Viewing anime gets harder as time progresses

Earlier this week, it come to my attention that a pirate site I frequent called Aniwave was recently taken down.

Aniwave.to to be specific, other copycat sites are up and running, but for how long no one can say for sure… unless one of the web devs for those sites is currently reading in which case, hi! I’m a huge fan. Keep doing the lord’s work.

Aniwave.to going under is a huge blow considering it was purported to have one of, if not, the largest database of free anime at over 12,000 series. Regular watchers know that I’m a champion of anime piracy for a lot of reasons boiling down to practicality. Everyone and their great-grandmother has their criticisms and concerns over companies like Crunchyroll essentially monopolizing the anime industry, especially since they ate Funimation this year, Crunchyroll itself being bought by Sony three years before that. Damn, corporate consolidation is a b[slap]ch, isn’t it?

The one saving grace here is that past users of either have their old archives saved, so you can go back and look at the degeneracy you watched like five years ago (Shimoneta and Highschool DxD for me), but the point is fans are running out of options to view their favorite anime free of hassle. Crunchyroll is a mess of advertising for services and products few people asked for, and the library is far too small to satisfy those of a niche taste, like myself.

I make a habit of introducing you all to series you probably never heard of, partly because I found entertainment in it and partly because they can’t be found on the usual streaming services. HiDive, Crunchyroll, Hulu, and others all have their own shows, but often times even for legal reasons (or the creator being an oddball), some stuff is deliberately made impossible to access. Some of the stuff I’ve written about on this blog is thanks to those who take the plunge and go out of their way to search for these series. I get that sometimes copyright law gets in the way of a good anime session and your favorite series is at risk of becoming lost media (like the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure film from 2007) or are lost media, forever wiped from collective memory, especially if there’s not a lot of marketing behind the series at the time, but it’s a damn shame that the task of archiving is left to fans who are that dedicated to some of the more obscure series.

This isn’t limited to anime as there are a handful of western series and movies that are poorly archived assuming an attempt was made. Most films from the early 20th century are likely forever lost due to faulty viewing methods at the time. But when it comes to preventing this problem and preserving media, copyright laws and the companies that study them closely will put piracy sites through legal hell which is why some of the series I’ve recommended may not be available anymore. Apologies for any dead links that are still up.

The discussion is healthy in places like Reddit and 4chan where they tend to put the blame on companies like Sony fighting for multiple different properties. If you recall, a few years ago, they got into it with Disney over the rights to the Spider-Man franchise, which led to a tense, uneasy deal where Sony continues ownership of the films while Disney markets everything else. It was a s[thwip]t show.

Canonically, Ben’s been alive and dead twice. Even if it led to an entire Spider-Verse (holy f[yamero!]k there’s a lot of those), Deadpool and Wolverine proved that establishing a multiverse isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.

Fortunately and obviously, there’s still ways to combat this: other more durable pirate sites, hosting your own site, torrenting (which is a pain in the ass), but this consolidation hurts western anime fans with options for stress-free anime viewing getting increasingly scarce. Physical media is on its deathbed, and fewer studios are putting their series on hard copies these days. I doubt all of them are doing it willingly and likely have their reasons for making this move especially at the breakneck pace we’re seeing. There might also be another reason I haven’t thought of as the viewer looking in from the outside, but this reminds me of an Extra Credits video on why demos lost favor about a decade ago.

Part of the argument for why this happened in the gaming world is that gamers disincentivized devs from including demos in recent titles. Basically, with access to small section of the game, a handful of outcomes makes or breaks the future of the game. If the demo sucked, then the player might not be incentivized to get the full game on release; or if it was awesome, hype may surround a game that would turn out to be mediocre or if it lives up to its reputation, financially the developer doesn’t see a very large return on investment.

For anime, newer technologies are a high risk, high reward endeavor. Golden Kamuy was dropped yonks ago by those who were turned off by the CGI bear fight, but those who trudged along found a peak viewing experience with memorable characters and an interesting plot. Some may have gotten tired of waiting and bought as much of the manga as they could (or continued on MangaDex). I can see why companies and studios would pick and choose to show the anime that are famous instead of risk allowing access to niche markets, especially to minimize the risk of commercial flops.

But to argue in favor of allowing unfettered access to all anime produced, I offer two words: cult following.

Shoestring budget or high development cost, there’s a series out there for everyone. Studio heads and execs may be shortsighted or too cautious to see a property’s reputation grow over time, but if/when it does it can reinvigorate the conversation around the property, not all of it centered on associated products. I don’t know about you, but The Warriors getting a video game in 2005 published by RockStar was a good way to introduce a new audience to the franchise. Reboots also work, but it’s too easy for those to get out of hand like with Spider-Man or Tomb Raider.

It all looks like a tall order, and those of us without the technical expertise to torrent can only watch as the gods fight each other in the heavens, but while that’s going on, there’s other sites up that are picking up the slack. There’s 9animetv.to as well as aniwatchtv.to which seems to be undefeated in piracy if this meme is to be believed.

Credit: u/SpiderGeneralYT

Remember all of those? Good times.

Likely an exaggeration–as I said, more will replace what aniwave was–but if this keeps going on, then the future is pretty bleak with site after site getting taken down.

Sorry for the grim ending, but for a look on the bright side, someone else is currently updating a list of available sites to still watch anime if it hasn’t been done already. Only one way to see now if the sites listed are still up and running flawlessly.