Better Options To View Anime Episodes

Online streaming of videos has made a big difference for fans of any film or animation genre, but for those eager to view anime episodes, this new technology has been a godsend. In the past, these fans had few options.

They could buy a video or eventually a DVD, or wait for the broadcasting choices of television networks. Given that TV series tended to be geared more toward the young Saturday morning cartoon group, and buying DVDs on a large scale was expensive, there weren't many ways to watch anime free until online streaming was developed.

While the distribution companies wanted to retain their rights, they also began recognizing the value of allowing downloads of anime episodes one at a time. They created a compromise for their fans, realizing that not everyone could buy the DVD of every series that came out.

Several distributors started putting entire series online on newly created video portals, so fans could watch free anime. Yet the fans could also download and own better quality versions for a price. This not only brought visitors flocking to the companies' websites, but served as advertising and, ultimately, incentive for more purchases.

As social networking sites became prevalent, distributors also discovered that these, too, created new ways to provide anime episodes to fans. Several companies, like FUNimation Entertainment in the U.S. or GDH/Gonzo in Japan, created their own branded YouTube channels.

People could watch free anime there, and be linked to the distributor website where they could buy individual episodes or whole series. Between this sort of purchase and the buying of episodes to download even to a cell phone, distributors have found new ways to profit, while giving their fans many different options.

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Better Websites With Anime Reviews

Anime reviews can be found everywhere on the internet, though the quality and depth of these reviews will vary widely. You might find a fairly small site where the author covers only their favorite anime series, and this can be valuable if you have similar tastes.

But you'll probably want to visit one of the more extensive sites that review a wider range of titles and attempt a degree of objectivity. Some add details about the industry, voice actors and even merchandising, but the most interesting sites are the ones that provide expert assessments of the anime series themselves.

T.H.E.M. Anime Reviews (http://www.themanime.org/) is a prime destination for those who want to learn about individual series. Originally, under the patronage of T.H.E.M., the science fiction and fantasy social group at Arizona State University, this site now operates on its own, relying on donations and operated by many volunteers.

The website does reviews of anime series, but as many of these sites do, it also has regular contributors who cover anime conventions and other events associated with the industry.

One difference between sites for personal anime reviews and those that have sponsorships and attempt to be more professional is that the personal sites might vanish or become inactive, as the authors get too busy or become incapable of maintaining their site.

This is one reason why you should keep many review sites bookmarked for gaining anime news. Before you commit to buying anything, you'll want several different opinions anyway, so taking advantage of all these different reviews can only be beneficial.

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Watching Anime Videos and Anime TV Series On Demand

The Japanese infiltration into American animated programming began with the first few anime English-dubbed programs in the 1960s and 1970s. A show like Astro Boy, which began airing in 1963, had such a space-age quality to it, not just from the subject matter but from the animation style itself, that American audiences were fascinated.

As series trickled into North America, one or two at a time, no one knew that eventually anime videos and anime TV series would mushroom into a huge entertainment industry all over the world.

When DVDs began appearing on the scene, many converted their favorite anime collections from VCR to DVD. This new technology made it even more possible for anime videos and anime TV series to diverge into separate spheres, yet they did remain intertwined to a large degree.

The number of anime broadcasts on television skyrocketed in the 1990s and this prompted more purchasing of anime videos, which in turn encouraged more television exposure. The two media formats fed into each other.

It took the growth of the internet, however, to make anime videos and anime TV series almost independent of each other.

In the twenty-first century, video streaming technology now threatens to replace media formats like the DVD almost completely, as anime fans begin to watch their favorite series on computers, their cell phones, and computer components plugged into television screens. Wherever there is a screen, a distributor can stream anime completely independently of any television schedule.

This has added to the woes of many TV networks, yet it has given anime fans control of what they view, and when and where they view it.

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The Different Styles Of Anime Series

What makes Japanese anime series different from those produced in North America? Both can be richly colorful and take great animation skills to produce. Clearly, the actual styles are different, with many people being familiar with the larger eyes and slightly exaggerated features of the characters in anime.

But apart from the often more lush visual quality of this type of animation, when you watch anime episodes you begin to discover a certain depth, both of plot and character, that you don't see nearly as often in North American animations.

This complexity isn't always visible at first glance, for some anime series. For example, in the Sailor Moon series, the main character was often very silly. Yet Sailor Moon, probably the most beloved anime girl in the world, also had moments of nobility and strength.

