- Ah, cartoons, classic pastime.
Now we recently produced a video talking
about how difficult it was
to sort and grade TV streaming services.
And taking a closer look at the streaming landscape,
we're going to focus our efforts
a little more on genres and content.
It was kind of funny drilling down
and looking at a category like animation,
doesn't really make things any easier.
Before we even get to the channel intro bumper,
let's throw the question out there.
What streaming service has the best animated show catalog?
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Animation, almost as broad a category as television,
anything hand drawn or computer animated,
and within that idea,
just about any genre of content can be produced,
fantasy, sci-fi, adventure, action, drama,
comedy, horror, shows for kids, shows for grownups,
shows for the whole family.
Just because it's animated doesn't mean it can't be made
with the same specificity as live action TV.
And this is where we run into a small issue
hosting a conversation like this,
everyone will have their own preferences
for style of animation, and genre,
and the maturity of the content.
Immediately, I think a number of folks in our audience
will likely have some familiarity with anime
and probably interpreted the title of this video
with a focus on anime.
So let's start there.
The simplest definition,
anime is a style of animation that originates from Japan,
but stylistically it's origins focus more
on detail and cinematic camera work
than Western animation of the same era.
I'm grossly oversimplifying
and there are numerous distinctive styles of anime,
but I think we can all conjure in our brains
an idea of what an anime character might look like.
The undisputed king of anime online is Crunchyroll.
Started in 2006,
the site originally allowed users to upload content
like their own fan dubs,
which of course caused problems with copyright.
Later, the service moved
to more traditional licensing and partnering,
eventually absorbing Funimation.
Funimation was known for dubbing and distributing anime
for western audiences.
And then in 2020, Sony bought Crunchyroll
from WarnerMedia group for $1.5 billion,
Boasting a catalog of over 1,000 anime shows,
the service also houses Asian dramas,
and a sub-brand collects manga,
license content, original series,
this is the premier service for folks looking
at the broadest collection of anime.
But paying for Crunchyroll directly
might not be the best way to get it.
Services like VRV will bundle Crunchyroll with Mondo
and their own originals for a $1.50 more a month,
than paying for Crunchyroll directly.
I have Crunchyroll,
I have no idea if the VRV stuff is any good,
so if you watch VRV originals, drop us a comment down below.
Now Crunchyroll isn't the only place to catch anime.
Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Amazon,
they all have their own smaller collections of anime,
but there's no one service as comprehensive as Crunchyroll.
Outside of anime,
there's a rich tradition of animation for adults.
It's easy to forget that even when goofy or silly,
a lot of classic animation had to focus on older audiences.
The simplistic idea of cartoons are for kids
has kind of never really been true.
It's frustratingly difficult
to search for content like animation.
Netflix, for example sorts anime shows as a separate genre,
but that puts Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh right next
to Resident Evil and Attack on Titan.
But what if I'm looking for more shows like F is for Family.
I grew up watching series like The Wonder Years,
and F is for Family at once
satirizes and celebrates classic family TV.
It's a grown-up focus show that happens to be animated.
It just is another brief tangent,
it's still my biggest issue with streaming.
The search and organization tools are often terrible
at helping people hone in on their favorite media
and then aiding them in discovering new content,
but I digress.
If you get savvy with your search,
you can find a handful of other
sort of similar animated titles.
And Netflix has some great animated series
for grownups like BoJack Horseman.
I personally enjoyed Inside Job and Disenchantment,
and some of the Love Death and Robot shorts
were pretty good,
and then we have some misses
like Paradise PD and Chicago Party Aunt.
They'll often list shows like these under adult animation,
which kind of means something different,
if you search for that term directly on the Google.
I guess it works for Hulu and Netflix,
but I can't show you those search results here.
HBO Max quotes a similar catalog of animation,
but I like their layout better for collections.
Those broad categories that help you
find more of what the service has to offer
for each of those umbrella terms.
You'd still run into issues with anime and global
where kids' properties are served
alongside more grown-up or mature fair,
but this is much better laid out
for digging through animation.
Now, Hulu and Amazon are a little trickier
to pin down for a different reason.
They're becoming more like modular platforms
for bundling services than they are the destinations
for a specific catalog of content.
We have Amazon Prime,
and we watch a lot of kids shows through Prime,
but it's because we also pay additionally
for things like PBS Kids.
Hulu is a collection of
traditional broadcasting cable shows,
and increasingly Hulu is getting bundled
with other services like ESPN and Disney Plus.
So if you have cable or a service like YouTube TV,
you can often replicate what Hulu might have to offer.
Amazon and Hulu aren't playing the same game
as Netflix or HBO.
But they can still be really handy
for simplifying some cord cutting.
And that brings us to Disney Plus,
where we're gonna close out this list.
It should come as no surprise that Disney Plus has
the most stable and one of the best collections
of kid-friendly animation of any streaming service.
Disney owns a ton of popular IP like Star Wars and Marvel.
I think it's a little annoying
how hard it is to separate shows from films,
if you're going through the Disney Plus phone app.
I mean you kind of have to sort by property first,
and then scan their lists to find the shows.
But from little kids watching the Mickey Mouse show
to older kids discovering X-Men,
all the way up to nerds like me watching the Bad Batch,
Disney's catalog is formidable.
And it's not likely to get disrupted by licensing issues,
'cause Disney kind of owns everything.
Plus it's really easy to set limits,
so I can give my daughter
just a little more autonomy in choosing
what she might want to watch.
And Netflix is actually in a similar position
where setting up a kid's profile,
we're a little less concerned
about what our daughter might discover as she pokes
through those kid modes and kids streaming apps.
Definitely less concerned there
than if we let her stream a couple of videos on YouTube.
Wrapping this up, breaking it down a little,
there's no one winner for animated shows,
but there are good ways to collect a couple services
to nail exactly what you wanna watch.
My personal picks, I do Crunchyroll for anime,
HBO Max for grown-up animation
and Disney Plus for my daughter.
Totally my personal preferences.
That's kind of how I'd rank our general home viewership.
But of course we need to hear from you.
What collection of streaming services would you choose
for your household?
And are there ad-supported platforms
that you'd pick over the premium services?
Got to drop us the tastiest of hot takes down below.
As always, thanks so much for watching,
for sharing these videos,
and subscribing to the channel.
For Reviews.org, I'm Juan Carlos Bagnell,
AKA SomeGadgetGuy,
and I will catch you all on the next video.