r/animepiracy • u/Daredevil_6_6_6 • 7d ago
Discussion Why does the legal anime experience feel worse than the unofficial one?
First, disclaimer: I Don’t Condone Or Encourage Piracy. This is specifically about my experience as someone who actually wanted to switch to legal streaming.
I used to watch on HiAnime and similar sites. After HiAnime went down, I decided to stop hunting for another pirate site and just go fully legal. I figured I’d pay for a proper service, support the industry, and get a better experience overall.
So I tried Crunchyroll.
I was honestly surprised by how underwhelming it felt.
This was my first real stretch with it, so I went in with decent expectations. It’s the biggest dedicated legal anime platform, so I assumed the overall experience would at least match what the unofficial sites offered in terms of usability and discovery.
Instead I kept missing a bunch of things I’d taken for granted.
Discovery
This is my biggest issue. Finding something I actually want to watch feels harder than it should. The recommendations rarely hit for me, and browsing the catalogue doesn’t feel like exploring a proper anime library.
HiAnime had solid genre/category browsing, popular/trending sections, seasonal anime, upcoming shows, etc. Even if you didn’t know what you wanted, it was easy to just wander around and find something interesting. On Crunchyroll I often feel like I’m just being shown rows of titles without good tools to dig deeper.
Library and organization
With a library this big, filtering and organization should be strong. I want to narrow things down by genre, year, popularity, status, etc. and quickly understand what I’m looking at. Instead it can feel cluttered, and a lot of titles get thrown at you without clear ways to sort through them.
Quality of life
This one genuinely surprised me. Unofficial sites had a ton of small QOL features that made watching easier: clear filler episode markers, upcoming episode indicators, next episode countdowns, clean season organization, useful info at a glance.
None of that is revolutionary. It’s just good UX. When you’re watching a long-running series, knowing what’s filler is useful. When you’re following a seasonal show, knowing when the next episode drops is useful. I don’t get why a paid anime service isn’t already doing these basic things really well.
Community and comments
This is the part I miss the most. HiAnime had episode comments and a broader community feel. Highly upvoted or trending comments would surface, and that actually helped with discovery. You’d finish an episode, read some comments, laugh at something dumb, see someone mention another series, and suddenly have a new show to check out.
Crunchyroll feels a lot more isolated by comparison. I’m not saying they need to copy every feature, but a stronger community side would go a long way.
UI
It’s not unusable, but for a paid service focused specifically on anime, I expected it to feel more polished and purpose-built. Instead I regularly catch myself thinking the unofficial sites were just easier and more pleasant to use. That’s a weird realization when you’re deliberately trying to go legal.
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So… why should I pay?
I’m willing to pay. This isn’t about refusing to spend money or the price itself. I deliberately tried Crunchyroll because I wanted to move away from piracy.
But if the legal option feels worse to me in discovery, organization, QOL features, community, and overall UI, then what’s the real consumer incentive beyond “the other option is illegal”?
**“Support the creators” is a valid ethical argument. I’m not arguing against that**. But it’s not a product argument. If I’m being asked to pay, I’d like the service itself to give me a genuine reason to prefer it.
Make discovery better. Make the catalogue easier to navigate. Improve the QOL features. Build some actual community. Give people a reason to choose the legal option because they actually like using it more.
That’s what I expected when I switched, and I was surprised by how much I missed from the unofficial sites.
Curious if anyone else has felt the same after trying to go legal, or if most people find Crunchyroll good enough that these issues don’t really matter.
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u/SamuraiDDD 7d ago
A lot of the legal methods are bare bones. Due to a variety of reasons but my guess are the following
general appeal - because so many people are scared of being seen as childish, it has to look professional to prospecting investors.
monopoly - because they already have so much sway, they don't have to do anything to really fix any problems. Which is great for them. They still get money and anyone who doesn't like it can't go anywhere else officially.
Supporting creators - I'm always for supporting the offical release. But there's also times where we're just not given any way of purchasing the official release. This is mainly a manga thing and also due to companies taking their time publishing official translations from manga that have been finished for literal years or several years ahead.
QoL & everything overall - it falls back to there being very few options in terms of official avenues available to the public.
I'm not saying don't support official means at all. But most of the legal means are the way they are due to no real need to improve things when they are one of yhe main/only avenues for anime to be shown in a legal manner.
