Believe it!
In a recent deal with Viz, Sony, Gong and Funimation, the rival streaming companies are rolling out more legal subtitled anime to be streamed on their online websites. Titles such as Bleach, Basilisk, Black Blood Brothers, Death Note, Kiddy Grade, MoonPhase, Peach Girl, and School Rumble will be making their way on Hulu.com. Sadly though Hulu.com only allow streaming to those living in the USA, however the clever people amongst us might be able to use proxy servers to trick the website into thinking you’re from the USA to watch such subtitled content.
Joost though will also stream legal and English subtitled episodes of Naruto in the United States, with Bleach coming soon. The first 20 subtitled episodes of Naruto, all 37 subtitled episodes of Death Note, and dubbed episodes of Blue Dragon, Zatch Bell!, and MÄR have already been posted and ready to view with more episodes added often. Joost also carry titles like the 2003 Astro Boy, Cosmo Warrior Zero, Gun Frontier and Ikki Tousen as well as news coverage from ANNtv.
All of this can only be a good thing for the industry to combat fansubs and piracy, and perhaps sets themselves a good business model to support the online space as adverts play inbetween to help pay for the service. What would you like to see streamed online legally and do you think all of this effort would slow down the need for fansubbers?
Related posts:
- Joost – the new on-demand TV service from Skype
- Viz finally plans to stream Naruto Shippuden for free
- Funimation to Stream Anime Samples for Free
- Anime Central Marathon set to go!
- Viz Media simulcasts InuYasha: The Final Act
I hope they fail