The Best Anime Sites On The Web
Just like most of you (probably), I like to waste time. I do this by trying to bring the nerd in me to a higher level, discovering new things, and watching movies. Especially watching movies and series, actually.
One thing that I’ve learned over the years, is that anime is heavily underrated. A lot of people associate ‘BeyBlade’ and ‘Pokémon’, with anime - which it is, but anime includes so much more!
All kinds of stories exist in the anime world, both good and bad ones, serious and funny series, traditional and frotiering.
Today, we’ll take a look at a number of anime websites on the internet. These sites are, in our humble opinion the best anime sites on the internet for a particular site.
The Best Anime Info Site
How do you get to know new series? Through friends or family? Or perhaps via magazines. But there are also some great places on the internet to find information on anime. On these particular sites, you’ll be able to find plots, reviews, captures, and more on nearly all anime in existance.
So who do we think is the best anime information source, and why?
Anime News Network
The Anime News Network is one of the most complete sources of anime information.
Besides extended reviews and news articles, the site hosts in-depth information profiles exist for almost any anime you can possibly think of in their Encyclopedia and many anime trailers in their videos section.
You’ll also be able to find various lists here, like the most underrated or most viewed anime series.
Runner ups
These are also great sites, nominees for ‘The Best Anime Info Site’, but they did not win.
Anime-Planet
Also a nice place to get to know new anime. The site uses a ‘recommendation system’ to rate the anime series and also features a lot of reviews.
AnimeNFO
A big internet anime database, with all kinds of information on the anime series, characters, and such. You’ll also be able to find release dates, reviews and various lists.
The Best Place to Watch Anime Online
Once we know the good anime from the bad, we will - of course - go watch some of them. There are basically two ‘ways’ to do this.
The first one is to watch the anime online, in a web-player (youtube style). This allows you to watch anime the second you feel like it and is also better for your bandwidth. On the other side, watching anime online often results in poor quality, and all the bandwidth you put into it won’t allow you to watch it again another time.
ZOMGAnime
Anime That! is one of those websites. The website hosts tons of different anime series, and countless episodes and movies. If the anime you’re looking for can be viewed online, the chances are pretty good that you’ll find it here.
Though they’re hosted on some of the popular online video sites, the videos are streamed from within the site itself, in their own player. Loading times are decent and registration is not required.
New anime is added constantly, and there’s a forum for the socialisers among us. An anime top 100 is also available, so you can get ‘inspiration’ without leaving the site.
Runner Ups
These are also great sites, nominees for ‘The Best Place to Watch Anime Online’, but they did not win. Most of the runner ups are nearly as, or equally good as ZOMGAnime, because there isn’t much difference between these sites.
Anime Crunch
Anume Crunch is my second favourite one. Hosts tons of videos as well and doesn’t require registration. Streaming is pretty similar to ZOMGAnime.
Anime Fuel
Also a great site, and perfectly worthy as a runner-up. If there’s a video that you can’t find on the above sites, you can always take a look here.
The Best Anime Download Sites
Like said above, there are basically two ‘ways’ to get your hands on those anime series (DVD import and friends excluded). The first one was to to watch it online, like discussed above.
The second way is - obviously - to download the anime directly to your computer. This will most often result in great video and audio quality and allows you to watch it again, or after some time - hereby not wasting your bandwidth.
On the downside, the downloads can take a while (especially on computers with a slower internet connection), so you can’t click-’n-watch. Also, downloading the anime series to your computer will probably ask more of your bandwidth.
We will make another distinction in this category, between direct-download (also known as: DDL/HTTP) and torrents.
Zone Anime (DDL)
Zone-Anime is one of the biggest direct-download databases available. All download links are provided by the staff and website users, and the site requires no sign-up.
On one side, this explains the number of series available (over 600), but also because of this none of the files are available on the private server. About all downloads go through file hosting sites, like RapidShare or MegaUpload, which means that you’ll probably encounter waiting times. If you want DDL from a private server, check realityLAPSE in the runner ups.