The plot of this anime frequently veered between rather fluffy episodes and scenarios where this character or her companions might need to make deep personal sacrifices to save the world. This is a strong feature of anime; extreme silliness in one episode followed by heart-wrenching drama in the next.

Fullmetal Alchemist is another of the anime series with lighter moments, yet the thrust of this popular title is sober and dramatic. Two young brothers must undo the results of committing a terrible taboo of alchemy, while becoming involved with saving their country from destruction at the hands of unnatural alchemical forces.

Series like this and others are among the top anime titles precisely because they know how to balance the lighter, more ridiculous moments with more complex and dramatic plot elements. This intensity and complexity sets much anime apart from other styles of animation.

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Production Companies Compromizing Over Anime Downloads

Illegal online downloads might have started with music, but they certainly didn't stop there. It took longer for video technology to develop, but illegal anime downloads eventually began posing the same problem for anime distributors that song downloads did for the music industry, early in the century.

Once a few people had the digital files from any series, it was easy for these to be uploaded to fan sites, and soon people could watch anime free online, and download the files to their own computers, without any consequences.

Just as Bandai and FUNimation took their hard public stance against illegal anime downloads, another Japanese entertainment company, GDH/Gonzo, began to demonstrate the real road to the successful resolution of the problem.

By joining forces with a fan site that had been strongly criticized for streaming anime illegally, Gonzo allowed the streaming to continue, but made higher quality versions of those videos available for a fee. This might not have eliminated illegal downloads entirely, but it mitigated the problem to a great extent.

It is to FUNimation's credit that they either followed Gonzo's lead, or at least developed a similar plan to deal with illegal anime downloads. The company hasn't entirely abandoned its prosecutorial ways, but it did set up its own video portal, positively loaded with free streaming anime.

It streams vast chunks of its anime library for free, while fans can take advantage of a download-to-own option, one episode at a time. This approach has worked very well to make the company's fans happy, while providing publicity and extra revenue as well. Gonzo may have had it right from the beginning: "If you can't beat them, join them."

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Fan Sites With Free Online Anime

One of the advantages of having free online anime at various websites is that people who can't afford to buy DVDs of whole series or download single episodes can still watch their favorite entertainment genre.

Many networks have stopped broadcasting anime, so the publicity this produced for these products has vanished. It serves the distribution companies well to allow people to watch free anime because it whets their appetite for the products the way TV broadcasts once did. People who can't afford to buy anime are happy beneficiaries of the arrangement.

What some may find surprising is that this online anime isn't always located at the websites of the distributors, even though its streaming is distributor-approved.

The Japanese entertainment and anime production company, GDH/Gonzo, does have its own branded YouTube channel where some of its series run, but it has also made arrangements to provide free streaming anime on at least one fan site.

The usual practice is that videos on fan sites are of lesser quality, and fans who want better quality episodes will purchase them legally.

In the same way that it might seem counterintuitive to provide free online anime in order to increase revenues, some North American distributors are following another practice that might sound contradictory.

The sensible course, in the minds of most people, would be to offer streaming only of series that have been around for awhile and might have run the course of the initial buying enthusiasm.

But some distributors are also letting fans watch anime free that has just been broadcast in Japan. By all these different means, publicity and good will are created, and this can only end up benefiting both the fans and the distributors.

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Award Winning And Popular Anime Movies

You will get the same range of anime movies as you do in Hollywood, Bollywood or any other genre or production center. Some will clearly be just plain bad, while others will be obvious attempts to cash in and make money by producing a low-quality knock-off of a better movie.

But then you will watch anime movies that stand alone as probably the most creative and captivating animated films anywhere on the planet. Some of these are inspired by anime series, but others tell their own important stories.

Some anime movies are disappointing because they play upon fan devotion to the original series. The final episode of the popular Fullmetal Alchemist anime left many things hanging. It was clear that the creators simply expected fans to fork over money for the anime DVD of Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conquerer of Shamballa, for the resolution of these issues.

Most fans did so, but there was a lot of grumbling. On the other hand, movies like the ones based on the Naruto anime, while not spectacular, have been enjoyed because they feel more "honest," fitting in well with the ongoing series itself.

When you first think about it, the idea of anime movies doesn't automatically connect in the mind with events like the Cannes Film Festival or the Academy Awards.

But with Miyazaki's Academy Award win, and the applause other films have won at some of the major film festivals, there clearly is a quality and depth to these films that many other animated movies don't have.

Anime characters in the best series have long been recognized as multi-faceted characters, and anime plots can be both comic and tragic. These movies can stand at the top of the field with the best films.

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