I really hope HiDive doesn't go away, the industry need competition. If Hidive is pulling back for now, they need to be 10x more aggressive but in the selection process. Don't just grab everything but grab content that are both hidden gems but also content that people would instantly sub for.
I find highdive does have just as many "must watch shows". Both have one or two a season. What they need is more "general audience lowest common denominator garbage."
I hope they do. Their subs are unreliable and their dubs are atrocious. It’s like a death sentence for a shows dub now if HiDive gets it. I know their needs to be competition but when the competition is making the experience worse then pirating it then it should fold.
Crashes less than crunchy roll for me on multiple devices. Cruncyroll also seems to have more bugs that cause either audio desync of stuttering. Especially if you use the pause or rewind while casting. Crunchyroll's connection also seems to be less stable and often I'm not able to even load a big name show when it releases. Both garbage tier video players, but Cruncyroll is in a league of its own on that front.
The worst thing to happen to the Anime industry is SONY buying themselves a monopoly, and then turning their prudish puritanical editors and translators loose on it. The censorship is out of control, and the availability of uncensored content even on home video is dwindling.
American Companies have been trying for years to restrict Japanese Media like Anime, Manga & Light Novel, as it's heavily affecting their American Animation & Comic Market sales, primarily because Japanese Anime, Manga & Light Novel aren't censored enough by American standards. So, probably they decided to create a Monopoly which they would use to first restrict and then kill the whole Sub & Dub market, as far as Anime market is concerned.
@@Sup_Dof course Sony is ultimately a Japanese conglomerate with American subsidiaries, so they may not be trying to kill Japanese entertainment (financially counter productive) so much as just being incompetent, puritanical, and woke in their American branch.
I agree. I personally mostly watch dubs and the current offerings after the merger have been most disappointing. I've also noticed the trend of moving towards more family friendly content which is fine, but not at the expense of the adult viewers. That's one of the biggest reasons I got so into anime, it was full of interesting stories and art that someone older than 12 could appreciate. For the most part American TV sucks, I drink bleach before I watch SpongeBob, anime saves my sanity somedays.
But at the same time no us regulator would decline atnt from selling chrunchyroll to sony if it meant atnt might default and fail to pay their debt interests. In the end it wasn't enough and they spined of warner media with discovery into a seperate public company called warner bros discovery, which i believe still ended in a loss for atnt since they baught warner origionally for like $80+ billion. They didnt want to spin of warner at a loss and tried alternatives like selling crunchyroll. Sony paid $1.2 billion. What other company would pay that much to compete against against a japanese company like sony who also owns aniplex under sony music japan.
Originally Hidive was just USA only and then tried to expanding globally, then AMC goes and buys Sentai/Hidive in 2022 and then AMC starts cutting costs due their own cord cutting issues. My guess is that AMC told them they need to do budget cuts and they decided to sacrifice their efforts on international expansion. This results in skipping on international subs/dubs, which perhaps they had originally intended to do and now they're completely stopping serving non English areas.
Which Begs the question, do you think Sentai Filmworks the dubbing company is gonna go bankrupt along with HiDive, or Sentai being sold to another company?
if that were the case they would announce that they will not be doing dubs/subs other than english .. but instead they are cutting us off regardless of language .. i watch stuff with jap dub and english or german subs ..
@@itsblitz4437 I personally expect that AMC may plan to try a regionally integrated approach outside the Anglosphere (ie a single service offering AMC+, Acorn, Shudder, HiDive, etc content). It's far cheaper and easier to have subs and dubs across their entire corporate catalogue for a language region handled in one place that also handles administrating the back end infrastructure for distribution than for each of their services to expand their markets independently.
Yeah, I definitely don't want to see HiDive fail. But I think you're right - they aren't providing the service people want. I think their niche will have to be along the lines of taking the titles Crunchyroll won't touch, such as Redo of Healer, and streaming them uncensored. I can imagine those regions who are losing HiDive don't view it as a loss, though.
Well… the ex subscribers outside the 5 countries being 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇬🇧🇮🇪🇦🇺 was only 2% soooo 98% of subscriptions is made up from them 5 countries alone hence why they chose to only support them 5. Sad really. Also, non English countries never really received subtitles from their own languages either. Soooo it’s not really the best experience for them for the fact all hidive provided was mostly English and sometimes would do other languages from time to time which is what caused outrage from other countries.
The real problem is exclusive licensing. If both streaming services could license the same content then it would come down to which platform offers the features you want. Exclusivity doesn't serve the customer at all.
@@4getmenot182 And so would hidive and who know, maybe another service would exist too that could afford to buy in. In an exclusivity marketplace the service with the biggest bank can afford to outbid the other services for the most popular content and slowly push their competitors out of business. With each licensing round the bigger service gets more of the content and the less funded service is unable to buy in and are left to putting all their eggs in one basket and hoping that the show they bet on will be popular enough to earn subs. With a market where no content is exclusively licensed any service can buy in. Sure Crunchyroll might opt to license everything but Hidive might be able to license everything too. Or maybe another service decides to focus on uncensored horror anime and tailors their content to that. Or a service that wants to focus on Spanish language markets can exist. Say Hidive licesnes all the same shows and you find you prefer HiDive because they work harder to make sure their subs are closer to the original language meaning. Or maybe you use their service cause the shows are always posted with the subtitles available (I know that's a hot topic at Crunchyroll every week). Or you like their layout and playback features. Maybe Crunchyroll wouldn't still have a "new" design that still has pages from the old site design that sometimes feel broken. Not sure what I'm talking about, go to the crunchyroll release calendar page and see. Exclusivity doesn't serve the customer. It only serves the streaming services. Having choice as a consumer is always better. Multiple players in the market competing with each other makes for better services. You could argue that exclusivity doesn't serve the content owners either because having multiple services offering your content might get you better streaming returns. I'm sure on the big Shonen animes it wouldn't move the needle but maybe some of the smaller niche animes would see better returns from other services that might highlight their shows better.
@@4getmenot182 how is that a bad thing? For music for example, I like having the choice of being able to stream the same song from Apple Music, TH-cam Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, etc. This is true competition, not the whatever exclusivity bs that is happening with the video streaming industry.
Exclusivity is definitely required to ensure that a licensee releases the content on Blu-ray or digital sale (when the licensor requires it). Not to mention, exclusivity also encourages the licensee to produce a dub to draw more interest to the content. That’s why Netflix and Crunchyroll dub a lot of their content (to attract audiences not interested in subtitles). Not every licensor is willing to pay to dub their content.
Generally I'm all about stopping monopolies. However with each streaming service hoarding whatever shows they can get their hands on it forces people to go watch what they want on pirate sites because paying for a bunch of different streaming subscriptions isn't feasible. People started to cut the cord with cable for more choice but streaming services are following the cable model which limits choice. I already pay for Crunchyroll but they don't have Eminence in Shadow. Do I really need to pay another site just to watch that 1 anime? While I could afford another streaming service I simply refuse to. My wallet isn't infinite and I wont allow myself to be fleeced just to watch a show I like. So to me I would rather see all anime come through Crunchyroll. At least until they start overcharging. I don't know what the solution is but I hope another model comes forward soon.
“Until they start overcharging” is the exact reason you should NEVER want monopoly. You will 100% be paying MORE for just crunchy that you’d be for paying for both right now once they have a monopoly and you’d have to be an absolute brain dead idiot to not know that fact.
This is a huge win for Europeans because now licenses like eminence in the shadow, urusei yatsura and oshi no ko can be seen legally in another platform that is actually available in the region. The issue with the subs is true. It was really frustrating and it seemed like they only cared about English viewers and they didn't try to fix the issues that Spanish people had. Just recently Netflix started picking the licences for the first time which is huge because I can finally watch that anime in my native language. Hopefully this means that those licences are more widely available and get the recognition they deserve.
@@fraktaalimuoto Except that many of the licenses HiDive had that were not available in Europe were bought by I think a Southern European company. I am not entirely sure HiDive leaving will help us in any way. It is only a win when CR or Netflix take the licenses over. If not, we will just not get them at all.
HiDive is the main responsible of its own decline, yes Crunchyroll is a juggernaut, but it could have found its own niche inside the anime community, instead of just being another platform that have what Crunchyroll doesn't, and not being very good at being a platform. And Oshi no Ko's success could have been the perfect opportunity to pull their stuff together and being better.
Hidive has awful UI. The only reason I keep my sub to them is for the maybe 1 decent series per season but it gets harder and harder to justify paying for something that barely works with mediocre content
Honestly, I think it would be interesting to have Amazon / Prime Video to acquire HiDive. Like most shows that are or were on Hidive are on Amazon Prime Video.
@@phantomthiefzxin what world would that ever be a reason they wouldn’t want it. That would literally make them more money whether they keep it after or not.