You can browse through the anime by name, but also by genre, or by using search queries.
Next to anime series, you can also go to Zone-Anime for your daily dose of anime music and manga.
Runner Ups (DDL)
These are also great sites, nominees for ‘The Best Anime Download Spot(s) - DDL’, but they did not win.
realityLAPSE
My second favourite site to download anime. All the files are listed on a private server, though they have a much more limited collection and require registration. Several other limitations apply to free users, like slower downloads, and only one at a time.
Anime A
A wonderful site. It’s also pretty similar to Zone-Anime, as it doesn’t host anything private either, but has a somewhat more limited collection.
AnimeSuki (Torrent)
AnimeSuki shows a very complete listing of anime releases, gathered from tons of different trackers. If you can’t find it here, the chances are small that you’ll find it anywhere else.
You can either search the site for anime torrents, or browse through AnimeSuki’s releases or series.
Keep seeding the torrent after your download is completed to let other people enjoy as well.
Runner Ups (Torrent)
These are also great sites, nominees for ‘The Best Anime Download Spot(s) - Torrent’, but they did not win.
BoxTorrents
Another public anime tracker. Also hosts a great deal of torrents, but requires registration for advanced browsing.
DownloadAnime
You can expect to find about all anime releases here, but the site lacks advanced browsing. In short, a great site to discover and download new anime, but not so great if you’re looking for something very specific.
(By) Simon Slangen is a student from Belgium. On MakeUseOf he's the guy in charge of the PDF manuals and the primary game author.
Another website that’s good for Anime info. is http://myanimelist.net/ For DDL, http://www.anime-eden.com/ is also good, though it requires registration (which is free).
No anidb.net for database? No tokyotosho.com for torrents?
I am not following anime sites closely (I kinda prefer watching anime than readign about it
) but lack of these two makes quality of list somewhat lacking.
seconded for tokyotosho.com
love4anime.com has around 8000 anime videos
Network of anime sites.
AnimeForum dot Com, AnimeLyrics Cot com, AnimeGalleries dot Net, and AnimePedia dot Com
I hang on their forums a lot.
Whoops, I meant “AnimeLyrics dot Com” not cot. Wth is the edit button?
Check out http://www.animevice.com, it’s pretty new, wiki-based, pretty cool
mcanime.net and frozen-layer.net in spanish!!
keiichianimeforever.com
Check out their forums. Great little community willing to help with anything.
Try http://www.tokyotosho.com
from which anime is the first image in this post?
is it from Darker Than Black?
Yes, that’s right, one of my favourite series.
Other favourites of mine include Death Note, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Full Metal Alchemist, Full Metal Panic Fumoffu (the ones on op of my head)
What kind of things do you like to watch?
You should add Nihon Review to that list.
http://www.nihonreview.com/
It has a great community and they cover all different forms of media. One more great thing about them is that they’re all respectable people. Whereas you have the typical ‘anime’ fan who watches Naruto and such. These are people who take pride in their work and very good at what they do.
The problem is that they’re not getting the amount of unique views they should be.
Hulu.com is a good place for you to watch animes. But its only for americans. Also you can choose to download animes with Episode Downloader .
narutowire.com is first class in my book. You can follow an entire series with ease, new episodes for current running series are regular and navigation is simple. Definitely a keeper.
Tokyotosho not as your top torrent site? How silly.
You could’ve atleast mentioned lolipower or Getfansub…
All in all, this was a good post. You provided a fair amount of information and even some decent screen shots of a few main pages. One oversight I noticed was the lack of a hotlink for AnimeSuki (also, a lot of readers’ comments lacked hotlinks as well *hint hint*. Additionally, I’m not sure if this article is appropriately entitled as “The Best…” I think these may be more of the your personal favorites.
A quick Google search will indicate some of the most popular sites were noted, but several were not and it seems some of the readers’ comments reflect that (almost to a personal level in some cases and one site was actually mentioned four times, but I suppose a little redundancy never hurt anyone). Usually the first five pages of search results will provide you with the most pertinent sites worth visiting.
