10 Best Anime Streaming Sites To Watch Anime Online – It’s surprising just how influential Japanese culture have grown. Japan is a small island whose main resource is its intellectual property and its fortuity.
It’s simply no wonder that it has a thriving film and animation industry. What attracts people to anime is its art-style, the ingrained Japanese philosophy, and ethos. Anime has always been a great vehicle to express and tell the stories of the Japanese people.
What’s surprising is the number of people who relate to these stories globally. If you’re a non-Japanese otaku, you might find yourself in a country where anime or Japanese content is restricted. You don’t have to give up though.
In this guide, we decided to help people like you by finding the ten of the very best streaming sites. Most of the sites in this guide are free. You won’t have to sign up or pay a subscription fee.
10 Best Anime Websites For Watching & Streaming Anime Online
There are a lot of watching and streaming anime online sites on the internet. A lot of them suffer from outages and shutdowns. With this list, we endeavored to deliver fresh, new streaming sites. You’ll also find some old and famous sites featured in this guide. Without further ado…
1. Watchcartoononline.io
Watchcartoononline.io is one of the most beloved sites to stream and watch anime online from. While the site might be a little hard to navigate because of some poor design choices, a comely orange color theme, a cluttered home screen and an overabundance of overlapping text, online otakus still visit it because of the amount of content it gives them access to.
Whether you’re looking for dubbed anime, subbed anime, anime movies or OVA series, Watchcartoononline has it all. It’s not limited to anime though, after all, its name is Watchcartoononline which means it actually allows you to stream cartoons online too.
Although anime is its chief focal point, it has a wide range of cartoons for you to stream. But you may be thinking that anime are cartoons? Never let a hot-blooded weeb hear you say this unless you want swinging fists and a full-blown argument.
It’s important to note that ad-blockers interfere with some of the sites functionality. Some videos may not stream properly if you have ad-blockers.
WatchCartoononline also comes with a pretty serviceable search function to help you sift through its sizeable collection. You can also contact the admins to inform them of any problems with the site. They also allow donations.
2. Twist moe
Twist.moe is a relative newcomer to the scene of free anime streaming online. It’s an Australia based anime streaming site.
What we like most about Twist.Moe is its very minimalistic approach. You’ll find no pictures, images or videos on its homepage. It’s very light on scripts, which makes the site load extra fast.
Twistmoe Anime Website consists of a list with all the anime the site has to offer as well as a search function. It also has a chat screen which can be used to chat to the admins of the site as well as other users. The chat screen can be hidden.
You can also fully customize the site (which does not consist of much but a home-screen). You can decide whether or not to use English titles (as opposed to Japanese titles). There is also an option to decide whether or not the site tracks your anime viewing.
You can also control how the video player works and looks. Alas, it seems that Twist.Moe won’t be around for long unless users make some donations. If you look what Twist.moe is doing and you have some extra money lying around, please donate to the site.
If not, then we have some alternatives to Twist.moe on this list to watch anime online, all you have to do is read on.
3. AnimeFrenzy
Anime Frenzy is one of our absolute most favored anime sites on this list. We cannot sing its praises enough. It is one of the longest living anime streaming sites on the internet to watch anime online.
It’s known for its calendar-like interface where episodes are updated in real time. You can switch from a dark to light theme at will. It comes with a search bar that allows you to find a desired anime series or movie quickly.
Anime Frenzy subcategorizes its content into seven main headings. You can sort content according to series, movies, genres, ongoing and popular. You can also look at Anime Frenzy’s schedule – when it plans on uploading new series or movies.
If you don’t know what anime to watch, you can use the random tab and let the site decide what anime you should watch.
Anime Frenzy has a thriving community which can be interacted with through its chat functionality as well as Discord.
If you have any qualms or would like to request an anime, you can drop a chat or email to one of the site’s staff.
All in all, we would really to recommend AnimeFrenzy. It’s a well-designed site with plenty of content worth exploring and watching. It’s completely free and isn’t bogged down by heavy advertising.
4. AnimeLove
AnimeLove is another relative newcomer to streaming anime online for free. It doesn’t actually host its content, instead, it provides a one-stop spot for links to content all over the internet.
Since it’s still new-ish, it doesn’t have as much content as other sites, you’ll find in this guide. The homepage consists mainly of large thumbnails of the latest and most popular anime.
It doesn’t have heavy scripting or runs ads. This is a plus. You can navigate the site through its host of categories. You can explore the sites offering of movies, dubbed content, subbed content, series, genres or ongoing shows.
If you’re unsure on which anime to watch, you can pick a random one from the random category. The site also links you to an anime forum where you can rub shoulders with other otakus and fans.
