How to find anime online - best anime sites to stream and watch anime

I'll approach in this hub how to watch the best anime online content out there. At this moment there's a huge amount of sites that allows you to access anime for free. Unfortunately most of them are unreliable, have broken links, and forces you to lose an insane amount of time searching, sometimes on a fool's errand. The consequence: you'll end up getting a bad headache instead of the episode you wanted to see in the first place.

So where to look? Lets check out some of the options shall we?

Googling is not that great

Probably the first thing anyone does nowadays when trying to find something on the Internet is typing it on Google. That normally works, but in trying to find animes it can get troublesome because of what I mentioned earlier. Too many search results will leave you empty handed, either because the link will lead you to a landing page with everything except what you're looking for or the video is actually there, but the link doesn't work. Now what? Well, best thing is knowing some sites of reference and sticking with them!

Anime list sites

Some anime list sites are actually good and have a lot of fine links, especially in the case of recent animes and less-known ones. The advantage of this sites are that the anime episodes are normally well organized and in alphabetical order providing the viewer with a easy find and viewing of the episodes with minimal hassle. Cons are... sometimes whole shows have broken links! Also some links are to videos with lesser quality, especially in Full Screen mode.

Some examples of good Anime List Sites:

Anime-sub- Has a really big anime index, short reviews of each anime and even music player online with tracks you can hear from your favorite anime!

Watchanimeshows- Not so many extras as anime-sub - actually just the videos ^.O but also less broken links. Seems the admins are more on top of things.

AnimePile- Megalist of any possible imaginable anime. You'll find everything here, but the index is not very well organized and there's a lot of broken links - even so you have like 15 links to any episode so one of them is bound to work - problem is sometimes quality is not that good and it's way easier to find dubbed episodes than subbed ones.

Anime Video Servers

Hey, most of the time the sites I mentioned before go get their videos in these servers, so why don't search for them in the first place? Well, if you use the ones I'll mention you'll get the following advantages: higher quality of viewing, lesser pixelization while in Full Screen mode; increased probability of finding English subbed episodes. Cons: big amount of time spent on searching for the exact episode and format you want and annoying spammy ads.

Some example of good Anime Video Servers:

Veoh- Much better quality than say, Youtube... also you can watch full episodes in one go, even full anime movies - although to see those you have to install a software called veoh TV, available on the site. I recommend installing it because: 1) it's free; 2) It's add free; 3) It improves the overall quality of Full Screen viewing!

Megavideo- Dubbed, dubbed, dubbed! Isn't frustrating to be watching a english subbed serie for weeks and then you just can't find episode #63 subbed anywhere? Try this site. Yes it's less known, yes it has Adult Friend Finder spam everywhere (even the video player!), but you'll probably find what you want. And the quality is equal to veoh as well!

No findings. Getting desperate?

OMG! After trying all of those you still haven't found the streaming you are looking for! Well, in that case go to Anime Toplist, an anime site directory where you can enter a name of an anime and it will show all the sites that presumably air it... Just be ready for A LOT of false positives and a good dose of stress.

What about Anime Downloads?

This hub isn't about that. It's my belief that:

1. given that the majority of internet users have broadband access with high to downright none traffic limit;
2. the anime videos stream available are of good quality;
3. and you save a lot of disk space watching animes online...

The best option right now is really to view animes in the web. However I'm quite sure there are anime fans out there that don't share of my opinion. Maybe it's because in anime downloads:

1. the video and audio quality is slightly better and you can choose the video player of your liking;
2. you normally can get all the episodes from the same source so you won't get so many incongruences in translation;
3. it's faster to obtain this week episode of that awesome show that's airing in Japan right now!
4. you are a collector kind of person that likes to show to your friends all the dvd's of downloadable material you have O_O

So, for the sake of completion I'll give you some info on how to get downloadable anime from the internet.

FANSUBS - So how do you think all those episodes got in the video servers in the first place? Yep, most of the works have been translated and subtitled by anime fans and are distributed via peer-to-peer networks: torrents are hot at the moment. High quality fansubs include Dattebayo and Lunar Anime.

The usual suspects - that's right, I'm talking about searching in Kazaa, Emule, Rapidshare, all those places where you can get virtually all the crap there is in the World Wide Web.

Also check Expectus excellent hub about Downloading Animes for more details!

So, is all of this legal?

Hmmm, that's a tricky question. Stickily speaking no, unless you belong to one of the few countries that didn't sign up the Berne Convention, which produced the main treaty regarding Copyright Law. This states that the authors have full rights in the editing and release of their work in the adherent countries.

However... most of the japanese editor companies look the other way regarding fansubs, which is the majority of anime video content you'll find on the internet. This happens because, in most cases, fansubbers translate shows that aren't yet licensed in their country, so they don't prevent the authors from gaining money. In fact sometimes it's the other way around. By doing free publicity to a show, they attract an audience to it, which later on will buy the original upon release, profiting the authors / editors.

Conclusion

After reading my hub you should be able to find and view any anime production there is. This is possible because of the big amount of content made available by anime fans and the good will of the anime producers. It's a symbiosis that's great for everyone, but remember this: DON'T JUST WATCH THE SHOWS, BUY THEM!

Streamed or download content will never be a match in quality as the original work. Use it as a preview for the real thing and do your part rewarding the mega talented people that make all the wonderful anime we love!