Optus Mobile Review ALDI Mobile Review Amaysim Mobile Review Belong Mobile Review Circles.Life Review Vodafone Mobile Review Woolworths Mobile Review Felix Mobile Review Best iPhone Plans Best Family Mobile Plans Best Budget Smartphones Best Prepaid Plans Best SIM-Only Plans Best Plans For Kids And Teens Best Cheap Mobile Plans Telstra vs Optus Mobile Optus NBN Review Belong NBN Review Vodafone NBN Review Superloop NBN Review Aussie BB NBN Review iiNet NBN Review MyRepublic NBN Review TPG NBN Review Best NBN Satellite Plans Best NBN Alternatives Best NBN Providers Best Home Wireless Plans What is a Good NBN Speed? Test NBN Speed How to speed up your internet Optus vs Telstra Broadband ExpressVPN Review CyberGhost VPN Review NordVPN Review PureVPN Review Norton Secure VPN Review IPVanish VPN Review Windscribe VPN Review Hotspot Shield VPN Review Best cheap VPN services Best VPN for streaming Best VPNs for gaming What is a VPN? VPNs for ad-blocking If you decide the Mega Fan tier is for you, there’s also the option to save 16% off the cost by signing up for a full 12 months. Wondering how that stacks up against other Australian streaming services? Take a look at the table below for a quick comparison of your options. In a single episode of Yu-Gi-Oh ZEXAL, we sat through four separate ad-breaks in a single 22-minute episode. That might not sound like much, but breaks sometimes include three ads at a time, ads that are repeated (ad nauseum) to the point that it’s utterly unbearable. You also can’t pause ads, which proves a bigger inconvenience than you might think. If you’re jumping off the train or find yourself caught in a conversation, the ads just keep coming. Your only option (on mobile, at least) is to close the app completely, effectively pausing the ad. Both the Fan and Mega Fan tiers also allow you to download titles for offline viewing, which is a bonus, but even more of a bonus is the fact that Crunchyroll allows you to stream in 1080p HD whether you’re a free or paid customer. If you’re a seasoned anime veteran who has seen it all, there’s plenty of fresh anime to check out too. I, for one, was completely taken by series titles such as With a Dog and a Cat, Every Day is Fun and So I’m a Spider So What?. At the time of writing, there are 757 TV shows available on Crunchyroll in Australia. That’s a lot when you consider how many seasons and episodes popular anime shows manage to cram in. I do wish there was more of a backlog of shows for shows like Dragon Ball Z, especially considering I can find that on Madman’s streaming service, AnimeLab. There also aren’t any movies on Crunchyroll. Obviously, most of the interest is in week-to-week TV show releases, but the recent success of the Demon Slayer: Mugen Train movie is proof there’s a huge appetite for it. Netflix has made a major push into the anime space too with original content produced exclusively for the service. It’s had some hits, for sure; Aggretsuko, Devilman Crybaby and Blood of Zeus all found an audience, and it even has a few classics like Fullmetal Alchemist (not the superior Brotherhood, though) but Crunchyroll’s variety and dedication to recent hits is unmatched. Crunchyroll is compatible with all the default devices, like iOS and Android smart devices, computer via most major web browsers, but it’s also compatible with a few outliers too. There are Apple TV and Chromecast apps, apps for Android TV devices, PlayStation and Xbox consoles, as well as Sony and Samsung smart televisions. Here’s every device you can stream Crunchyroll on:
iOS and Android smartphones and tablets Computer via web browser (check for latest supported versions) Apple TV Google Chromecast Xbox One PlayStation 4 Sony Smart TV LG Smart TV
That covers most bases, except a few Australian devices like Fetch TV, Telstra TV and Foxtel iQ. Still, there’s a high chance there’s a device in your house that will let you stream Crunchyroll on the big screen. The only device compatibility issue I found while reviewing Crunchyroll was some odd behaviour with AirPlay. When connected to the Apple HomePod Mini, the Crunchyroll app is utterly convinced that I’m trying to AirPlay to my smart speaker and refuses to co-operate unless I disconnect from the HomePod Mini entirely. The HomePod Mini itself is a fairly new device, so hopefully, this is a bug that’ll get squished in due time but it begs the question, what would the expected behaviour be if I did have an Apple TV on the same WiFi network? I’d still the choice to AirPlay in the Crunchyroll app. This currently makes streaming Crunchyroll on the iPhone 12 a bit of a pain. For example, there are filters for subs and dubs, but so far I’ve found the filtered results entirely unreliable. This is because Crunchyroll treats a “dubbed” program as a completely separate entry in the library, and it can be unnecessarily difficult to find the version you’re after. Especially because there are more languages available than just English. Having a wider variety of languages in your dubs is fantastic, but there’s no consistency or way to filter by language. The same goes for filtering by language for subtitles. Another missed opportunity is in the way Crunchyroll displays simulcast episodes in the app. There’s an incredibly handy calendar for episode release dates over on the Crunchyroll website that’s laid out like an electronic programming guide but it’s not available in the app. The app only allows you to filter the shows by season (e.g. Winter 2021) otherwise it’s up to you to keep track of what’s releasing and when. Whether or not it’s worth paying for premium entirely depends on your patience. Not only your patience for the latest releases, which drop one day after Japan on the Fan and Mega Fan tiers, but also your patience for pre-roll and mid-roll ads. Personally, I found the ads on Crunchyroll’s free tier way too aggressive. Of course, if you use an ad-blocker you might not have this problem but if you can stomach the $10.99 per month fee, I’d recommend it.