@mangakey I feel Crunchyroll wouldn't be the best idea, especially what's happening behind the scenes with the english voice actors. I seriously think Crunchyroll is alienating the English voice actors. Like, where the hell did the English voice actors that were affiliated with Crunchyroll before the merger happen go, not to mention the Funimation English voice actors. Like aside from reprising voice role, they've hardly been giving any new voice role, like I have a whole list of English voice actors that really haven't been given new roles or haven't heard of since the merger happen. Like if Crunchyroll somehow actually aquire Hidive, they would probably alienate the English voice actors that work on the Sentai Filmwork properties. If someone like Amazon/Prime Video did acquire HiDive, those English voice actors probably won't get shafted that Crunchyroll has been doing.
HiDive has a lot of great content you cant get elsewhere. But their UI is f-ing terrible. It's clunky and hard to navigate. It's the biggest reason I will watch on other service (when it's an option) over HiDive, because I hate the interface. I will be sad if they leave, but as long as you can still find it, then it wont be the end of the world.
I'm form Poland and if I will get to see Oshi No Ko and Eminence in the Shadow legally I will be happy. Hi Dive was never avaiable here so I had to go high seas to watch Oshi No Ko, I don't want to do that when season 2 comes out
i'm sad a ton of people haven't watched "summertime rendering" because it was on disney, its such a good anime but almost nobody watched it. (literally couldn't watch it legally outside japan for its entire runtime)
We need to convince the studios to provide direct access to the consumers instead of doing this licensing bs…… I remember when you couldn’t legally get any anime except for some stuff on toonami and the 4kids dubs. I miss the old fan subs that were made in good faith (instead of some of the sus subs that have been produced now) I miss the raw original unfiltered experience. I’m a simple man I want my anime at the same time or shortly after Japan gets it and I want subs that are written to be understood the way a native speaker would understand them. Though at this point I just want to get it direct from the studio with no changes I don’t need subs so I could stop contributing to those companies but to do that I’d have to wait for the blue ray so I have to keep my subscriptions. We can’t let the middleman have any profit or they will have the ability to influence what is made. Crunchyroll has already butchered several shows because of their censorship or unnecessary changes to subs.
I loved that Disney got it. Because ignorance of people saying bleach was getting censored because of Disney. Lol I'm like ok whatever. But Crunchyroll is the censor King
i know that monopolization is never the best solution but having no option to watch shows like Oshi no ko other than fan translations because the company that bought the license don't even work on your region is 10 times worst in my opinion (btw I'm talking about one of the biggest region in number of viewers), so while this might sound like bad news for NA fans, I would be glad if HiDive would actually leave the anime scene and leave the licenses to companies that can actually deliver them...
Can’t forget to state that all this streaming stuff is expensive. If multiple companies are streaming different shows that ppl want to watch at the same time, someone isn’t going to get money until there’s enough content someone wants to watch to guarantee they get their money’s worth out of that month.
Sony already has too much power. I’ll gladly give $50 a year for hidive no matter how poor the service is. Eminence in Shadow alone is worth that for me.
Here in Scandinavia we're used to English subtitles, but my app was stuck on Spanish subs as default even though I set English as preferred. Had to change subs for every episode. And when using Chromecast the stream was buffering for 20 seconds every 5 minutes. I still donated money to Hidive every month though.
HiDive needs to update it's player/system and up the dubs. If the other voice actors are busy with other projects, then find other voice actors. I don't think it's illegal to hire outside a select group.
I joined HiDive because I enjoy their Anime selection. I am not an expert anime or manga fan but HiDive does have a decent collection. Oshi No Ko, Otaku Elf, Dark Gathering, The Dangers in My Heart, Insomniacs After School, are just a few. I prefer English dubs, but if it is not available, it won't stop me. Thank you sir for this you tube video.
It really is tough. I don't agree with a monopoly but also it's hard to justify subbing to a site for one or two series. I am subbed to both CR and Hi-Dive but that's because I like a good number of HD series.
I live in the USA. I hope HiDive would exist in the future because I don’t want to subscribe or create an account for CrunchyRoll & be a monopoly of anime. I haven’t got a chance to get a subscription for HiDive yet because I’m busy with my college semester (almost over). Hopefully I can watch HiDive in December.
Yup but the reality is that Crunchyroll will let anyone anywhere watch streaming or late t content whenever. No one else can do that because they don't understand their base.
@@jamesjeager129You do realize that the studio themselves gave them the TV broadcast version right? Inukai, immoral guild, and love flops are still censored on HIDIVE.
@@tama47_no I never know about that. Also I am planning to buy anime DVDs because I have a blu-ray player & watch a few movies & anime (even spicy ones). I buy most them from Sentai & idk if there’s more good anime websites to buy them at.
For me as a native speaking German I was never a fan of Hidive because they only offered anime with English subtitles and Japanese dub. I like to read at least in my native language when I can’t understand the Japanese dub. Even if I understand English pretty well I want the comfort while watching an anime to not think about the subs at all.
Tbh, I am glad. They basically held licenses hostage in europe. sadly, the licenses in Germany now go to KSM and peppermint, holding on to them for insanely expensive BD sales. The problem is not the monopoly, but exclusive licensing. Imagine the music industry being this way… artist x only on spotify, song y only on google.
As an affected suscriber I hope that another service in my region picks up Oshi no ko, Dangers in my heart and Eminence in shadow. I don't like monopolies and I can afford more than one streaming service. But I gotta say that as a non native english speaker their offer is somehow lacking, most of the shows are only translated to english and the spanish subtitles lack the quality that I would expect from a paid service. So it's not a surprise that they didn't have huge success outside the US.
Love Hidive, hope they can stick around. Use them for things that CR doesn't have as well as some things CR censors and HD doesn't. I really with they would improve their UI though.
Needs to be a Steam/iTunes like platform where studios can just sell digital copies of their episodes/series directly to customers. Unlike steam, this platform should NOT take a 40% cut. Perhaps a low cut rate ifnthe studio subs the eps themselves, amd a higher cut rate for when in-house subs are needed Eps should only be a dollar. Theyd make more money, ar least in foreign markets
I'm from one of those regions and I'm very disappointed right now. Several shows I love are currently only on hidive if you want to see them legally here. And I don't know if they can/will be picked up by crunchyroll now. And I agree that competition can be a good thing
I never have player trouble with hidive , I do have issues with Crunchyroll after two episodes the third will start " stuttering" , which results in logging out then back in to get normal playing.
@@Deadmarenotice how we hardly see new uncensored shows on HIDIVE as well? Where’s Inukai or Immoral Guild uncensored? This has nothing to do with Sony.
Crunchyroll does alot of languages of subs and dubs. The calendar shows us alot of non English releases. I did notice only English on Hidive. Though it doesn't effect me in the USA. I worry how there isn't enough shows on Hidive.
Crunchyroll's language support was terrible before, but now it's very serviceable. HiDive had potential, but never improved their player. Even if they supported more niched countries, no one would want to use their buggy & slow app. That's the biggest difference: content delivery.
I subbed to HiDive for Shadow and Farming Life. Once they were done I pulled my sub. Personally, I have been watching Anime since the late '60s and I would rather only have one subscription instead of two or three. It is all just convenience for a luxury item. First world problems.
I think you see the same thing with streaming services in general. Some of the competitors of are starting to license their shows back to Netflix again.
There use to be competition when Funimation was around, but they then bought Crunchyroll (& kept the latter’s name) which are now owned by Sony. Now it’s just HiDive & Cruncyroll.
My current issue with HiDive is the app is pretty poorly built. No Playstation app, it doesn't keep track of the episodes, overall clunky, and no preview window for fast forward/rewind. I still have both, but for HiDive stuff I almost feel like it's more worth it to sub for a month at the end of a season, binge the shows and cancel for a few more months, just because of how poorly the app works. Honestly I'm just sitting on my hands waiting/hoping for Japan to finally start doing subtitles/translations for anime/manga and producing the digital distribution networks themselves. Solve the problem of "excessive localization" where the original context is almost completely lost or distorted, while also potentially bundling up large chunks of each media into a handful of subs.
this is pretty much all the fault of HiDive. Their user experience is horrible, even worse than Funimation was. I cant imagine their user retention is very high.
Just have to ask, what will happen to their exclusive content? will it be a dumster fire competition between streaming platforms all over again? Or will it just be split between Crunchyroll, Netflix & Disney+?
I only have any streaming service because of the app/ watching experience. If crunchyroll doesn't have my shit I and lots of other people will just go to pirate. Especially in the anime community when piracy is a much bigger thing how much can crunchyroll really afford to suck
The problem with this is the uncensored anime. I don’t want to lose those. Crunchyroll may have some of them, but they often take the broadcast version.
