Every year, anime is becoming more and more popular worldwide. There are a lot of paid streaming services you can use to watch loads of anime, but there are also lots of free services available that you can use to watch anime. Here we are about to take a look at some of the best free anime streaming sites in 2021. Just keep in mind that some of these services may not be available in every country, and that availabilities of certain shows is often restricted to certain regions.
Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll is probably one of the best known anime streaming sites. This popular site has thousands of episodes of anime shows to watch. Compared to other sites, Crunchyroll has one of the largest catalogues of series available to watch. With a free account, you can watch episodes one week after release, or you can subscribe to Crunchyroll Premium to be able to watch episodes when they release. The site is ad-supported using frequent midrolls, although with a subscription you do not see any ads. Crunchyroll allows all users, regardless of their subscription status to watch series in up to 1080p if supported by that series. In addition to anime, Crunchyroll also has a collection of both Asian drama series as well as manga that you can enjoy.
AnimeLab
AnimeLab is a anime streaming service owned and operated by Madman in Australia and New Zealand. The service offers many series to view free of charge with ads, and also has a subscription to watch ad free. AnimeLab's library is made up by series in Madman's catalogue as well as many series from Funimation. With a free account, you are limited to only watching videos in up to 480p, and up to 1080p with a subscription, although as the licenses for many of these shows are held by Funimation, many of these shows can also be watched on Funimation in 1080p for free. While older series allow you to choose to watch them either subbed or dubbed, newer shows require a subscription to watch dubbed. Like Crunchyroll, AnimeLab allows free users to watch episodes one week after release on the platform. AnimeLab also has anime movies available to watch, as well as some live action anime adaptations, although these also require a subscription. If you live in Australia or New Zealand and can't find a series on a more popular platform like Crunchyroll, you might want to check out AnimeLab to see if they have it.
anime-planet
Anime-planet is an anime and manga fan site that has partnered with content providers such as Crunchyroll to provide episodes of popular anime free to watch on their site. The site features the same advertisements as if you watched on the respective platforms of the content providers, and as it uses the same libraries of these sites, you can also just watch these series on the platforms they come from. You may be wondering why you would want to watch these videos on anime-planet instead of their respective platforms, but as anime-planet gathers videos from different sites, this means that you can just watch videos here instead of having to go between the sites it has partnered with.
Funimation
Funimation has been in the anime distribution business for a long time, originally localising anime releases for a primarily American audience, and has since branched out into offering online streaming. Funimation has a large library of shows, although it appears much smaller than Crunchyroll. Funimation is ad-supported with a free account, but also offers a paid subscription. Free accounts, in addition to having ads also are not able to watch newly released videos. As of the time of writing, some series such as 'Cells at Work! CODE BLACK' may appear to not allow free accounts to watch the first episode, but this is because it defaults to the dub, which is currently not available to free accounts. To be able to watch episodes like these, you will have to go into the video then change the language to English. Funimation has a lot of exclusive series available, so if a series you want to watch isn't available on other platforms, you might want to check out Funimation.
TubiTV
TubiTV is a relatively new streaming site that services the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand. The site is home to content licensed from content partners. The site has a large collection of film and TV content, including an anime category. While you won't find any hugely popular or new series from big studios, mainly only having older anime or cheap-to-license anime, it does have a lot of series that are hard to find on other sites, so TubiTV may be a good place to find some series that you otherwise would never have had the chance to watch. TubiTV doesn't release new episodes weekly through simulcasts, so don't look expecting to find the latest episodes of a show. A good thing about Tubi is that the site is completely free, with no paid subscriptions, meaning as soon as a series goes live, you can watch it without needing a subscription. One downside though, is that as there is no subscription, there is no way to get rid of ads if you are willing to pay.
iQIYI
iQIYI may be a weird choice for this list since it a Chinese streaming service, but they now also have a streaming service 'iq.com' aimed at an international audience. If I were to have a guess, I would probably say that the site is trying to compete with other sites such as Rakuten's Viki service given that it primarily focuses on Asian drama, and has user-generated subtitles in almost every conceivable language. The site does have an anime section, but as far as I can tell, it seems to all be Chinese animated series. I am however putting it on this list, as although many people likely wouldn't consider this anime, it does have a lot of shows in the general anime-esque art style. With a free account, you can watch episodes in up to 720p, and with a VIP account you can watch in up to 1080p. Some series are also only available to VIPs, as well as new episodes.
Domestic TV Broadcasters
This one is a little open ended, but many free-to-air TV station operators offer free streaming services that you can use to catch up on shows that have recently aired and that you may have missed. The catalogues on these sites are constantly changing, and you often only have a couple weeks to watch an episode, meaning you often won't get to binge a whole season at once. Some great examples of free streaming services provided by broadcasters are BBC iPlayer in the UK (although you will need a TV license) and ABC iView in Australia. Many other large broadcasters will also have their own, so if there is a large broadcaster in your area, you can do a quick web search to see if they have their own. Many of these sites do have a lot of interstitial or midroll advertisements, although a good thing about BBC iPlayer and ABC iView is that they feature no ads as they are paid for by the government either through TV licenses or taxes.
YouTube
YouTube may seem like an unusual place to go looking for free licensed anime, but there is actually quite a bit if you know where to look. At one point about a decade ago, Funimation used to upload anime episodes on their YouTube channel, although there are only in 360p or 480p. Funimation no longer uploads full episodes to YouTube, but as of recent, more and more studios and companies have. Recently a lot of animation studios have decided to start releasing content on YouTube in order to open up a new potentially profitable revenue stream. A few examples of these channels include 'Tezuka Production Offical', 'AnimeLog', and ' GundamInfo'. Based on the recent trend towards media releasing content for free on YouTube, there will probably be a lot more anime series legally available for free on YouTube in the coming years.
Today we have covered eight great places to look for free anime streaming online. For someone on a budget, or for those that don't mind having to watch ads, these sites are great places to get great quality free entertainment.
