn’t worth it at all, I aim to keep up with seasonal anime using Crunchyroll and just watching at my normal rate lets me wait a week anyway! Not to mention I dislike most modern anime anyway.
Seriously guys, WATCH OLD ANIME, what’s the chance that of the anime released since the 80’s, that your favourite show is this season? If you start watching back from 1980 then there’s a 37/38 chance that your favourite show is not from this year! And many anime’s are a lot older!
So to conclude, watch old anime, cancel your Crunchyroll subscription, still use Crunchyroll with adblock so you can actually watch their measly catalogue legally, still pirate everything else if you do have a Crunchyroll subscription and thank me for saving you a lot of money!
Now let me prove some things to you, and go over my plan to watch to show how little shows Crunchyroll has. This will be from MAL. Also don’t praise the queue system so much when MAL does the exact same thing! They even link to Crunchyroll from their main website now!
Cupids Chocolates – no (I watch it to listen to Chinese)
Citrus – seasonal anime I’m watching so of course they have it
Eureka Seven – Yes but not licenced in my region (UK) so no
Legend of the Galactic Heroes – of course not
Ginga Nagaraboshi Gin – Nope (We’re doing the whole watching list and plan to watch list!)
Junji Ito Collection – Ongoing show so they have it.
Madoka Magica – No because of licencing
Paranoia Agent – NO
Recovery of an MMO Junkie – Only watching because CR advertised it so much
Spice and Wolf season 2 – Even if they had season 2, season 1 wasn’t licenced in my region so I wouldn’t be able to access it.
Overlord 2 – Yeah but ongoing show, I’m not that much of a fan of it now.
Saiki Kusuo 2 – no AND an ongoing show
2 Other ongoing shows that they have
Yuu Yuu Hakusho – CR “Good shows? No thanks.”
Now on to the plan to watch which is more important really.
Ashita No Joe – They don’t even have it in their archives, it was a classic! Most of these shows aren’t that obscure!
Manabi Straight – no
Eight Dogs of the east – I have no idea what this is but someone recommend it to me, it’s actually on CR so that’s amazing!
Hourou Musuko – I think both of these were recommended by a friend with CR since I have no idea what they are, still they look like good shows so I’m glad CR has got them.
Infinite Ryvius – no
Seven deadly sins spin off – I thought this one would be there but it turns out not even the original is on there.
Neo Ranga – no
No game no life zero – no
Oruchiban Ebichu – no
Ground Defence Force Mao Chan – no
Stella no Mahou – no
The moment you fall in love – yes!
Tekkan Chinmi – no, can’t even find this on pirate sites
The tatami galaxy – yes
So after all these shows, and so many no’s, that’s why I dislike CR, I’ll still use it to watch things like the tatami galaxy and the other few shows that I want to watch but most of the time CR Is terrible for watching anything I want to watch. I hoped I’d prove myself wrong by going through the whole thing but it turns out that isn’t the case!
So point proven, if you want to carry on just for seasonal shows I guess it’s your loss and your missing out on a lot of other good whereas I’ll be able to binge all the good seasonal shows once everyone else has told me which ones are good!
And that’s why I don’t pay for CR but use the free version when I can, I encourage you to do the same! I’ve paid for CR for over a year, and that’s all the support they’re going to get from me, I’ve given my small amount of money to pay whoever does the weekly CR podcast for a few hours and that’s enough supporting the industry I’m prepared to do, through CR that is.
I just found out that Yuu Yuu hakusho actually was on CR but they write the show differently. MAL calles it Yuu yuu hakusho but CR calls it Yu yu hakusho. This ultimately shows me that their search feature sucks. If there are any more shows that I missed which are actually on here then please tell me!
My Brain Is Completely Empty 
I don’t know what your definition of a scam is but what you are describing isn’t a scam in my book. Anyway…
There are flaws with Crunchyroll, I admit to that; the interface sucks but not so much so I can’t live with it. The search engine is a cranky one and should really be looked over. You should be able to get results even if you make spelling errors for example. Their subs are questionable when it comes to music anime since they never/rarely sub the songs. I wonder when CR will get that songs in a music anime actually is a part of the anime.