Crunchyroll has even been skipping the uncensored versions of various anime that Funimation originally had. For example Funimation originally had the uncensored version of Azur Lane. Crunchyroll has moved that anime over to their service, but the uncensored version is missing.
@@CommanderZx2 That’s true, and that sucks. They should take all of the uncensored versions and not just a couple here and there. Otherwise this only encourages piracy.
@@tama47_ Hidive is owned by Sentai filmworks. So the Hidive website is typically only updated with the uncensored versions after Sentai releases them on Blu-ray.
The fact that companies are allowed to basically buy monopolies means that this is going to happen over and over again. Seems great if you have crunchyroll today, but in five years, crunchyroll will own it all and skip 50% of the stuff because they're going to get your $10 either way every month and will only give a shit if someone goes and tries to buy something up and try to break into the industry, but it's going to fall apart. Give it five to eight more years and anyone can make an anime on their home PC and it will be the collapse of that and the explosion of quality anime stories availability for us.
I was subbed to HiDive briefly for Call of the Night. The interface honestly sucked. It felt like the site was actively making it harder for me to find shows I wanted to see or might be interested in as well as being a big laggy and janky as a video player. I understand that as a smaller platform you're not going to have the developer budget that others might have but what you do with that smaller size and budget is to hyperfocus on just being a good video player. I want to be able to queue up a show, and continue watching the whole series continuously until I decide to stop, not until the website makes me dig around for season 2 like I've suddenly been transported back to 1993 and I'm searching through my dad's VHS collection.
I merged my HiDive and CR subscriptions to AZ because of casting issues. So far HD is doing its good job. The UI with AZ got better in selecting and saving my series ive been watching.
It definitely sucks since I’ve had a long animosity towards Sony and anime ever since they bought the license to Blood+ and sat on it; they sat on it and never put it on any of their platforms even tho they own so much of the industry
We are already screwed in Australia, with SONY owning Madman Entertainment, the only physical releases we get on Blue Ray and DVD are only Crunchyroll stuff. I feel for Sentai Filmworks because I knew of them back when they were ADV.
HiDive's problem is they're not consistent. Why did it take them so long to dub Danmachi? Also, HiDive could have a niche with Seinen anime, like Vermeil in Gold. But they're fumbling the ball.
my biggest problems with hidive are: 1) no comments. 2) no next button to play the next video 3) no skip intro button or other way of skipping the intro. also i think licensing is a problem, we wouldn't have an issue of crunchyroll becoming a monopoly or hidive needing to end service in other countries is because you have to license the anime to air it. would like to see copyright go away, let the best company win.
I actually hate talking videos on TH-cam because most of the channels that do this format are just stroking their own ego. Not you. You made valid and objective points backed by reason and logic. Well done, sir.
The worst part about HiDive is that, they proactively disables the service on VPNs as well. AS Someone that has recently Moved to Japan, for Work I cannot vouch for this service because of the anti VPN policy.
If you are located in North America and some other English speaking countries and associated provinces/territories, HiDive isn't going anywhere right now. For other locations, many of the titles could get picked up by other services. A lot may depend on the age and popularity of said anime titles, as often anime titles are leased to a distributor to be in their library only for a certain number of years and then they expire from the service. For instance, the last season of The Familiar of Zero that Andrew mentioned was released back in 2012, so the earlier seasons of the series might be considered too old to be worth keeping even though the series as a whole is considered a classic to some of us like myself and it still has some popularity/notoriety.
I don't think its going away they just didn't offer the subtitles in other languages. Also for "THE FAMILIAR OF ZERO" series They just released a new physical copy which I find they tend to remove things when this happens and add them back later on Hidive.
Their user interface is kinda clunky too, and not just in the buggy way. It makes the site unappealing, because it reminds me of old websites from back in the day that would inevitably give you malware whenever you visited the site. Also, as far as I know, you can't comment on the videos either which is a BIG no, because people want to talk about the episodes they watch instead of having to go to reddit to do that, a lot of people enjoy the thrill of getting clout for a funny comment or searching for manga spoilers. Having decent anime alone may be enough for someone to visit getting a subscription for a month or two but it's not enough to get them to stick around if the site doesn't feel very welcoming. It's like visiting a low end motel, because you have to vs living in said motel.
I subbed to HiDive because my roommate and I wanted to watch DanMachi and it was on there. I also got a couple of other shows that I ended up wanting to watch so that was a plus. Once my current sub runs out I will reassess, but most likely not resub.
As someone who uses HiDive in Germany, this is sad news. I was not too thrilled about their catalog personally, but there were some shows for me and I was happy to support a Crunchyroll competitor. The subtitle situation is a weird one to me, I never even noticed that, as I just read english anyway and from my experience many people here seem to. Also specifically Latin American Spanish seems to be a language they do usually have, it seems. With that I am not sure if there really is a majority with this problem.
My experience in LATAM whit anime , is that here the market used to be uncensored mostly because of lack of resources to change thing, and them a lot of free anime sites pop up, so most people that watch anime here just used the pirate sites and those sites are really high quality
I've been using HiDive because they had some animes that Crunchyroll didn't snag. Vermeil in Gold, Reeincarnated as a Sword and Urusei Yatsura. I agree that it feels like they are taking table scraps. They will stop services in Portugal this month. A shame.
This will give more people the motivation to Sail the Seven Seas just to watch the old ADV licensed Anime as well as all the good Sentai Filmworks anime from the 2010s. I have collected many Sentai Filmworks licensed DVDs and Blue Rays during the 2010s and many ADV from the late 90s and 2000s. All of which are valued treasures in my collection.
I am a Crunchyroll subscriber from India, the service is okay, but for Hidive to grow now there is only one option, a merger with Viz media and become the official home of Naruto and Bleach, does anyone remember Neon Alley, Hidive as to merge, I think it is the only hope for them to grow, come on if this happens it will make Viz to get more Anime and not sleep on Hulu
Mild criticism / opinion: I would have liked it if you opened with “HiDive is canceling services in some countries” before getting into the history of their struggling. I was distracted due to wondering what the exact present context was, and what had happened to warrant this specific video at this specific time.
The reason I have Hi Dive is because of the really good shows I can't get elsewhere, but the service and App sucks so bad. Right now I can't watch season 2 of Eminence in Shadow through the app because the seasons button doesn't work. I'm scared of Crunchyroll's monopoly, but I understand why Hi Dive is failing.
I GOTTA SAY THIS IS THE FIRST VIDEO IVE SEEN FROM YOU BUT AFTER WATCHING ITS KINDA GIVING ME MORE OF A REASON TO GET HIDIVE, MORE SO THAN JUST SHADOW, WHICH I JUST BIENGED ON HULU (sorry about caps lock lol)
HiDive is cool,...what you get for it's price point is well worth the sub. At less than half the cost of CR, its a good buy. I would miss HD if it did end. They did recently add HSOTD and Mysterious Girl Friend X!! 🙀😼😜. I would miss it indeed!
Considering Crunchyroll has a habit of doing English translations with heavy dialogue edits and visual edits to blackout fanservice and gore. I'll learn Japanese and watch them properly
You do realize those black visual edits are the tv broadcast version like in Japan right?These shows are shown on tv and tits and splashing blood like in the US are censored there.There’s a vod channel in Japan called Atx that doesn’t censor or barely censor their anime and most uncensored HiDive shows are Atx broadcast.
Just last week Crunchyroll announced that they are practically killing their Manga Publishing Section, and focus primarily on Anime. So, unless they let other companies license Series which were under them, those series would be practically lost.
Honestly until exclusivity or subscibtion models become scorned by the community or straight up banned legaly (none of which will ever happen) when it comes to streaming a monopoly will actually be superior to compedition for the consumer. Compedition in this field always means missing out on content or 2x 3x the money spent which is quite the opposite to non-subsciption models which make the consumer profit of compedition on the money side. (Yes, there's also the innovation side but that's a different story.) That being said, HiDive is not how compedition should look anyway. The Site is trash. sorry. Their features and user experience is straight worse than Crunchys which is like step #1 on the to-do list for a possible compeditior. I cannot see ANY positives in this site and personaly can only hope they stop jailing content whitout offering anything in return but another 'spending opportunity'.
I've been faithfully subscribed to Hidive, and I hope they continue. They do need UI improvements, there are a lot of quality of life issues that would greatly increase the customer experience.
I got a hidive sub because of oshi no ko. Their website is clunky, have to keep changing the subtitle language, and their browser video player can only be paused at the bottom left corner.
Spring of 2023 was it? It felt like I was on HIDIVE and Hulu more than Crunchyroll. Oshi No Ko, The Dangers in my Heart, Heavenly Delusion, Insomniac After School. Kinda torn not keen on one service having a monopoly but it is convenient to have everything in one place.