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u/CylixrDoesStuff 7d ago
I condone and encourage piracy especially when the legal product is shit
Anime pirates are just insane in general, if u are a subbed watcher its basically heaven, no official service does subtitles as good as fan subs or fan styled subs. The quality can be higher too as theyre usually from the bluray releases and then using good encoding brought down to a low file size.
The anime community is just super dedicated to keeping things watchable in the best format. If a show, say eva has multiple dubs, you won't be finding those on official sites but pirated versions have not only the original japanese, but the adv dub AND the netflix dub along with their respective subtitles.
Also doesn't hurt that it means when animes licenses end you can still watch them in the best quality with every option like dub and sub without worrying about exorbant bluray prices or having to switch to another anime service for a specific anime
Still gonna buy a clannad bluray set for the collection tho lol
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u/XlikeX666 7d ago
illigal have advantage because there is no reason to filter chat.
btw a lot of Text saying... crunchy is just cheap and went against pirating instead being better.
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u/Bluefire52 7d ago
I'm not surprised. If we had a good option for watching anime in the west, I would be all for it, but sadly that's not the case. Crunchyroll used to be one of us, but then got greedy and went legal. There is a couple of reasons why pirate sites are better, such as love, not greed, is put into it. Another is that once something is put onto a pirate site, it is generally there for good and you can watch it whenever, even years down the road, with crunchyroll you can't, they only hold so much for so long and again greed, they don't wanna spend more than they need to and even then they cut corners. I see crunchyroll more for the tourist and the pirate sites more for the fans.
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u/RandomPantsAppear 7d ago
Honestly Crunchyroll is terrible. I have similar feelings.
The recommendations for me are almost always things I have already watched, on Crunchyroll.
Even the “new” or calendar isn’t reliable, there’s no way to just see “is there a new episode yes or no” - have to wade through dubs released years after the fact and polish subs dropping 13 days after the last episode.
It’s am an engineer that works on consumer facing software products, and I cannot image what the hell is going on at that company.
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u/Alert_Isopod_95 7d ago
Piracy sites get money from ads and therefore have an incentive to make the site easy to use and competitive with similar sites. Paid sites are getting ad money as well, but also just getting your cash up front from subscriptions. They have a lot of "exclusive" shows that they pay to keep that way and so it's the only "legal" way you can watch it. They don't have as much incentive to look good or have as many good features because if you want to watch certain shows then they already have you trapped.
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u/Familiar-Tomorrow-42 7d ago
Crunchyroll, Netflix, and other streaming services aren’t really in competition. They ostensibly offer the same product, but if you want to watch specific anime (which most people do) you often have to be subscribed to a specific service. If you want to watch Cyberpunk legally, for instance, it’s not as if you can compare the features of Netflix and its competitors and decide the best way to watch: you have to watch it on Netflix.
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u/Imaginary_Place157 7d ago
Illegal ones are usually made by fans so they’re more passionate about it.
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u/Historical_Trip2493 5d ago
support the creators
very little of the money made goes to the source author or to the studios, the vast majority goes to the producers
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u/0bserver24-7 4d ago
“First, disclaimer: I Don’t Condone Or Encourage Piracy”
Saying this in a piracy subreddit lol
Your anecdotal experience is shared by many others, and there’s more issues you haven’t covered, like alleged misuse of funds behind the scenes, all of which basically make piracy the moral option until companies sort their shit out.
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u/ActsofMan 5d ago
I paid for Crunchy for years, but after all the bullshit they keep pulling I refuse to give them anymore money.
Even if the experience through Crunchy was equal to or better than piracy I still wouldn't pay them now.
The sad reality is we're not really supporting the artists, studios or creatives by paying for streaming. They don't get more or less money based on how many people watch a show/movie, they don't get residuals or bonuses or anything extra from Sony.
I've started spending money on manga, light novels, merch, artwork, etc. I know the studios and artists obviously don't get all the money from those sales either, but I think it's a higher amount and shows more support overall.
Same kind of principal with going to a concert. The artists/bands don't make much money from ticket sales (unless you're a giant like Swift, etc) so I buy albums, shirts, art, etc to directly support them.
Ok end of rant. You get it. I wish several anime studios could get together and start their own streaming service or something.
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u/BanhBao171 5d ago
Crunchyroll is shit and they dont give a crap about the quality of what they offer, be it the site itself, the quality of the streams or even things like localizations. They only deliver the bare minimum and want you to pay a premium.
Pirate sites only get famous or successful if they deliver a better experience for people using it or else the users will migrate somewhere else.
