It should come as no surprise that anyone is engaged anime For fans, the best way to watch the medium is through an anime-specific streaming service. Regardless of whether people enjoy binge-watching shows over the weekend, keeping up with the latest titles airing week after week, or revisiting iconic classics, it’s hard to go wrong when you check out for programs such as B. logs on Crunchyroll, HIDIVE or RetroCrush for the anime fix.

However, things get a lot more nebulous when you factor in large, non-anime-specific streaming platforms like Disney+, huluMax (ex HBO Max), Amazon’s Prime video And Netflix. All of these places carry anime, but since their catalogs don’t have a particular focus on the medium, viewers who want to primarily stream anime will have to weigh the pros and cons of cost, content, and other variables to determine if it’s The Achievements are actually worth it.

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Disney+ and Max aren’t worth the money for their small anime collections

Prices tend to be fairly even between the major streaming platforms, with each trying to remain competitive while still making a profit. Still, some are more expensive than others, and for subscribers who use such services long-term, the costs add up. Out of Disney+, Hulu, Max, Prime Video and Netflix, the latter currently offers the cheapest ad-supported service available to the general public at $6.99. However, in the case of Hulu, eligible students can use the service with ads for $1.99/month — an offer that no other streaming service comes close to matching. For a completely ad-free experience, whether on a first- or third-party basis, Netflix again scores points with its $9.99/month Basic plan (although the highest tier, Premium, is also comparable to Max’s new Ultimate tier) . the most expensive of all services).

Disney+ and Max subscriptions are more expensive; Disney+ offers its ad-supported basic package and its ad-free premium experience for $7.99 and $10.99 per month respectively, while Max is priced at $9.99 and a somewhat staggering $15.99 respectively US dollar lies. Aside from the higher cost, however, there’s an important reason why anime fans shouldn’t get Disney+ or… Max, and this is the anime itself. Though the number of titles available through Hulu, Netflix, and Prime Video easily numbers in the hundreds, the number of anime available to stream on Disney+ and Max is limited, to say the least.

Actually the single Anime that American viewers will find on Disney+ Is Star Wars: Visions, while even non-US viewers only get about 10 of these, most of which can be found on Hulu in the US instead. Max’s anime collection is only slightly larger at around 20 titles, the vast majority of which are Studio Ghibli films like Magically gone, Howl’s Moving Castle And My neighbor Totoro – certainly not worth the monthly fee alone when they can be rented or bought digitally elsewhere, such as on Vudu and Google Play.

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Hulu and Prime Video have few anime exclusives (and the latter have poor discoverability)

At first glance, Prime Video offers anime fans the best value for the apparent number of titles on offer. However, this is only on paper. While searching for animes actually returns around 1,000 pages of results, that number drops drastically to around 120 titles that can be streamed for free with a Prime Video membership (including those with Amazon Freevee-branded first-party ads). Everything else has to be purchased separately – that is, if someone buys a Prime Video subscription, for example, hoping to catch season 1 of Boruto: Naruto Next Generationsthey will still have to pay either $1.99 to purchase each episode or $24.99 to purchase the entire season.

Anime fans looking to stream on Hulu have a better chance numerically as the streaming service currently hosts around 300 titles. However, neither it nor Prime Video includes a lot of exclusive anime content. For example, the former has Bleach: Thousand Years of Blood War And Tokyo Revengers season 2and the latter has banana fish And Wotakoi: Love is hard for otakubut almost anything else can be streamed on Crunchyroll. For anyone who only wants to subscribe to anime content, both Prime Video and Hulu are largely redundant.

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Additionally, searching for anime on Prime Video is a surefire waste of time. The site’s UI in general has a notorious reputation, but anime in particular seems to fall short here, and it’s usually quicker to do a Google search to find the Prime Video link to a specific title than it is Amazon’s actual search engine to use. Downloading the app makes things a bit easier, but viewers still have to sift through the free Prime and Store titles, as well as the ad-free and ad-supported titles, unless they tick certain menu options. The app itself also tends to be slow and lag-free, not to mention its awkward layout, as if the instruction said, “Do like Netflix, but worse.”

For anime fans, Netflix is ​​the best value streaming service

Hulu certainly outperforms the competition when it comes to the number of non-exclusive animes, and the streaming platform will suffice for fans who don’t already have access to an anime-specific service like Crunchyroll. Otherwise, Netflix is ​​definitely the best option for anime viewers. Not only does it offer the cheapest ad-supported and ad-free experience (albeit without a free trial), but it also offers around 200 anime titles – many of them exclusive to the platform or Netflix originals, such as Violet Evergarden, Komi cannot communicate, Great pretender, Devilman crybaby, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean And Cyberpunk: Edgerunners — offer solid value for money.