However, I still pay for their services. I do live in a country where they don’t have licenses for all their anime, which sucks of course, but I have plenty to choose from anyway. And as you know, I am not a seasonal watcher at all, but I can still find stuff to watch. Yes, there aren’t a lot of really old anime on but I have other (legal) sites for that. And if I really, really can’t find it I download it. That’s the last way out. But as for Crunchyroll, I don’t see the problem. No, you are not satisfied with it and that is all fine but there are a whole lot of people who are. People who want to watch simulcasts and be up to date with each episode (just look at all anibloggers who write weakly about each episode. Not to mention all the buzz when Netflix announced that they were adding more anime. People wanted them to simulcast the shows and not release them all in one after the season ended. People aren’t interested in watching a week later, they rather pay to watch the same day. Unless they prefer to watch it “for free” and put money in the pocket of the real scammers (read Kissanime and the likes) who steals anime while earning millions on commercials.)
I gladly pay CR, Netflix, Amazon, Hidive to watch what they can offer. I hate commercials (yes I use adblock on certain sites but in the case of anime I actually want to support the creators so adblock would work against my conviction.) and I believe that people who have worked on the anime should be payed for their work. You talk about studios go bankrupt. You do realise that if we loose the smaller studios we are just gonna have a few, large ones left and the quality of anime will go down and a lot of shit will hit the market. The only way to ensure that good quality anime comes out is to keep the market open. And to do that we need to pay the studios and the creators.
Finally; how is keeping up with seasonal anime equal to missing out on other goodies? One doesn’t negate the other. You can watch both Casshan from 1973 and Black Clover. I do.
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Nah your right the scam comment was mostly click bait because anger sells, got instant views but no likes which made me think everyone suddenly hated me but I guess it was from google or something.
As for crunchyroll you don’t see the problem? The problem with having 3/20 of the shows I want to watch? Those three being 3 currently airing shows. Sure they have plenty to chose from but I never chose based on what CR has because it’s got a poor search feature – it’s always searching on MAL that makes you realize how little they have.
Genuinely in the normal time span where I watch an anime a week flys back instantly. I don’t see to much value of keeping up with the seasonal people and discussion because I’m not interested. I know that people do want this though which is the main (and almost only) reason that I can understand someone wanting to pay for it.
You can watch both, which is good, but I don’t think you’re the majority, It’s really sad to see new fans watching nothing but the seasonal stuff and CR doesn’t exactly advertise anything else other than the popular shows on it’s website.
You’re arguments are fine but as I think you expected CR isn’t for me, if you want to continue I think you should.
Sorry I forgot to talk about the 2nd to last paragraph. I absolutely think the people should be paid for their work but simply CR buying the anime’s licence then using the rest of the money to pay their own guys isn’t worth it for me. CR tries to come across as a saint for supporting anime companies and it’s sadly worked – at the end of the day they’re a business and have selfish interests in mind.
That anime studio thing might is probably correct, i’d hate to see decent studios fall while A1 stays strong. To counteract this in 2017 I couldn’t even find 10 shows I liked (and I saw a lot) so we’re already getting pretty much exclusively bad things anyway. Much improvement needed in this regard imo.
Sorry because I’m sure I came across as a twat in this, I don’t want to be mean, just say why I think these things. Also I was away for a few days so sorry if you completely forgot all of this and had no idea what I was talking about!
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Oh no, it’s fine. I see where you are coming from and I understand your reasoning well. I would probably think exactly the same as you if they didn’t have a lot of the shows I want to see. I do like the shows that are on now even if I don’t simulwatch them. I prefer to binge when they are done. So, I don’t keep up with the episode bloggers either. I do wish that CR didn’t buy up so many licenses as they do but there are beginning to come new companies and slowly challenge them so maybe we get to see a change soon. I hope so anyway because as said earlier, their subtitles aren’t really topnotch.