As to the lost content, they are SLOWLY getting some of them back. They recently got Mysterious Girlfriend X back and now Amagi Brilliant Park is due to come back on the 17th. While it's still not all of the lost catalog, it's a start. The biggest issue I have is the app UI and the website. The UI looks like a bunch of monkeys just pounded on the keyboard. The website is continuously desyncing from the audio and/or subtitles. I constantly have to stop playback, shutdown my browser, log all the way back in and restart playback only tobrinse/repeat about every5 minutes or so.
Just a note that (The same thing happened with CR) that when the ownership changed (Like when Sony Acquired CR), contracts usually call for a renegotiation so that the title can be linked to the new company / owner, which was the main reason Hidive lost a lot of shows after the acquisition by AMC. They've been slowly getting them back, but with all things, this takes time.
Crunchyroll is rolling out Hindu subs for some anime, and I've seen quite a few anime get the French, German Spanish simulsub treatment. Hell right now I think crunchy didn't adjust daylight savings properly so the episodes are rolling out slower than when they appear on pirate sites, if I can't even wait an hour for an English sub to properly appear on their website what chance does someone not in an English speaking country have waiting for HiDive to maybe sub something in their language probably.
I would have kept my Hi-Dive account, but since they didn't allow offline viewing of their shows, I couldn't justify keeping it. They had numerous shows I would have loved to watch, but I can't always been online. Crunchyroll hasn't had a lot of shows that I really want to watch lately.
I'm in France and every time I go to highdive, the shows I wanna see are geo-blocked! So, of course, I never subbed. Crunchy-rolls has a lot of issues but at least they stopped geo-blocking me and licenced a lot of things for France included. That's an improvement nobody talks about. (I have three VPNs but it's really not practical so I'd rather not use them for a paid service).
It might be less of them having problems but more of them just focusing on what they were doing. Like if tacobell tried to do burgers and then pulled back burgers. They realized their gamble didn't pan out, but that doesn't mean their main thing is struggling.
TL;DR Companies can get away with English language releases for the Asian market & IT LOOKS LIKE HiDive tried to do that to South America & Europe which was never going to end well. HiDive's model outside the countries where English in a national language seems to have been that of "International" game releases in Asia, where rather than actually localizing the game they simply distribute an English language version for the Asian market. This is a known practice in Asia & box art is in English, so people generally know what their getting themselves into, HiDive seems to have tried this model in South America, Germany, & Africa, where I am unaware of anything similar to the "International (English language only)" game releases found in Asia. HiDive also doesn't seem to have been particularly forth coming that the offerings would mainly be available in English & this is also the first time have ever hear of a streaming service where the vast majority of the content was not in the national languages of countries it was operating in For some more context on the "International (English language)" releases in Asia versus South America, Asia is to much closer to each country having its own national language whereas in South America there are only two national languages on the entire continent, South America hasn't adopted English as a major part of regions life & culture the way Asia has mainly because they don't need to everyone speaks Spanish or Portuguese, which are similar to the point where with a little effort people can have as simple conversation where one person is speaking Spanish & the other Portuguese, whereas in Asia the languages have much greater differences and in the case of Korea, Japan, & China they all have different character sets that they use to write plus the history of US involvement in region, making knowledge of the English language way more valuable to an individual in Asia than in South America. For an example of the an English language game releases for the Asian market you can look to the Asian market versions of the follow games for the Switch Atelier Marie Remake and Chrono Cross The Radical Dreamers Edition (English) which both meant for distribution in Asia yet they're in English; The Chrono Cross game des claim to include Japanese as a supported language, but is literally the only Asian language supported other than that it's English, Spanish, French, German, or Italian
I'm not from those affected regions but I thoroughly enjoy HiDive now that AMC acquired them. The app on Xbox had so many bugs I was close to ending my service then they overhauled it. I'm with you I hope they continue to grow as I enjoy many of Sentai titles. Many are not on HiDive like my favorite movie, Ninja Scroll, which is a bummer. The Eminence in Shadow is my favorite series on that service. Heard of Oshi no Ko, but never watched it as anime musicals isn't my thing. Totally agree how it frustrates me that some series on HiDive have 1 season, but not all seasons. Infinite Stratos is a prime example. Season 1 is there, but not season 2 and I'm tired of asking them to put Season 2 on there!
Oshi no ko is not a musical though,I will not give hints as it might spoil it for you but the story gets dark.Watch ep (it’s basically a hour+ anime movie and see it for yourself).
I don't know about zone specific, I've always used English subtitles, apart from the logouts the android app worked way more consistently than crunchyroll one. And they have/had pretty good shows that's why I sub to them.
the true problem is that media in general are riddled with exclusivity deals ... i don't like to pay multiple different subscriptions to watch the 3 shows i want to watch because seasons are spread all over the place .. that being said .. i got the email from hidive that they wont be serving my region anymore .. i guess they have too many paying customers.
Hopefully it's merely conservative fiscal stewardship. May be a bit of an overreaction from some, if they are merely cutting costs that dont produce commensurate returns. Their website, app, being logged out, etc though... pretty inexcusable 😂
HiDive will fail if they don't update their app. It's the worst video streaming app I've ever used. The language setting resets every time you exit, even if you're continuing mid-episode. It has no "next episode" or -/+ ten seconds buttons. Also, there's no image preview. So if you're scrubbing ahead to skip the intro or looking for specific scene, you have to do so blindly.
I would like to see a change to copyright laws, so exclusive licenses would be banned. Set a cost for streaming content, per viewer, per min/seccond based on age. More popular shows would get more views and therefore more money. Make it open market.
I cancelled my HiDive subscription a couple months ago. I maybe watched 2 shows on there over the whole year sub I had. Oshi no ko and Made in Abyss. I would have watched other shows on there, but they never dubbed them or did it months after the show stopped airing. I understand it’s hard, but it just really felt they weren’t trying with the few wins they got.
I remember when HiDive first dropped. It was originally a place to watch older series like Patlabor, then Sentai bought them and started pushing their own content. I feel like that they were forced to move at a speed that wasn't natural for a healthy development. The Video Player is atrocious and crashes on the regular; you have to go through some weird hoops to view your itty-bitty queue of 20; and viewing their catalogue can be a nightmare. They need more time to iron out these issues, instead they were forced to expand. I was honestly hoping, and still kind of am, that HiDive would be a competitor to CR/Sony, but that may not be in the cards.
I really hope HiDive doesn't go away, the industry need competition. If Hidive is pulling back for now, they need to be 10x more aggressive but in the selection process. Don't just grab everything but grab content that are both hidden gems but also content that people would instantly sub for.
What idiotic argument
We don’t need good shows being lock away behind a worse service. This isn’t the competition we need.
I find highdive does have just as many "must watch shows". Both have one or two a season.
What they need is more "general audience lowest common denominator garbage."
I hope they do. Their subs are unreliable and their dubs are atrocious. It’s like a death sentence for a shows dub now if HiDive gets it. I know their needs to be competition but when the competition is making the experience worse then pirating it then it should fold.
@@zachymoof2041 people seems to forget that Crunchyroll biggest competitor is piracy, not HIDIVE. All HIDIVE does is bring inconvenience to the users.
Let's be real HiDive has a horrible video player.. it constantly crashes. I only activate my account with them to binge a series and then quit.
Agreed 👍👍
Wierd, I've never had a problem with it
Yeah 'Video Playback Failed' at least every hour or two
I can’t stand the Hidive app. It’s almost unusable.
Crashes less than crunchy roll for me on multiple devices. Cruncyroll also seems to have more bugs that cause either audio desync of stuttering. Especially if you use the pause or rewind while casting. Crunchyroll's connection also seems to be less stable and often I'm not able to even load a big name show when it releases.
Both garbage tier video players, but Cruncyroll is in a league of its own on that front.
The worst thing to happen to the Anime industry is SONY buying themselves a monopoly, and then turning their prudish puritanical editors and translators loose on it. The censorship is out of control, and the availability of uncensored content even on home video is dwindling.
American Companies have been trying for years to restrict Japanese Media like Anime, Manga & Light Novel, as it's heavily affecting their American Animation & Comic Market sales, primarily because Japanese Anime, Manga & Light Novel aren't censored enough by American standards.
So, probably they decided to create a Monopoly which they would use to first restrict and then kill the whole Sub & Dub market, as far as Anime market is concerned.
@@Sup_Dof course Sony is ultimately a Japanese conglomerate with American subsidiaries, so they may not be trying to kill Japanese entertainment (financially counter productive) so much as just being incompetent, puritanical, and woke in their American branch.
I agree. I personally mostly watch dubs and the current offerings after the merger have been most disappointing. I've also noticed the trend of moving towards more family friendly content which is fine, but not at the expense of the adult viewers. That's one of the biggest reasons I got so into anime, it was full of interesting stories and art that someone older than 12 could appreciate. For the most part American TV sucks, I drink bleach before I watch SpongeBob, anime saves my sanity somedays.
