Anime Comment: Is Hulu's Anime Section Worth Your Money?

As an anime aficionado, perhaps your default anime streaming service is Crunchyroll. But you may also have a Netflix account for movies and series.

Most people don't bother to subscribe to Hulu when they got Netflix/Crunchyroll accounts, but with the recent One Punch Man buzz and its exclusive Hulu streaming, people are turning their heads to this internet TV service. But, is Hulu worth its price? And if so, how much anime can we get from it?

In our case, we initially subscribed to Hulu ONLY to watch South Park. Yeah, we're big time fans of Trey Parker and Matt Stone. After burning into 5 seasons in a couple of days, I gave myself a break and explored Hulu's movie section.

I was pleasantly surprised that Hulu has the rights to stream movies from the Criterion Collection. For those of you uncultured swine who don't know what this Collection is, the Criterion Collection is an American video-distribution company which specializes in licensing "important classic and contemporary films." Movies such as Citizen Kane, Metropolis, Seven Samurai, Lady Snowblood , 8 1/2, Fanny and Alexander, the Three Colors trilogy, and many, many more, can be watched in Hulu. This is MASSIVE culture being delivered in your face, every day, for only ~$8 a month worth of Hulu Plus subscription.

After having a bigtime movie orgasm, I immediately checked Hulu's Anime section. What ensued was another big body twitching by seeing most of my favorite animes included in their archive: Cowboy Bebop, Ergo Proxy, Ghost in the Shell, Hellsing, Utena, Dragon Ball, Slayers, Elfen Lied, Lain, Death Note, among others. They also have series appealing to younger generations, such as One Piece, Bleach, Naruto, Attack on Titan, and Sword Art Online.

Initially Hulu only had finished series in their archives, but they soon started the simulcast of God Eater, Psycho Pass 2, Prison School, and the most famous right now, One Punch Man. As of now there exist about 20 animes simulcasted, including Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans, Garo, Durarara 2, One Piece, and Divine Gate.

Hulu's anime section includes all of Funimation titles, which are A LOT, and a few of other companies such as Sunrise, Daisuki.net, and more.

I don't mean to be a publicist for the company or anything, but I have to say that Hulu has put big effort into building a strong anime section that caters to the community of both old school peeps like us and also teens. $8 dlls a month to get excellent new movie releases, old classics, and awesome anime, plus South Park and Comedy Central, are a plus. So we do recommend to get Hulu Plus, for the anime, and everything else inside of it!!