Funimation vs Crunchyroll - which is better?
While anime popularity is on the up, viewers surprisingly don't have a vast amount of choice when it comes legally streaming their favourite shows. In the UK, there are two frontrunners: Funimation and Crunchyroll. But before you delve in and take the plunge, you need to discover which of the streaming sites suits your needs.
Funimation is one of the leading anime distributors in Northern America and Europe. It boasts an impressive catalogue of the most sought after anime shows including Fairy Tail, Attack On Titan and My Hero Academia. While it does have hundreds upon hundreds of options to choose from, some notable entries are missing, such as fan-favourite One Piece. Though this isn't completely down to the company (purchasing rights can be a tricky business), it does become one of Funimation's shortfalls. However, they combat this by offering a 'suggestions' section of their site, similar to the recommendations on Netflix. Once you finish binge-watching all 300-and-something episodes of Fairy Tail, it gives you similar shows that may fill that void. It's not a bad system; the recommendations usually do fall within the same genre as their predecessors, meaning you'll likely get sucked into their web of anime choices. Plus, added to the fact that you can stream them in either subbed or dubbed in a range of languages, it makes Funimation pretty accessible globally.
However, most of their shows air two weeks after their release in Japan, meaning that avoiding spoilers is pretty difficult.
Funimation do offer a free version, though the library is rather limited and you'd be met with a hefty amount of ads. However, the premium version is only £4.99 a month (or £49.99 for an entire year). At that price it seems like a pretty good deal to be able to binge-watch hundreds of shows, right? Wrong. On paper, Funimation is a ground-breaking site with a huge range of titles to choose from, making the low price a pretty good steal. Unfortunately, it's let down by the technical side. The mobile app is clunky and unprofessional. Turning the screen leaves half of the icons out of view, before the screen quickly resizes. Whilst not app-breaking, it certainly doesn't leave a good impression. Then comes the chrome-casting. What a disappointment! I can't tell you how excited I was to no longer be confined to watching anime from my laptop screen and appreciate it in all it's big-screen glory. Unfortunately, the images get ridiculously distorted and pixelated every time a character so much as moves. It really ruins the entire viewing experience.
But the technical difficulties don't stop there. When I eventually got sick of the pixelated nonsense that was plaguing my screen, I took to their website to cancel my subscription. After following the steps to cancel my plan effectively, I came face to face with a big red cancel button. I pressed it, ready to free myself of the website's ties and... nothing happened.
Thinking it was just my web browser, I tried cancelling it from the app itself. Nope. I even borrowed a friend's phone. Nada. I'm now eagerly awaiting the support team to manually cancel it for me, but, while error or not, it doesn't reflect well on them.
It's a shame, because if Funimation was tweaked and all of its bugs were removed, it actually could be a website I could see myself subscribing to for years to come. It's recently been purchased by Sony, so know knows! Maybe all of its faults will be rectified. But as the company's been running for 23 years and it's still let down by obvious pitfalls, I won't hold my breath.
This brings us to Crunchyroll. With an impressive 800 shows in its catalogue, streaming all over the world to 21 million online community members, it's a pretty big deal in the anime world. Similarly to Funimation, it offers a free version to members, but with ads every 10 minutes or so, it basically renders the service useless. The premium, ad-free version is also priced at - you guessed it - £4.99, meaning that the two services are literally competing together head-to-head.
Crunchyroll's catalogue is roughly the same as Funimation's. While Funimation have older gems on offer, Crunchyroll boast an abundance of newer shows, airing only an hour after the original Japanese broadcast. That makes avoiding those spoilers pretty damn easy. The site also has One Piece on offer, if you fancy dedicating hundreds of hours of your life to some animated pirates (who wouldn't?!). There's also a 'Viewers also liked' segment, ready for you to find other shows you hadn't necessarily considered before in genres you enjoy. Overall, though, as far as choice goes, I'd say the two sites are evenly matched. It really comes down to what anime you're after feasting your eyes on.
Crunchyroll doesn't suffer from the same technical issues that haunt Funimation. Its casting service works much better, the quality not suffering tenfold for it. The app doesn't crash often, and the quality is always pretty high, depending on your internet speed. The video player is simple, and actually adapts to fit the screen of your phone, unlike Funimation. It's the attention to the smaller details like this that really helps it stand a step above its competitor.
Furthermore, included in the premium deal is online manga available to read. There's only a small range of titles to choose from - 50 to be exact - but it's a nice little addition that shows the streaming site cares about the needs of its users. After all, who doesn't want something for nothing?
The website itself, however, does look a bit dated. In fact, it oddly resembles the illegal, third-party streaming sites that are floating around somewhere on the web. An odd choice for such a visual form of media. Funimation certainly looks more clean and visually appealing than Crunchyroll, but the devil's in the detail. I'd sooner take a less attractive but fully-functioning website over a pretty but dysfunctional site any day of the week.