It also has a blog where you can read reviews and information on new and classic anime. The site also comes with a fully functional search bar which can be used to find a particular anime.
AnimeLove comes with a convenient contact page that can be used to contact the various admins and staff.
If you’re looking for a lightweight anime site to watch anime online that also gives you access to live action movies and television, AnimeLove is a great site to find good content.
5. Funanime
Funanime.nl is another site based in the Netherlands. It sports a purple and white color scheme. While the site isn’t as well designed as Anime Frenzy, it’s more than serviceable.
Like a few of the other sites on this list, Funanime is relatively fresh. At the time of writing this article, its Facebook page only had 676 likes. If you happen to have Facebook, please go and like the Facebook page.
Fun Anime gives you access to a variety of both subbed and dubbed anime. The home screen consists of recent releases which can be filtered by whether they are subbed or dubbed.
The left panel shows you a list of ongoing series and below it is another panel where you can view the genres the site has to offer.
The site does have a bit of advertising but it is non-descript. It also has an anime forum where you can interact with other anime fans.
Whether you’re looking for movies or tv series, Funanime is a lightweight anime website to that can put you in touch with the latest movies and series with no problems.
6. AnimePill
If you need a quick anime fix, here’s another site to satiate your sizeable appetite for anime. Anime Pill is another freshman on the scene.
It feels like a more minimalistic AnimeFrenzy. It allows you to switch from a light to dark theme. We like its very spacious and simple design.
The home screen consists of a list of the latest releases complete with information detailing the quality of the anime, when it was uploaded and the run time.
The left panel shows you the most popular airing anime as well as ratings for each. At the bottom of the site, you’ll find links to its Facebook as well as contact information. It also has a list of the top 100 anime.
It’s a refreshing little site with little to no advertising. If the other entries on this list have somehow failed you, this site is worth checking out.
7. AnimeCruzers
Anime Cruzers isn’t a site that specializes in streaming. Instead, you can download your anime from this site. It gives you access to mini MKVs and MP4 anime.
It’s set up like an anime streaming sites. The homepage of this anime streaming website consists of the latest uploaded episodes and it even has a panel on the left where you can view the upload schedule of the site.
You can request anime from the site admins and peruse through the sites extensive database through an index. It also has a search bar that can be used to search for a specific anime you’re looking for.
If you’re unsure on how to download anime from the site, it has a pretty comprehensive help section. The site is light-weight and easy to navigate through.
A great advantage of downloading instead of streaming anime is that if you have an unsteady or unreliable internet connection, you might find it hard to stream. But with downloading, you can simply download an anime and watch it later.
8. 9anime.to
If you’ve been streaming anime for a while now, then you should be familiar with 9anime. It’s one of the most popular anime streaming sites online.
While the majority of best anime sites on this list have a home screen that has a list of the latest episodes, 9anime takes a different approach.
On the home screen, you’ll find a pretty prominent search bar. At the bottom of the screen, you’ll see an alphabetic index which can be used to sort 9anime’s inventory of subbed and dubbed anime by the letters they begin with.
9Anime is frankly one of the most well-designed anime sites. It utilizes a gorgeous purple and white color scheme. It also allows you to switch between a light and dark light theme.
You can follow 9Anime on Twitter and catch notifications of the latest anime uploads and streams. There’s not much we can say about 9Anime that hasn’t been said already.
It’s a well-organized anime website with a welcoming interface. Ranked 8th in our list of best anime streaming sites.
9. Anime Vibe
Anime Vibe is another newcomer. The site has chat functionality which allows you to chat with your fellow anime lovers.
While the website is pretty light and it gives you access to a world of both subbed and dubbed anime, the site is poorly designed. It used some very bad choices in font and control placement.
However, if you don’t like the way the original site looks, you can switch to the lite version which consists of nothing more but a search bar.
If you have no other alternatives and want to try out a new and growing site, then give Anime Vibe a try. If you like it, please donate.
10. AnimeTake
Another well-organized website worth mentioning is AnimeTake. It has enough details without being overly cluttered. All the controls of the site are well placed.
It sports a black and yellow bumble bee color scheme. The homepage contains a list of the latest episodes and uploads. The left panel shows you ongoing anime. The site has very little advertising and loads quickly.
Don’t let its position on this list fool you. It’s a great anime streaming website that’s worth checking out.
Final Word
While we understand that not everyone can afford to pay to stream, we would like to implore you to pay for streaming services when you can. It’s important to support content creators so they can keep providing you with the content you love. We all have to eat. Either way, we hope you’ve enjoyed reading this article. If you have any questions or would like to make your own recommendations, please leave a comment below.