Even I found some site listed here which I haven’t visited so I will be sure to check them out. However, I feel there were major sites that weren’t listed that should’ve been listed and would’ve turned up in search results, such as http://www.crunchyroll.com http://www.veoh.com or specifics like Funimation directly posting their videos (full series in parts) to http://www.youtube.com
Also, it would be nice if you touched more on anime by mentioning some good manga sites to visit where one can either download and/or read scanlations online. Often, manga is not a carbon copy of the series- sometimes it is better, longer, or simply different, not to mention that there is a lot of manga that has never been turned into a series or a movie. Additionally, I see a complete failure to indicate sites that are useful communities and/or forums.
You have an excellent argument that anime such as Pokemon is only the tip of the anime iceberg and that not all anime is meant for kids or even teens in some cases, but you could delve into this so much deeper than what you did. It’s a good start, but I’d like to see you take it further and do some detailed research on it. Many people have covered this topic so it shouldn’t be hard to find more examples of what to say and sites to visit as well as a resized screen shot for each site.
One last item of note: StumbleUpon (http://www.stumbleupon.com) is a great way to find tons of anime content. It is a utility that installs to your browser and allows you to randomly surf for desired subject content that you’ve preselected that other users with similar tastes have found. In fact it was how I found your article on anime. You’ve been stumbled…
Wow I’m surprised to see my site here
, thanks for the award ^^.
http://www.animematsuri.com
I use myanimelist too. Tend to get my anime from the Usenet though rather than torrents or direct downloads. Is so much easier and much more secure! Though in all fairness; you probably don’t have as much selection unless it’s a recent anime. Still; for everything else you get I couldn’t care less
See the Usenet Information Centre on how to get on the Usenet.
Thanks for the list !
Where is http://www.lolipower.org ? it’s the best site for direct download, there’s only HQ anime (no realmedia) and it doesn’t use megaupload or other external hosts.
Looks like a great site, thanks for the link !
in my opinion for mainstream anime you can chack out animefart.com(but lately they have been late on updates) and narutowire.com, for not so mainstream or even wierd, old and stuff that isn’t even in the us you can go to crunchyroll.com(this one has a window showing when the next chapter of the updates…)and they got a great library.
Yea, I use animenewsnetwork all the time to find out news for my Negima! blog.
there’s a new anime site that is just starting up, but is already really awesome. it is http://www.oblivionanime.com/
for online watch: http://www.animefreak.tv
Try http://www.ahelk.com as well. There are many streamed anime, no registration required, and a discussion forum.
Talking about reviews and other funny things try http://www.nanoda.com/en
Also lolipower.org is perfect for ddl ^_^
Thanks for this article! ^_^
Found this new site looks pretty cool Anime Oxide
Try http://www.supertubee.com/ . They carry wallpapers,direct download Anime and other Asian movies, they putting up Manga later I think. Clean site and they give gold coins for user and you can trade them in for like Nike shoes cash, accessories. It’s one of the cleanliest and best site around.
the best free movie aggregator on the web
http://www.nosubscriptionrequired.net/
nice site…for all the people that go onto my site-just type what you think of this site and i’ll look for the message….type about any new sites you find…or leave me a message on my personal web site ^.^ thanks
Oh men, thanks a lot for these, i’m not an american, but i love english sub in a anime, so i was searching as a loco for a good page like mcanime, and zone anime seem to be like mcanime, thanks man, good post, god bless ya., hope zone-anime has low mb, cus i found ninhonomaru but, that page was shorned as a bald head.
I think the coolest anime is Kaiji where it involves gambling, it’s much cooler than deathnote and the usual naruto and bleach. You can try this one too coz it’s cool. http://kenji321.mybrute.com it’s about fighting games where you don’t need to control your players.
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Great information but I would like to get some sites to watch anime in my phone I’m using mobile anime.net but they haven’t updated the site lately, if somebody can help me I’ll most gracefull