But at the same time no us regulator would decline atnt from selling chrunchyroll to sony if it meant atnt might default and fail to pay their debt interests. In the end it wasn't enough and they spined of warner media with discovery into a seperate public company called warner bros discovery, which i believe still ended in a loss for atnt since they baught warner origionally for like $80+ billion. They didnt want to spin of warner at a loss and tried alternatives like selling crunchyroll. Sony paid $1.2 billion. What other company would pay that much to compete against against a japanese company like sony who also owns aniplex under sony music japan.
@@Sup_D crunchyroll is owned by a jp company Aniplex japan owns half of them
Japan needs to make their own streaming service
That would be so cool
For serious. I would so sign up for a straigh from Japan streaming service
it exists it's crunchyroll aniplex of japan owns 50% of the company.,
They already do,it’s called Crunchyroll.
Originally Hidive was just USA only and then tried to expanding globally, then AMC goes and buys Sentai/Hidive in 2022 and then AMC starts cutting costs due their own cord cutting issues.
My guess is that AMC told them they need to do budget cuts and they decided to sacrifice their efforts on international expansion. This results in skipping on international subs/dubs, which perhaps they had originally intended to do and now they're completely stopping serving non English areas.
Which Begs the question, do you think Sentai Filmworks the dubbing company is gonna go bankrupt along with HiDive, or Sentai being sold to another company?
if that were the case they would announce that they will not be doing dubs/subs other than english .. but instead they are cutting us off regardless of language .. i watch stuff with jap dub and english or german subs ..
@@itsblitz4437 I personally expect that AMC may plan to try a regionally integrated approach outside the Anglosphere (ie a single service offering AMC+, Acorn, Shudder, HiDive, etc content). It's far cheaper and easier to have subs and dubs across their entire corporate catalogue for a language region handled in one place that also handles administrating the back end infrastructure for distribution than for each of their services to expand their markets independently.
I think AMC is gonna sell HIDIVE/Sentai in the near future
Yeah, I definitely don't want to see HiDive fail. But I think you're right - they aren't providing the service people want. I think their niche will have to be along the lines of taking the titles Crunchyroll won't touch, such as Redo of Healer, and streaming them uncensored. I can imagine those regions who are losing HiDive don't view it as a loss, though.
Well… the ex subscribers outside the 5 countries being 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇬🇧🇮🇪🇦🇺 was only 2% soooo 98% of subscriptions is made up from them 5 countries alone hence why they chose to only support them 5. Sad really. Also, non English countries never really received subtitles from their own languages either. Soooo it’s not really the best experience for them for the fact all hidive provided was mostly English and sometimes would do other languages from time to time which is what caused outrage from other countries.
The real problem is exclusive licensing. If both streaming services could license the same content then it would come down to which platform offers the features you want. Exclusivity doesn't serve the customer at all.
If exclusivity didn't exist Netflix and Crunchyroll would just have everything.
@@4getmenot182 And so would hidive and who know, maybe another service would exist too that could afford to buy in. In an exclusivity marketplace the service with the biggest bank can afford to outbid the other services for the most popular content and slowly push their competitors out of business. With each licensing round the bigger service gets more of the content and the less funded service is unable to buy in and are left to putting all their eggs in one basket and hoping that the show they bet on will be popular enough to earn subs.
With a market where no content is exclusively licensed any service can buy in. Sure Crunchyroll might opt to license everything but Hidive might be able to license everything too. Or maybe another service decides to focus on uncensored horror anime and tailors their content to that. Or a service that wants to focus on Spanish language markets can exist. Say Hidive licesnes all the same shows and you find you prefer HiDive because they work harder to make sure their subs are closer to the original language meaning. Or maybe you use their service cause the shows are always posted with the subtitles available (I know that's a hot topic at Crunchyroll every week). Or you like their layout and playback features. Maybe Crunchyroll wouldn't still have a "new" design that still has pages from the old site design that sometimes feel broken. Not sure what I'm talking about, go to the crunchyroll release calendar page and see.
Exclusivity doesn't serve the customer. It only serves the streaming services. Having choice as a consumer is always better. Multiple players in the market competing with each other makes for better services.
You could argue that exclusivity doesn't serve the content owners either because having multiple services offering your content might get you better streaming returns. I'm sure on the big Shonen animes it wouldn't move the needle but maybe some of the smaller niche animes would see better returns from other services that might highlight their shows better.
@@4getmenot182so would other platforms, exclusive licencing only benefits biggest players who can afford to outbid it.
@@4getmenot182 how is that a bad thing? For music for example, I like having the choice of being able to stream the same song from Apple Music, TH-cam Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, etc. This is true competition, not the whatever exclusivity bs that is happening with the video streaming industry.
Exclusivity is definitely required to ensure that a licensee releases the content on Blu-ray or digital sale (when the licensor requires it). Not to mention, exclusivity also encourages the licensee to produce a dub to draw more interest to the content. That’s why Netflix and Crunchyroll dub a lot of their content (to attract audiences not interested in subtitles). Not every licensor is willing to pay to dub their content.
Generally I'm all about stopping monopolies. However with each streaming service hoarding whatever shows they can get their hands on it forces people to go watch what they want on pirate sites because paying for a bunch of different streaming subscriptions isn't feasible. People started to cut the cord with cable for more choice but streaming services are following the cable model which limits choice. I already pay for Crunchyroll but they don't have Eminence in Shadow. Do I really need to pay another site just to watch that 1 anime? While I could afford another streaming service I simply refuse to. My wallet isn't infinite and I wont allow myself to be fleeced just to watch a show I like. So to me I would rather see all anime come through Crunchyroll. At least until they start overcharging. I don't know what the solution is but I hope another model comes forward soon.
“Until they start overcharging” is the exact reason you should NEVER want monopoly. You will 100% be paying MORE for just crunchy that you’d be for paying for both right now once they have a monopoly and you’d have to be an absolute brain dead idiot to not know that fact.
This is a huge win for Europeans because now licenses like eminence in the shadow, urusei yatsura and oshi no ko can be seen legally in another platform that is actually available in the region.
The issue with the subs is true.
It was really frustrating and it seemed like they only cared about English viewers and they didn't try to fix the issues that Spanish people had.
Just recently Netflix started picking the licences for the first time which is huge because I can finally watch that anime in my native language.
Hopefully this means that those licences are more widely available and get the recognition they deserve.
As a European, I completely agree.
Problem is crunchyroll already have a monopoly. If this trend continues. Crunchyroll can just be tyrant
@@windrunner8497Netflix picked hidive's IP's so maybe it's the same for Europe and that wouldn't be a monopoly.
@@fraktaalimuoto Except that many of the licenses HiDive had that were not available in Europe were bought by I think a Southern European company. I am not entirely sure HiDive leaving will help us in any way. It is only a win when CR or Netflix take the licenses over. If not, we will just not get them at all.
@@windrunner8497don't forget Netflix.
HiDive is the main responsible of its own decline, yes Crunchyroll is a juggernaut, but it could have found its own niche inside the anime community, instead of just being another platform that have what Crunchyroll doesn't, and not being very good at being a platform. And Oshi no Ko's success could have been the perfect opportunity to pull their stuff together and being better.
Hidive has awful UI. The only reason I keep my sub to them is for the maybe 1 decent series per season but it gets harder and harder to justify paying for something that barely works with mediocre content
Honestly, I think it would be interesting to have Amazon / Prime Video to acquire HiDive. Like most shows that are or were on Hidive are on Amazon Prime Video.
Crunchyroll is on Amazon Prime now, I don’t think Amazon is interested right now in acquiring HIDIVE
Then we'd have to pay for prime to get anime. no thanks
@@phantomthiefzxin what world would that ever be a reason they wouldn’t want it. That would literally make them more money whether they keep it after or not.
If Hidive fails I'm sure some one like that would buy them up...
@mangakey I feel Crunchyroll wouldn't be the best idea, especially what's happening behind the scenes with the english voice actors. I seriously think Crunchyroll is alienating the English voice actors. Like, where the hell did the English voice actors that were affiliated with Crunchyroll before the merger happen go, not to mention the Funimation English voice actors. Like aside from reprising voice role, they've hardly been giving any new voice role, like I have a whole list of English voice actors that really haven't been given new roles or haven't heard of since the merger happen. Like if Crunchyroll somehow actually aquire Hidive, they would probably alienate the English voice actors that work on the Sentai Filmwork properties. If someone like Amazon/Prime Video did acquire HiDive, those English voice actors probably won't get shafted that Crunchyroll has been doing.
