It’s National Anime Day – Here Are Your Best Streaming Options for Japanese Animation

April 15 is National Anime Day, the perfect time to fire up a new streaming service and jump into an art form that has inspired millions and changed nearly every action movie of the last 40 years.

If you’re looking for the biggest library with the most cutting-edge animation, Crunchyroll is the slam-dunk choice. Anime fans everywhere love it for its enormous library of 2,000+ titles and its great variety.

If you’re a first-timer, check out HBO Max. It’s home to the masterworks of Hayao Miyazaki and such wonderful films as “Spirited Away,” “Princess Mononoke,” and “Howl’s Moving Castle.”

Here are our picks for the best anime streaming services.

Why is Crunchyroll the Best Anime Streaming Service?

Crunchyroll has 2,000+ titles of groundbreaking anime. There are 50,000+ episodes overall.

Popular titles on the platform include:

• My Hero Academia
• One Piece
• Kailua No. 8
• DAN DA DAN
• Dr. STONE
• The Water Magician
• My Dress-Up Darling
• Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra: World Conquest Starts with the Civilization of Ruin
• Clevatess
• The Rising of the Shield Hero
• To Your Eternity
• Secrets of the Silent Witch
• TO BE HERO X
• Scooped Up by an S-Rank Adventurer!
• Dragon Raja: The Blazing Dawn
• New Saga
• Lord of Mysteries

Movies and shows are available in 12+ languages, and users have the option to watch with subtitles or dubbed in their native language.

What Are Some Other Good Anime Streamers?

Anime is popular across several streaming services, but here are the best.

HBO Max

HBO Max won’t let you down as a first-time anime streamer. Their Studio Ghibli connection means you will see peerless animation from the late 1980s until today. Here are some of your best bets.

• The Boy and the Heron
• Porco Rosso
• My Neighbor Totoro
• Castle in the Sky
• Ponyo
• Kiki’s Delivery Service
• The Wind Rises
• Whisper of the Heart
• The Cat Returns

HIDIVE

HIDIVE is another paid anime library, but you can watch it with a free trial. It includes exclusives. Some of the popular titles include:

• Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon
• MADE IN ABYSS
• The Vexations of a Shut-in Vampire Princess
• Helck
• Tokyo Mew Mew New
• The Demon Girl Next Door
• My Gift LVL 9999 Unlimited Gacha
• Dusk Beyond The End Of The World

AsianCrush

If you’re looking for a freemium option, you can stream plenty of free content on AsianCrush without paying. If you’d like to drop the ads, you can choose to play $4.99/month or $49.99/year. There’s a 7-day free trial for either premium plan. Of just stick with free! It’s up to you.

Titles include “Urusei Yatsura: Only You,” “Hells,” “City Hunter: Bay City Wars,” “My Little Monster,” and “Magic User’s Club!”

Tubi

One of our top free services has a nice anime library with titles like “Storm Rider: Clash of the Evils,” “Terror in Resonance,” “Naruto,” and “Yu-Gi-Oh!”

RetroCrush

Looking for the classics? You can choose the totally free version of RetroCrush Anime or go for a premium version that has a 7-day free trial.

(Weirdly, this service is cheaper through Prime Video than it is if you go directly to their site. Take the win!)

Either way, you get some knockout titles like “Astro Boy,” “Aim for the Ace!,” “Hajime no Ippo,” “Princess Nine,” “Yowamushi Pedal: The Movie,” “Samurai Troopers (Ronin Warriors),” “Ninja Robots Tobikage,” “Magic Knight Rayearth,” and “Flame of Recca.”