I firmly believe that the new fans will stray away from the new stuff and find their thing after a while. I mean, we all start somewhere and most start out with the new stuff (or the big three if you are a guy). I had a strange way into this world but most I know has started out with the most regular stuff but with that curiousity comes and they keep on looking and they hear others talk and keep digging. And so what if they don’t, it’s their loss. We know what good stuff is out there. All we can do is tell people about it.
Yeah, I think you got many hits out of the scam title. I am pretty sure no one hates you. 😉 And I don’t think you came off as a twat.
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aw thanks!
I prefer to binge watch those shows as well which means waiting 12 weeks anyway, so it’s not that big a deal for me to wait 13 instead!
You might be right about the new fans but I feel that with the most popular YT trends being for currently airing anime fans will just watch that instead of everything else. I used to watch the YT trends until I found better ways of getting my recommendations. And yeah, gotta tell people about all of it!
My next big project is to do with that so hopefully it works to an extent!
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That’s true, 12 or 13 weeks is nothing. I don’t even take up a series immediately it ends either so to me it really doesn’t matter. My problem is I watch everything on my TV and the quality is very much worse on the free account since the TV is so big. But if I had only watched on my ipad or phone I don’t think I had cared.
I don’t watch that much YT any longer just for the reason they are mostly talking about now airing anime. I wonder if there is some channel that talk more about older stuff?
I look forward to your project. I know I have said it before but I am seriously curious about it. you have been so passionate about your other project so this can’t be anything but awesome as well.
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Wow thank you! I’m glad the passion shines through! TBH the project is going to announced in less than a week and well, you’ll find out.
It’s a lot more understandable if you watch on the tv, I can understand that perspective a lot better.
The YT account I mainly watch is Digibro and I also recommend super eyepatch wolf as well and of course my japanese anime’s. I wrote a post about my favorite anime YouTubers if you’re interested.
To give you a hint the project will only start to become good and useful until it’s about halfway complete. It’s not necessarily the post content this time but the way everything interacts with everything else. Sorry this probably just made you more interested!
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Haha, no wrong in making me more interested. 😉😎 I’ve watched some Digibro, he’s fairly balanced I think so I like him. Please point me to that post of yours. *too lazy too look right now*
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The shows I watch on crunchy roll I’ve discovered that I watch them there because I can’t find them anywhere else (that doesn’t risk viruses). Other then that, I like that I can watch Anime on my tv using my roku streaming device and the crunchy roll platform on there. The platform is actually better then the actual website and searching for things is a whole lot easier. Also, the commercials are shorter, so win! Will I pay for it? Maybe someday, but I doubt it. Never if the roku platform goes away.
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That sounds much better! Don’t pay if you don’t have too.
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Significantly less likes than views compared to normal, I guess it’s a controversial argument. If you disagree seriously please say why so I can understand the opinions of the other side better. The fact that only people who have agreed/ agreed with one aspect of my argument says something to me.
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I refuse to even go on the Crunchyroll website because there interface is so bad. But they also just have a horrible service. The subs are bad, they don’t even put subtitles on openings and endings, they have a horrible catalog, its impossible to find anything that isn’t currently airing, and it’s 10 dollars a month (in Canada)! Not worth it for the worst streaming platform, probably of all time.
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Yeah absolutely, I would say use the free version of it over other sites but I really don’t care about piracy at this point. The anime industry won’t die if a few studios go bankrupt, if theirs currently too many the amount will fall due to bankruptcy and the lesser competition will result as an equilibrium.
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I really just wish that studios would open patreons or use some other fan-funding technique so they didn’t have to rely on places like Crunchyroll for getting money from the Western market. I would donate to Trigger, Shaft, and KyoAni is a heartbeat.
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I personally wouldn’t donate but it’s a very good idea because I know a few people who would do that as well. It would make better shows as well because the less successful studios would see the difference between them and the ones with big patrons and stop making trash (hopefully).
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Good point about the legal, free way to watch Crunchyroll. I also agree that they should invest in some more classic shows.
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Thank you, I still recommend using crunchyroll, just not buying it.
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