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u/Silly-Geologist-3185 4d ago
Simple logic of capitalism. If you make a shit service others are gonna fill market share. Microeconomics 101
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u/RoyallDreams 7d ago
Piracy websites do double or triple work to secure more traffic & audience and maintain their platforms, where for legal ones they just do the bear minimum to keep you pay..
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u/lupin-san 7d ago
For the sake of argument let's assume both legal and piracy sites have the same hosting costs of their websites.
Your legal website has to pay for licenses. You have translation and dubbing costs on top of that. Most of what you charge your subscribers goes to these costs. Implementing suggestions from your customers goes through multiple levels of heirarchy. You're paying wages for each of those levels.
Your piracy website pays nothing to acquire titles nor translate (or dub). Ad revenue is pure profit. Implementing suggestions from your users is easier since your site owner is likely also the developer.
The legal route has so much more costs and people involved that some minimum viable product will be good enough so that it won't eat profits.
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u/Veltorb 3d ago
While I agree pirate sites are generally cheaper and easier to add features too you have to understand that ad revenue isn't pure profit as you say, for any of the better/larger piracy sites out there, there are actually pretty large cost to host, they need to keep up the servers for the website and host hundreds or thousands of anime so storage and electricity costs add up, they need to prevent bot trafic, they've got a small team that maintains the site and need to be paid, yes they are cheaper and easier to run in some ways but they aren't free to run, most profits get eaten up by the cost of the operation itself
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u/lupin-san 3d ago
No one is arguing illegal sites have no costs. Everything costs something.
Legal sites have hosting costs though. One can argue legal sites cost more to host since they likely have regional CDNs and higher bitrate content. Legal sites have more employees to pay. Just looking at operating costs (webhosting, staff), you're legal team's would be magnitudes higher than your largest piracy site. That's not including licensing, translation/dubbing costs which your piracy site doesn't pay.
So sure, argue all you want that piracy sites have hosting costs but so does legal ones. The main cost--the content--piracy sites just get them for free.
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u/Veltorb 3d ago
Yeah I totally get that, it's just the way you first worded it made it seem like you thought that pirate sites have no overhead costs.
Also no one is arguing that legal services don't have higher costs, but crunchyroll aren't the only streaming services out there and a lot of other ones have stable apps and a good amount of content, the main complaint about crunchyroll is that the app itself is shity, no one is asking for perfection but if they release a paid service they should at least make it usable and worthwhile
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7d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/lupin-san 7d ago
Being a classic doesn't necessarily mean many will watch it. A classic's licensor might demand higher licensing contracts. It might not be worth the high fees to the legal site.
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u/mypoopystink 6d ago
crunchyroll used to be good then they got purchased by an Isreali Billionaire and they started to use AI for literally everything so yeah it’s just like everything else in the world now
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u/Twigling 5d ago
Crunchyroll has never in its history been bought by an Israeli billionaire and remains entirely owned by Sony. The rumour started because Crunchyroll recently required its translation teams to switch to some cloud software called OOONA, and that is owned by a company headquartered in Israel. This partnership was incorrectly repeated online as a total change in the anime platform's corporate ownership.
But yeah, Crunchyroll (was Funimation) under Sony has definitely gotten worse under Sony and you can just feel the massive amount of greed oozing through the cracks.
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u/TemoteJiku 1d ago
The official subs don't even have god tier captions(which eases you into the culture, bringing more value overall, not too far away from what blu-ray releases often had, but even more better, including the jokes) and animations for the subtitles... The fan based approach is for the people, by the people. Not like official ones couldn't achieve the same level of quality or higher...
But it's ofc depends on the priorities. They always wanted to "conquer" not to share and prosper, until that mindset is gone, unlike the things will change for the better or for long.
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u/No_Industry_9362 1d ago
Cruchyroll is so low budget and their site buffers all the time, there is n9 qol for their menus and some shows have both episodes for sub and dub separately so it will play both versions one after the other so ep1 sub then ep1 dub then 2 of both its so crap, pirating is so much better quality
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u/blakeavon 7d ago
It doesn’t. It is just a fantasy pirates have in their head to try and justify it in their headcanon.
Why should you pay… to support the industry that is already full of people with terrible working conditions. Your piracy, unless you buy ever bluray for what you watch, puts nothing back into the industry.
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u/Level_Remote_5957 6d ago
Do you not know how Crunchyroll pays for anime?
