Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Amazon Launches Anime Channel for $5 Per Month, Its First Branded Subscription Channel (variety.com)

Posted by msmash on from the anime-fans,-rejoice dept.

Todd Spangler, writing for Variety: Amazon is rolling out its first branded on-demand subscription service for Amazon Channels: Anime Strike, offering more than 1,000 series episodes and movies ranging from classic titles to current shows broadcast on Japanese TV. The Anime Strike channel is available to U.S. Amazon Prime members for $4.99 per month after a seven-day free trial, the newest addition to the lineup of around 100 services now available in Amazon Channels. Amazon has struck exclusive U.S. streaming deals for several series on Anime Strike, including "Scum's Wish," "Onihei," "The Great Passage," "Vivid Strike!," "Crayon-Shin Chan Gaiden: Alien vs. Shinnosuke," and "Chi's Sweet Adventure."

12 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. The list sucks by Khyber · · Score: 4, Informative

    Most of it is moe, slice of life, and fanservice garbage.

    Stick with Crunchyroll or just go watch the shit for free on animefreak.tv as the Amazon list is a valueless waste of time.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    1. Re:The list sucks by djinn6 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They did license a bunch of other anime with non-exclusive contracts, like Rurouni Kenshin and Mushi-shi. Their library is obviously much smaller than Crunchyroll's since they just started, but Amazon has a lot of money and things might change after a few seasons.

    2. Re:The list sucks by Falos · · Score: 2

      >Your taste a shit.
      Your taste a shit.

      Now let's do it again but with sports. I'll pretend to like one, for the sake of educating.

    3. Re:The list sucks by djinn6 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Just off the top of my head: LOGH, Death Note, Psycho-Pass, Nausicca, One Punch Man, Lelouch of the Rebellion and Attack on Titan.

      It's nobody else's fault you only watch moeshit.

  2. Seems kind of odd. by sims+2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Here I thought Prime was their premium offering.
    Now they are adding all these extra frills for just a few dollars more. How long until they start shrinking their prime catalog to make the other services look better?

    I'm pretty sure they already did it once when they added stars by making sure there was no overlap in their catalog.

    Amazon music unlimited:
    Great now I can pay for nearly a whole other prime subscription just for the music that's not on prime and still have less selection than spotify.

    Amazon anime:
    Great! now all the anime will vanish from amazon prime.
    Have to go back to netflix for that then.

    I wonder if amazon will ever update their app so audio stays in sync past the first 10 minutes.

    --
    Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    1. Re:Seems kind of odd. by Qzukk · · Score: 3, Informative

      Maybe they realized that the yearly subscription thing for Prime was not very popular with consumers

      You have to be a Prime subscriber to subscribe to this, so you're paying monthly on top of the annual fee.

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
  3. Re:Anime? Seriously? by shaitand · · Score: 2

    Which is the next issue I have with this. I pay for Amazon's content already. I don't have an issue with some third party content costing a premium but I already pay for access to any of the actual Amazon content.

  4. The More You Know by CrashNBrn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Learn something new every day. Slashdot has an anime icon...

  5. What a Rip-Off by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 2

    So, you fork over good money for Prime, only to have to fork over even more for their "channels" like this? Fuck Amazon and fuck Prime. They should either include this for free with Prime or just have everything sold piecemeal like they do with subscriptions on iTunes and iTunes doesn't cost $100/yr. As far as price/value goes, Netflix has Amazon Prime beat and they have plenty of Anime. In fact, Netflix has been putting out their own Anime for a while now, some of it like the Seven Deadly Sins is actually quite good

  6. Re:wat by blackomegax · · Score: 2

    None of those are good. Attack on titan is just a silly ripoff of evangalion, SAO is just another MMO world trope. GITS and Cowboy Bebop are the only truly good anime's to ever exist.

  7. Re:but can you watch it on an arbitrary device by desdinova+216 · · Score: 2

    I've been using it for a number of years on a roku

  8. Re: Anime? Seriously? by shaitand · · Score: 2

    My amazon prime sub should be able to fund plenty of stuff I don't want to watch just like yours should fund stuff I want to watch but you aren't interested in.

    They are two separate issues. As a prime subscriber I don't want to see Amazon going down the path of bait and switch up-selling and charging extra for content instead of including it with prime. That said, if they are going to do it anyway I'm critical of their choice. You are right, I'd be more upset if it were good content rather than just anime but they aren't exactly producing premium content like sci-fi fantasy, marvel/dc, etc and I wouldn't want this to set a precedent leading to them wanting me to pay them yet more.

    I have praise and complaints about Amazon. They actually have a number of shows that are surprisingly good. They've also unfortunately axed great shows. My biggest gripe with their content is the previews are terrible and give you absolutely no idea what a show is about or whether it is any good. They seem to just be random collections of 3 or 4 second bits of the show that give no context or insight.