HiDive has a lot of great content you cant get elsewhere. But their UI is f-ing terrible. It's clunky and hard to navigate. It's the biggest reason I will watch on other service (when it's an option) over HiDive, because I hate the interface. I will be sad if they leave, but as long as you can still find it, then it wont be the end of the world.
the way hidive can save themselves is to start marketing that they dub and sub anime as close as possible to the original content, and actually do it
I'm form Poland and if I will get to see Oshi No Ko and Eminence in the Shadow legally I will be happy.
Hi Dive was never avaiable here so I had to go high seas to watch Oshi No Ko, I don't want to do that when season 2 comes out
i'm sad a ton of people haven't watched "summertime rendering" because it was on disney, its such a good anime but almost nobody watched it. (literally couldn't watch it legally outside japan for its entire runtime)
Dude yes I still haven't watched it... so annoying. 😢
Yeah that whole situation was so sad.
And the same is basically happening with undead Unluck but at least that one will be coming soon to Disney +
@@alfocrack0355when?
We need to convince the studios to provide direct access to the consumers instead of doing this licensing bs…… I remember when you couldn’t legally get any anime except for some stuff on toonami and the 4kids dubs. I miss the old fan subs that were made in good faith (instead of some of the sus subs that have been produced now) I miss the raw original unfiltered experience. I’m a simple man I want my anime at the same time or shortly after Japan gets it and I want subs that are written to be understood the way a native speaker would understand them. Though at this point I just want to get it direct from the studio with no changes I don’t need subs so I could stop contributing to those companies but to do that I’d have to wait for the blue ray so I have to keep my subscriptions. We can’t let the middleman have any profit or they will have the ability to influence what is made. Crunchyroll has already butchered several shows because of their censorship or unnecessary changes to subs.
I loved that Disney got it. Because ignorance of people saying bleach was getting censored because of Disney. Lol I'm like ok whatever. But Crunchyroll is the censor King
i know that monopolization is never the best solution but having no option to watch shows like Oshi no ko other than fan translations because the company that bought the license don't even work on your region is 10 times worst in my opinion (btw I'm talking about one of the biggest region in number of viewers), so while this might sound like bad news for NA fans, I would be glad if HiDive would actually leave the anime scene and leave the licenses to companies that can actually deliver them...
Agreed, also I don't have the money to pay for multiple subscription services.
Can’t forget to state that all this streaming stuff is expensive. If multiple companies are streaming different shows that ppl want to watch at the same time, someone isn’t going to get money until there’s enough content someone wants to watch to guarantee they get their money’s worth out of that month.
Sony already has too much power. I’ll gladly give $50 a year for hidive no matter how poor the service is. Eminence in Shadow alone is worth that for me.
Here in Scandinavia we're used to English subtitles, but my app was stuck on Spanish subs as default even though I set English as preferred. Had to change subs for every episode. And when using Chromecast the stream was buffering for 20 seconds every 5 minutes. I still donated money to Hidive every month though.
HiDive needs to update it's player/system and up the dubs. If the other voice actors are busy with other projects, then find other voice actors. I don't think it's illegal to hire outside a select group.
I joined HiDive because I enjoy their Anime selection. I am not an expert anime or manga fan but HiDive does have a decent collection. Oshi No Ko, Otaku Elf, Dark Gathering, The Dangers in My Heart, Insomniacs After School, are just a few. I prefer English dubs, but if it is not available, it won't stop me. Thank you sir for this you tube video.
This is why owning physical is the best option streaming is nice, but in order to own anything, it’s best just to buy it physically
It really is tough. I don't agree with a monopoly but also it's hard to justify subbing to a site for one or two series. I am subbed to both CR and Hi-Dive but that's because I like a good number of HD series.
I live in the USA. I hope HiDive would exist in the future because I don’t want to subscribe or create an account for CrunchyRoll & be a monopoly of anime. I haven’t got a chance to get a subscription for HiDive yet because I’m busy with my college semester (almost over). Hopefully I can watch HiDive in December.
Yup but the reality is that Crunchyroll will let anyone anywhere watch streaming or late t content whenever. No one else can do that because they don't understand their base.
@@petepanteraman what about the censorship of Worlds End Harem in CrunchyRoll. I remember hearing about it a few years ago.
@@jamesjeager129You do realize that the studio themselves gave them the TV broadcast version right? Inukai, immoral guild, and love flops are still censored on HIDIVE.
@@tama47_no I never know about that. Also I am planning to buy anime DVDs because I have a blu-ray player & watch a few movies & anime (even spicy ones). I buy most them from Sentai & idk if there’s more good anime websites to buy them at.
@@petepanteramancan't have anime kissing. That's too gross. But let's keep grooming cartoons like high guardian spice 😜
For me as a native speaking German I was never a fan of Hidive because they only offered anime with English subtitles and Japanese dub. I like to read at least in my native language when I can’t understand the Japanese dub. Even if I understand English pretty well I want the comfort while watching an anime to not think about the subs at all.
HIDIVE also has “The Eminance In Shadow “ too.
Tbh, I am glad. They basically held licenses hostage in europe. sadly, the licenses in Germany now go to KSM and peppermint, holding on to them for insanely expensive BD sales.
The problem is not the monopoly, but exclusive licensing. Imagine the music industry being this way… artist x only on spotify, song y only on google.
I also
I really hope HiDive doesn't go away, the industry need competition. Since have one big company controlled all the anime in the west is bad
You don't know what you are saying crunchyroll is killing the industry!
As an affected suscriber I hope that another service in my region picks up Oshi no ko, Dangers in my heart and Eminence in shadow. I don't like monopolies and I can afford more than one streaming service. But I gotta say that as a non native english speaker their offer is somehow lacking, most of the shows are only translated to english and the spanish subtitles lack the quality that I would expect from a paid service. So it's not a surprise that they didn't have huge success outside the US.
What a bummer, i kinda hate crunchyroll for all their westernization and shit dubs and censoring. We really need a solid competitor.
The problem with anime streaming is that there's not a big enough market to support multiple large scale services.
Love Hidive, hope they can stick around. Use them for things that CR doesn't have as well as some things CR censors and HD doesn't. I really with they would improve their UI though.
Needs to be a Steam/iTunes like platform where studios can just sell digital copies of their episodes/series directly to customers. Unlike steam, this platform should NOT take a 40% cut. Perhaps a low cut rate ifnthe studio subs the eps themselves, amd a higher cut rate for when in-house subs are needed
Eps should only be a dollar. Theyd make more money, ar least in foreign markets
Micro transactions are the last thing anime needs. They ruined gaming.
I'm from one of those regions and I'm very disappointed right now. Several shows I love are currently only on hidive if you want to see them legally here. And I don't know if they can/will be picked up by crunchyroll now. And I agree that competition can be a good thing
Unlikely for CR to pick up euro only license
I never have player trouble with hidive , I do have issues with Crunchyroll after two episodes the third will start " stuttering" , which results in logging out then back in to get normal playing.
What would be the problem with a monopoly? What benefit is there to having to pay two subscriptions?
That it's owned by sony. Noticed that we hardly see uncensored any more?
@@Deadmarenotice how we hardly see new uncensored shows on HIDIVE as well? Where’s Inukai or Immoral Guild uncensored? This has nothing to do with Sony.
He talks about the potential problems with Monopoly at 18:33 but non of these means much when piracy exists.
Crunchyroll does alot of languages of subs and dubs. The calendar shows us alot of non English releases. I did notice only English on Hidive. Though it doesn't effect me in the USA. I worry how there isn't enough shows on Hidive.
Crunchyroll's language support was terrible before, but now it's very serviceable. HiDive had potential, but never improved their player. Even if they supported more niched countries, no one would want to use their buggy & slow app. That's the biggest difference: content delivery.
I subbed to HiDive for Shadow and Farming Life. Once they were done I pulled my sub. Personally, I have been watching Anime since the late '60s and I would rather only have one subscription instead of two or three. It is all just convenience for a luxury item. First world problems.
Hope you know shadow has a second season currently airing
I think you see the same thing with streaming services in general. Some of the competitors of are starting to license their shows back to Netflix again.
There use to be competition when Funimation was around, but they then bought Crunchyroll (& kept the latter’s name) which are now owned by Sony. Now it’s just HiDive & Cruncyroll.
My current issue with HiDive is the app is pretty poorly built. No Playstation app, it doesn't keep track of the episodes, overall clunky, and no preview window for fast forward/rewind. I still have both, but for HiDive stuff I almost feel like it's more worth it to sub for a month at the end of a season, binge the shows and cancel for a few more months, just because of how poorly the app works.
Honestly I'm just sitting on my hands waiting/hoping for Japan to finally start doing subtitles/translations for anime/manga and producing the digital distribution networks themselves. Solve the problem of "excessive localization" where the original context is almost completely lost or distorted, while also potentially bundling up large chunks of each media into a handful of subs.
