As streaming prices and content may change depending on the country/region, the following information was correct at the time of publication for U.S. viewers only, unless specified otherwise.

It should come as no surprise that any dedicated anime fan will be best served by watching the medium via an anime-specific streaming service. Regardless of whether people enjoy binge-watching shows on the weekends, keeping up with the latest titles as they air week by week or revisiting iconic classics, it's hard to go wrong when signing up for the likes of Crunchyroll, HIDIVE or RetroCrush for one's anime fix.

However, things get a lot more nebulous when taking into account major non-anime-specific streaming platforms like Disney+, Hulu, Max (formerly HBO Max), Amazon's Prime Video and Netflix. All these places do carry anime, but as their catalogs don't have a particular focus on the medium, viewers who are there primarily to stream anime need to weigh up the pros and cons of cost, content and other variables to determine if any of the services are actually worth it.

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Disney+ and Max Aren't Worth the Money for Their Tiny Anime Collections

Dark Twins face off in Trigger's Star Wars: Visions episode, "The Twins"

The pricing between major streaming platforms tends to be fairly even, with each attempting to remain competitive while still yielding profits. Even so, some are pricier than others, and the costs do add up for subscribers who use such services long-term. Out of Disney+, Hulu, Max, Prime Video and Netflix, the last currently offers the least expensive ad-supported service for the general public at $6.99. However, in the case of Hulu, eligible students can get the service with ads for $1.99/month -- an offer to which none of the other streaming services come close. Meanwhile, for a completely ad-free experience, whether first or third-party-based, Netflix once again wins out with its $9.99/month Basic plan (even if its highest tier, Premium, is also on par with Max's new Ultimate tier as the most expensive of all the services).

Subscriptions to Disney+ and Max are on the pricier side; Disney+ offers its Basic ad-included package and Premium ad-free experience for $7.99 and $10.99 per month respectively, while for Max, the price for the same is $9.99 and a somewhat eye-watering $15.99. Higher cost aside though, there's a major reason why anime fans shouldn't get either Disney+ or Max, and that's the anime itself. Although the number of titles available via Hulu, Netflix and Prime Video are easily in the hundreds, the anime available to stream on Disney+ and Max is limited, to say the least.

In fact, the single anime that America-based viewers will find on Disney+ is Star Wars: Visions, while even viewers outside the U.S. get access to around just 10 or so, most of which can be found on Hulu in the U.S. instead. Max's anime collection is only slightly bigger at roughly 20 titles, the vast majority of these being Studio Ghibli films such as Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle and My Neighbor Totoro -- certainly not worth the monthly fee on their own when they can be rented or bought digitally elsewhere, such as on Vudu and Google Play.

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Hulu and Prime Video Have Few Anime Exclusives (And the Latter, Bad Searchability)

Ichigo holding his sword vertically over his face in Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War

At first glance, Prime Video gives anime fans the best bang for their buck with the apparent number of titles on offer. However, this is only on paper. In reality, while searching for anime yields about 1,000 pages of results, this number drastically lowers to approximately 120 titles that can be streamed for free with Prime Video membership (including those with first-party ads under the Amazon Freevee brand). Everything else must be bought separately -- meaning that if, for example, someone purchases a Prime Video subscription in the hopes of watching Season 1 of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, they'll still need to pay either $1.99 to purchase each episode or $24.99 to buy the full season.

Anime fans looking to stream on Hulu face better by-the-numbers prospects since the streaming service currently hosts somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 titles. However, neither it nor Prime Video contains much in the way of exclusive anime content. For instance, the former has Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War and Tokyo Revengers Season 2, and the latter has Banana Fish and Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku, but nearly everything else can be streamed on the likes of Crunchyroll. For anyone looking to subscribe purely for anime content, this makes both Prime Video and Hulu largely redundant.

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Monthly Cost

Approx. Number of Anime

Free Trial

Anime Exclusives

Disney+

$7.99-$10.99

0 in U.S., 10 outside U.S.

No

All

Max

$9.99-$19.99

20

No

All

Hulu

$7.99-$14.99

300

Yes

Few

Prime Video

$8.99

120

Yes

Few

Netflix

$6.99-$19.99

200

No

Some

In addition, searching for anime on Prime Video is a surefire way to waste time. The site's UI has a notorious reputation in general, but anime in particular seems to get the short end of the stick here, and it's typically quicker to do a Google search to get the Prime Video link to a particular title than it is to use Amazon's actual search engine. Downloading the app makes things a little easier, but viewers must still wade through both free-with-Prime and Store titles, as well as both ad-free and ad-supported ones, unless they check off some specific menu options. The app itself also tends to be slow and laggy, to say nothing of its cumbersome layout, as if the directive was "Make it like Netflix, but worse."

For Anime Fans, Netflix Is the Streaming Service That Provides the Best Value for Its Cost

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners key art featuring Lucy and David in action poses.

Hulu certainly beats the competition when it comes to the number of non-exclusive anime, and the streaming platform will do in a pinch for fans who don't already have access to an anime-specific service like Crunchyroll. Otherwise, Netflix is easily the best option for anime viewers. Not only does it offer the cheapest ad-supported as well as ad-free experience (albeit with no free trial), but its roughly 200 anime titles -- many of which are exclusive to the platform or Netflix originals, such as Violet Evergarden, Komi Can't Communicate, Great Pretender, Devilman Crybaby, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners -- offer solid value for the cost.