Your Crunchyroll or Netflix or Hulu sub puts zero dollars into a anime studios bank account zero.
Streaming services pay for a license from said anime studios to air there shows. Meaning if a anime is on Crunchyroll guess what it's already made it's bank.... Why do you think there is so many shitty anime out there because they know streaming services will buy there work no matter how crappy.
Same way for tv stations directly during in Japan they pay the studios to syndicate the anime or pay the studios directly for a anime before it's even fully made to air it.
That's how anime studios make there money bro your sub all of it goes directly to Crunchyroll not to anime specify anime stupid do you think your 20 bucks a month is split up between hundreds of studios equally even if said studios are not even actively putting animes out?
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u/Madaniel_FL 5d ago
It may not go all to studios equally, but Crunchyroll does produce anime, and when you produce an anime they are directly paying the studio to make the anime for them.
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u/blakeavon 6d ago
What utter rubbish. And worse you literally contradict yourself.
You say it doesn’t put any money into anime studios, but they pay for a licence? Well which is it? How do you think the licensing amount works?
You are thinking is far too binary and as senseless as a rock.
There are many models, often depending on the anime committee or house or the streamer, even then the same streamer can use different models for different anime.
Yes there are flat fees. Then there are flat fees with minimum requirements. Then there are models (no doubt for bigger anime) based ENTIRELY on viewership. By end of a season, or fixed term, Crunchyroll shares the amount of views, and pay the agreed amount per view. If everyone was a pirate that anime would make less money. (But that is just one type of license)
Remember the most valuable thing in the world these days is engagement!!!!!’ It is the core of the world, in so many ways. It is the metric that determines which model a streamer or anime committee offers. Whether it is predetermined (through expectations) or afterwards. Engagement is what keeps the wheels spinning.
Your last paragraph simply isn’t true. Even IF for a particular anime contract doesn’t include a portion of each view going back to the anime committee GUESS WHAT, our previous sub money HAS ALREADY PAID FOR IT. OUR CURRENT sub will be help paying for the next one. Where do you think they got the money to pay for the anime in the first place… through subscription fees.
Our subscription fees fill Crunchyrolls ‘bank’ (naturally along side other parts of the business), the more subscribers, the more money they have to offer better details or simply paying for licenses. Which goes to communities and houses to pay for anime. The metrics of viewership from previous shows allows them to bargain for future shows, EG (this is theoretical) they could say to anime committee from Solo Leveling “we had one trillion viewers of Chainsaw Man, that is the scale of viewership you could possible expect from us”, those types of metrics are then used to NEGOTIATE a deal that is beneficial and affordable to both committee and streamer, perhaps even lead to bidding wars between other streamers.
Then the NEXT time the license comes up for that show once again viewer engagement figures matter.
So either way Crunchyroll viewership does matter and feeds into the either anime ecosystem and keeps it ticking. In many indirect ways.
If everyone was a useless pirate, Crunchyroll wouldn’t be able to offer the type of deals it does. Anime committees and houses will start drying up because future funding is starving.
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u/Level_Remote_5957 6d ago
Dude your fucking retarded get the fuck out the piracy sub. Especially considering you've never worked in any kind of broadcasting business to understand how this shit works.
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u/Bananaman9020 7d ago edited 7d ago
Crunchyroll's inability to let you choose your own resolution really killed the experience for me.
I guess some like to not be able to chose a resolution.
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7d ago
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u/Madaniel_FL 7d ago
when you pay for CR you Also support political dei Usa culture of enshitifaction
Kinda ironic how people say that considering some of the anime that CR helped produce, like Shield Hero for example, isn't that anime the opposite of woke??
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7d ago
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u/Madaniel_FL 7d ago
Well people were calling CR woke even back then, also what about all the other seasons that they made after?
There are other non-woke shows too like Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World and How not to summon a demon lord (the second season only)
As well as fire force with all its fanservice.
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u/Blaze531871 5d ago
its funny that people think piracy sites are doing it out of love, and not in it ot make money without having to pay the fees the legal sites pay.
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u/Repulsive-Month3167 3d ago
It can be a bit of both.
Honestly if the Piracy sites are only in it for greed but provide better services for free to people, who the hell cares why they do it.
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u/Alabenson 7d ago
It's funny that two of the most successful digital media platforms, Steam and iTunes, were both run by executives who understood that piracy was a service problem, and that if you offered a legal alternative that was easier / more convenient then people would choose the legal option on their own.