One thing I'm concerned about with a Crunchyroll monopoly is there will be a smaller chance for more season 2's being greenlit.
this is pretty much all the fault of HiDive. Their user experience is horrible, even worse than Funimation was. I cant imagine their user retention is very high.
Just have to ask, what will happen to their exclusive content? will it be a dumster fire competition between streaming platforms all over again? Or will it just be split between Crunchyroll, Netflix & Disney+?
I only have any streaming service because of the app/ watching experience. If crunchyroll doesn't have my shit I and lots of other people will just go to pirate. Especially in the anime community when piracy is a much bigger thing how much can crunchyroll really afford to suck
The problem with this is the uncensored anime. I don’t want to lose those. Crunchyroll may have some of them, but they often take the broadcast version.
Crunchyroll has even been skipping the uncensored versions of various anime that Funimation originally had. For example Funimation originally had the uncensored version of Azur Lane. Crunchyroll has moved that anime over to their service, but the uncensored version is missing.
@@CommanderZx2 That’s true, and that sucks. They should take all of the uncensored versions and not just a couple here and there. Otherwise this only encourages piracy.
HIDIVE also takes broadcast version, none of their recent ecchi anime are uncensored. Inukai-san, Immoral Guild, Love Flops, etc.
@@tama47_ That’s unfortunate.
@@tama47_ Hidive is owned by Sentai filmworks. So the Hidive website is typically only updated with the uncensored versions after Sentai releases them on Blu-ray.
The fact that companies are allowed to basically buy monopolies means that this is going to happen over and over again.
Seems great if you have crunchyroll today, but in five years, crunchyroll will own it all and skip 50% of the stuff because they're going to get your $10 either way every month and will only give a shit if someone goes and tries to buy something up and try to break into the industry, but it's going to fall apart.
Give it five to eight more years and anyone can make an anime on their home PC and it will be the collapse of that and the explosion of quality anime stories availability for us.
I was subbed to HiDive briefly for Call of the Night. The interface honestly sucked. It felt like the site was actively making it harder for me to find shows I wanted to see or might be interested in as well as being a big laggy and janky as a video player. I understand that as a smaller platform you're not going to have the developer budget that others might have but what you do with that smaller size and budget is to hyperfocus on just being a good video player.
I want to be able to queue up a show, and continue watching the whole series continuously until I decide to stop, not until the website makes me dig around for season 2 like I've suddenly been transported back to 1993 and I'm searching through my dad's VHS collection.
Nah that is BS. There is no excuse for a terrible interface or it being non-functional. Only takes a few programmers to do up an interface.
I merged my HiDive and CR subscriptions to AZ because of casting issues. So far HD is doing its good job. The UI with AZ got better in selecting and saving my series ive been watching.
whast AZ
@@linearburn8838 Amazon
It definitely sucks since I’ve had a long animosity towards Sony and anime ever since they bought the license to Blood+ and sat on it; they sat on it and never put it on any of their platforms even tho they own so much of the industry
So the question here is whether HiDive has been doing the sub and dub translations, because that's where expenses start to get out of control.
We are already screwed in Australia, with SONY owning Madman Entertainment, the only physical releases we get on Blue Ray and DVD are only Crunchyroll stuff.
I feel for Sentai Filmworks because I knew of them back when they were ADV.
HiDive's problem is they're not consistent. Why did it take them so long to dub Danmachi? Also, HiDive could have a niche with Seinen anime, like Vermeil in Gold. But they're fumbling the ball.
my biggest problems with hidive are: 1) no comments. 2) no next button to play the next video 3) no skip intro button or other way of skipping the intro.
also i think licensing is a problem, we wouldn't have an issue of crunchyroll becoming a monopoly or hidive needing to end service in other countries is because you have to license the anime to air it. would like to see copyright go away, let the best company win.
I actually hate talking videos on TH-cam because most of the channels that do this format are just stroking their own ego. Not you. You made valid and objective points backed by reason and logic. Well done, sir.
The worst part about HiDive is that, they proactively disables the service on VPNs as well. AS Someone that has recently Moved to Japan, for Work I cannot vouch for this service because of the anti VPN policy.
hidive is dying?😱
What will happen to the animes that are only on hidive?🤔
Will they have to switch to crunchyroll?🤥
Probably. The shows essentially become free agents up for grabs that Crunchyroll will most likely grab
If you are located in North America and some other English speaking countries and associated provinces/territories, HiDive isn't going anywhere right now. For other locations, many of the titles could get picked up by other services.
A lot may depend on the age and popularity of said anime titles, as often anime titles are leased to a distributor to be in their library only for a certain number of years and then they expire from the service. For instance, the last season of The Familiar of Zero that Andrew mentioned was released back in 2012, so the earlier seasons of the series might be considered too old to be worth keeping even though the series as a whole is considered a classic to some of us like myself and it still has some popularity/notoriety.
Interesting because Crunchyroll has been closing services and announced the closing of their Manga App among other changes.
I don't think its going away they just didn't offer the subtitles in other languages. Also for "THE FAMILIAR OF ZERO" series They just released a new physical copy which I find they tend to remove things when this happens and add them back later on Hidive.
Their user interface is kinda clunky too, and not just in the buggy way. It makes the site unappealing, because it reminds me of old websites from back in the day that would inevitably give you malware whenever you visited the site. Also, as far as I know, you can't comment on the videos either which is a BIG no, because people want to talk about the episodes they watch instead of having to go to reddit to do that, a lot of people enjoy the thrill of getting clout for a funny comment or searching for manga spoilers. Having decent anime alone may be enough for someone to visit getting a subscription for a month or two but it's not enough to get them to stick around if the site doesn't feel very welcoming. It's like visiting a low end motel, because you have to vs living in said motel.
I subbed to HiDive because my roommate and I wanted to watch DanMachi and it was on there. I also got a couple of other shows that I ended up wanting to watch so that was a plus. Once my current sub runs out I will reassess, but most likely not resub.
As someone who uses HiDive in Germany, this is sad news. I was not too thrilled about their catalog personally, but there were some shows for me and I was happy to support a Crunchyroll competitor.
The subtitle situation is a weird one to me, I never even noticed that, as I just read english anyway and from my experience many people here seem to.
Also specifically Latin American Spanish seems to be a language they do usually have, it seems. With that I am not sure if there really is a majority with this problem.
Somos mercado importante para ellos para mantener ahora que se van ir quiebra
Ya que una empresa francesa le quitará su mercado latino
My experience in LATAM whit anime , is that here the market used to be uncensored mostly because of lack of resources to change thing, and them a lot of free anime sites pop up, so most people that watch anime here just used the pirate sites and those sites are really high quality
Menciónate unos porfa, no seas mal@.
I've been using HiDive because they had some animes that Crunchyroll didn't snag.
Vermeil in Gold, Reeincarnated as a Sword and Urusei Yatsura.
I agree that it feels like they are taking table scraps.
They will stop services in Portugal this month. A shame.
This will give more people the motivation to Sail the Seven Seas just to watch the old ADV licensed Anime as well as all the good Sentai Filmworks anime from the 2010s.
I have collected many Sentai Filmworks licensed DVDs and Blue Rays during the 2010s and many ADV from the late 90s and 2000s. All of which are valued treasures in my collection.
I am a Crunchyroll subscriber from India, the service is okay, but for Hidive to grow now there is only one option, a merger with Viz media and become the official home of Naruto and Bleach, does anyone remember Neon Alley, Hidive as to merge, I think it is the only hope for them to grow, come on if this happens it will make Viz to get more Anime and not sleep on Hulu
Biggest problem with hi dive, it forgets you already saw episode 1
Mild criticism / opinion: I would have liked it if you opened with “HiDive is canceling services in some countries” before getting into the history of their struggling. I was distracted due to wondering what the exact present context was, and what had happened to warrant this specific video at this specific time.
The reason I have Hi Dive is because of the really good shows I can't get elsewhere, but the service and App sucks so bad. Right now I can't watch season 2 of Eminence in Shadow through the app because the seasons button doesn't work.
I'm scared of Crunchyroll's monopoly, but I understand why Hi Dive is failing.
I GOTTA SAY THIS IS THE FIRST VIDEO IVE SEEN FROM YOU BUT AFTER WATCHING ITS KINDA GIVING ME MORE OF A REASON TO GET HIDIVE, MORE SO THAN JUST SHADOW, WHICH I JUST BIENGED ON HULU (sorry about caps lock lol)
HiDive is cool,...what you get for it's price point is well worth the sub. At less than half the cost of CR, its a good buy. I would miss HD if it did end. They did recently add HSOTD and Mysterious Girl Friend X!! 🙀😼😜. I would miss it indeed!