One of the major drawbacks for Crunchyroll is the lack of dubbed anime to choose from. Out of its 800 shows on offer, only a tiny 53 are available in English dubbed. As a viewer who only watches dubbed anime, this a deal-breaker for me. Their website claims that they hope to expand this number in the future, so if they eventually do I may come back to the service. Until then I, unfortunately,
won't be using it.
Overall, Crunchyroll comes out on top. Offering a huge array of anime, a functioning site, and free manga is a pretty sweet deal. If only they'd spruce up their site a bit and add a bigger choice of dubbed anime, it'd be leagues above its competition.
I do feel as though there is a gap in the niche market of anime streaming. While both are adequate, they don't come without their flaws. A Netflix-styled site, offering a huge range of dubbed, up-to-date releases would surely go down a storm in the anime community. We'll have to see if either of these sites manage to fill that gap in the coming years.
However, most of their shows air two weeks after their release in Japan, meaning that avoiding spoilers is pretty difficult.
Funimation do offer a free version, though the library is rather limited and you'd be met with a hefty amount of ads. However, the premium version is only £4.99 a month (or £49.99 for an entire year). At that price it seems like a pretty good deal to be able to binge-watch hundreds of shows, right? Wrong. On paper, Funimation is a ground-breaking site with a huge range of titles to choose from, making the low price a pretty good steal. Unfortunately, it's let down by the technical side. The mobile app is clunky and unprofessional. Turning the screen leaves half of the icons out of view, before the screen quickly resizes. Whilst not app-breaking, it certainly doesn't leave a good impression. Then comes the chrome-casting. What a disappointment! I can't tell you how excited I was to no longer be confined to watching anime from my laptop screen and appreciate it in all it's big-screen glory. Unfortunately, the images get ridiculously distorted and pixelated every time a character so much as moves. It really ruins the entire viewing experience.
But the technical difficulties don't stop there. When I eventually got sick of the pixelated nonsense that was plaguing my screen, I took to their website to cancel my subscription. After following the steps to cancel my plan effectively, I came face to face with a big red cancel button. I pressed it, ready to free myself of the website's ties and... nothing happened.
It's a shame, because if Funimation was tweaked and all of its bugs were removed, it actually could be a website I could see myself subscribing to for years to come. It's recently been purchased by Sony, so know knows! Maybe all of its faults will be rectified. But as the company's been running for 23 years and it's still let down by obvious pitfalls, I won't hold my breath.
Crunchyroll's catalogue is roughly the same as Funimation's. While Funimation have older gems on offer, Crunchyroll boast an abundance of newer shows, airing only an hour after the original Japanese broadcast. That makes avoiding those spoilers pretty damn easy. The site also has One Piece on offer, if you fancy dedicating hundreds of hours of your life to some animated pirates (who wouldn't?!). There's also a 'Viewers also liked' segment, ready for you to find other shows you hadn't necessarily considered before in genres you enjoy. Overall, though, as far as choice goes, I'd say the two sites are evenly matched. It really comes down to what anime you're after feasting your eyes on.
Crunchyroll doesn't suffer from the same technical issues that haunt Funimation. Its casting service works much better, the quality not suffering tenfold for it. The app doesn't crash often, and the quality is always pretty high, depending on your internet speed. The video player is simple, and actually adapts to fit the screen of your phone, unlike Funimation. It's the attention to the smaller details like this that really helps it stand a step above its competitor.
Furthermore, included in the premium deal is online manga available to read. There's only a small range of titles to choose from - 50 to be exact - but it's a nice little addition that shows the streaming site cares about the needs of its users. After all, who doesn't want something for nothing?
The website itself, however, does look a bit dated. In fact, it oddly resembles the illegal, third-party streaming sites that are floating around somewhere on the web. An odd choice for such a visual form of media. Funimation certainly looks more clean and visually appealing than Crunchyroll, but the devil's in the detail. I'd sooner take a less attractive but fully-functioning website over a pretty but dysfunctional site any day of the week.
One of the major drawbacks for Crunchyroll is the lack of dubbed anime to choose from. Out of its 800 shows on offer, only a tiny 53 are available in English dubbed. As a viewer who only watches dubbed anime, this a deal-breaker for me. Their website claims that they hope to expand this number in the future, so if they eventually do I may come back to the service. Until then I, unfortunately,
won't be using it.
Overall, Crunchyroll comes out on top. Offering a huge array of anime, a functioning site, and free manga is a pretty sweet deal. If only they'd spruce up their site a bit and add a bigger choice of dubbed anime, it'd be leagues above its competition.
I do feel as though there is a gap in the niche market of anime streaming. While both are adequate, they don't come without their flaws. A Netflix-styled site, offering a huge range of dubbed, up-to-date releases would surely go down a storm in the anime community. We'll have to see if either of these sites manage to fill that gap in the coming years.
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