Considering Crunchyroll has a habit of doing English translations with heavy dialogue edits and visual edits to blackout fanservice and gore. I'll learn Japanese and watch them properly
You do realize those black visual edits are the tv broadcast version like in Japan right?These shows are shown on tv and tits and splashing blood like in the US are censored there.There’s a vod channel in Japan called Atx that doesn’t censor or barely censor their anime and most uncensored HiDive shows are Atx broadcast.
I wonder if all the English dubbed version of anime shows, might be transferred to the CrunchyRoll network?
If they fixed their video player and apps in general, maybe then I'd care to defend HiDive
Just last week Crunchyroll announced that they are practically killing their Manga Publishing Section, and focus primarily on Anime.
So, unless they let other companies license Series which were under them, those series would be practically lost.
Honestly until exclusivity or subscibtion models become scorned by the community or straight up banned legaly (none of which will ever happen) when it comes to streaming a monopoly will actually be superior to compedition for the consumer. Compedition in this field always means missing out on content or 2x 3x the money spent which is quite the opposite to non-subsciption models which make the consumer profit of compedition on the money side. (Yes, there's also the innovation side but that's a different story.)
That being said, HiDive is not how compedition should look anyway.
The Site is trash. sorry. Their features and user experience is straight worse than Crunchys which is like step #1 on the to-do list for a possible compeditior. I cannot see ANY positives in this site and personaly can only hope they stop jailing content whitout offering anything in return but another 'spending opportunity'.
I've been faithfully subscribed to Hidive, and I hope they continue. They do need UI improvements, there are a lot of quality of life issues that would greatly increase the customer experience.
I got a hidive sub because of oshi no ko. Their website is clunky, have to keep changing the subtitle language, and their browser video player can only be paused at the bottom left corner.
Spring of 2023 was it? It felt like I was on HIDIVE and Hulu more than Crunchyroll. Oshi No Ko, The Dangers in my Heart, Heavenly Delusion, Insomniac After School. Kinda torn not keen on one service having a monopoly but it is convenient to have everything in one place.
Oh, so it's still available in UK? I guess my NordVPN sub is coming in handy
As to the lost content, they are SLOWLY getting some of them back. They recently got Mysterious Girlfriend X back and now Amagi Brilliant Park is due to come back on the 17th. While it's still not all of the lost catalog, it's a start.
The biggest issue I have is the app UI and the website. The UI looks like a bunch of monkeys just pounded on the keyboard. The website is continuously desyncing from the audio and/or subtitles. I constantly have to stop playback, shutdown my browser, log all the way back in and restart playback only tobrinse/repeat about every5 minutes or so.
Just a note that (The same thing happened with CR) that when the ownership changed (Like when Sony Acquired CR), contracts usually call for a renegotiation so that the title can be linked to the new company / owner, which was the main reason Hidive lost a lot of shows after the acquisition by AMC. They've been slowly getting them back, but with all things, this takes time.
Crunchyroll is rolling out Hindu subs for some anime, and I've seen quite a few anime get the French, German Spanish simulsub treatment.
Hell right now I think crunchy didn't adjust daylight savings properly so the episodes are rolling out slower than when they appear on pirate sites, if I can't even wait an hour for an English sub to properly appear on their website what chance does someone not in an English speaking country have waiting for HiDive to maybe sub something in their language probably.
I would have kept my Hi-Dive account, but since they didn't allow offline viewing of their shows, I couldn't justify keeping it. They had numerous shows I would have loved to watch, but I can't always been online. Crunchyroll hasn't had a lot of shows that I really want to watch lately.
i dont like hidive cause its app or website is jank its not a very good player to watch on sadly
I'm in France and every time I go to highdive, the shows I wanna see are geo-blocked! So, of course, I never subbed. Crunchy-rolls has a lot of issues but at least they stopped geo-blocking me and licenced a lot of things for France included. That's an improvement nobody talks about. (I have three VPNs but it's really not practical so I'd rather not use them for a paid service).
Oshi No Ko, Emmience In Shadow, and Sugar Apple Fairy are some HiDive's biggest hits.
It might be less of them having problems but more of them just focusing on what they were doing. Like if tacobell tried to do burgers and then pulled back burgers. They realized their gamble didn't pan out, but that doesn't mean their main thing is struggling.
TL;DR Companies can get away with English language releases for the Asian market & IT LOOKS LIKE HiDive tried to do that to South America & Europe which was never going to end well.
HiDive's model outside the countries where English in a national language seems to have been that of "International" game releases in Asia, where rather than actually localizing the game they simply distribute an English language version for the Asian market. This is a known practice in Asia & box art is in English, so people generally know what their getting themselves into, HiDive seems to have tried this model in South America, Germany, & Africa, where I am unaware of anything similar to the "International (English language only)" game releases found in Asia. HiDive also doesn't seem to have been particularly forth coming that the offerings would mainly be available in English & this is also the first time have ever hear of a streaming service where the vast majority of the content was not in the national languages of countries it was operating in
For some more context on the "International (English language)" releases in Asia versus South America, Asia is to much closer to each country having its own national language whereas in South America there are only two national languages on the entire continent, South America hasn't adopted English as a major part of regions life & culture the way Asia has mainly because they don't need to everyone speaks Spanish or Portuguese, which are similar to the point where with a little effort people can have as simple conversation where one person is speaking Spanish & the other Portuguese, whereas in Asia the languages have much greater differences and in the case of Korea, Japan, & China they all have different character sets that they use to write plus the history of US involvement in region, making knowledge of the English language way more valuable to an individual in Asia than in South America.
For an example of the an English language game releases for the Asian market you can look to the Asian market versions of the follow games for the Switch Atelier Marie Remake and Chrono Cross The Radical Dreamers Edition (English) which both meant for distribution in Asia yet they're in English; The Chrono Cross game des claim to include Japanese as a supported language, but is literally the only Asian language supported other than that it's English, Spanish, French, German, or Italian
I'm not from those affected regions but I thoroughly enjoy HiDive now that AMC acquired them. The app on Xbox had so many bugs I was close to ending my service then they overhauled it. I'm with you I hope they continue to grow as I enjoy many of Sentai titles. Many are not on HiDive like my favorite movie, Ninja Scroll, which is a bummer. The Eminence in Shadow is my favorite series on that service. Heard of Oshi no Ko, but never watched it as anime musicals isn't my thing. Totally agree how it frustrates me that some series on HiDive have 1 season, but not all seasons. Infinite Stratos is a prime example. Season 1 is there, but not season 2 and I'm tired of asking them to put Season 2 on there!
Oshi no ko is not a musical though,I will not give hints as it might spoil it for you but the story gets dark.Watch ep (it’s basically a hour+ anime movie and see it for yourself).
I don't know about zone specific, I've always used English subtitles, apart from the logouts the android app worked way more consistently than crunchyroll one. And they have/had pretty good shows that's why I sub to them.
the true problem is that media in general are riddled with exclusivity deals ...
i don't like to pay multiple different subscriptions to watch the 3 shows i want to watch because seasons are spread all over the place ..
that being said .. i got the email from hidive that they wont be serving my region anymore .. i guess they have too many paying customers.
Hopefully it's merely conservative fiscal stewardship. May be a bit of an overreaction from some, if they are merely cutting costs that dont produce commensurate returns. Their website, app, being logged out, etc though... pretty inexcusable 😂
HiDive will fail if they don't update their app. It's the worst video streaming app I've ever used. The language setting resets every time you exit, even if you're continuing mid-episode. It has no "next episode" or -/+ ten seconds buttons. Also, there's no image preview. So if you're scrubbing ahead to skip the intro or looking for specific scene, you have to do so blindly.
I would like to see a change to copyright laws, so exclusive licenses would be banned. Set a cost for streaming content, per viewer, per min/seccond based on age. More popular shows would get more views and therefore more money. Make it open market.
Do we have to go to the government and have them use the Trust Busting laws? Or is Crunchyroll going to give us our dubs?
I cancelled my HiDive subscription a couple months ago. I maybe watched 2 shows on there over the whole year sub I had. Oshi no ko and Made in Abyss. I would have watched other shows on there, but they never dubbed them or did it months after the show stopped airing. I understand it’s hard, but it just really felt they weren’t trying with the few wins they got.
What no one is talking about HiDive has done this before in their other version.
I remember when HiDive first dropped. It was originally a place to watch older series like Patlabor, then Sentai bought them and started pushing their own content. I feel like that they were forced to move at a speed that wasn't natural for a healthy development. The Video Player is atrocious and crashes on the regular; you have to go through some weird hoops to view your itty-bitty queue of 20; and viewing their catalogue can be a nightmare. They need more time to iron out these issues, instead they were forced to expand. I was honestly hoping, and still kind of am, that HiDive would be a competitor to CR/Sony, but that may not be in the cards.