Crunchyroll, Hidive, Funimation, even Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime have dipped their toes into putting some anime up for streaming. Take it from someone whose watched anime for over 20 years, it has never been easier to watch anime and find great new series with only a minimal monetary investment. By gum, I remember when buying DVDs based on only reviews was the only way.
Even still, there are just some shows that no matter which legal streaming service you go to, you just will not find. Who really knows why. I can only speculate that the rights to streaming it are too expensive or tied up in some strange legal red tape that prevents anyone from getting near it. I guess they want to leave money on the table.
Regardless, this is the only time I can really advocate exploring less legal means to watch anime since collecting DVDs is often expensive and kind of a pointless venture if you don’t know if you already love a series. Also, usually a lapsing license to stream also means out of print DVDs anyway, so… They’d be like hundreds of dollars. Anyway, here are a few anime series that you will have to metaphorically “sail the seven seas” to actually watch.
Best Anime You Can’t Find On Any Streaming Service
Berserk (1997)
I hype the original Berserk a lot. It is easily one of my most recommended series on this site. I am fortunate to have gotten the DVDs before they blinked out of existence, but I have never once seen it available on any streaming service.
You can get the same story from the trilogy of movies, which is perhaps why it has never been on a streaming service. The movies are fine enough, but sometimes that CGI gets in the way of things.
Katanagatari
There are ten tons of anime about sword fighting, but this series does a simple story of gathering 12 hidden blades and does it with a stylized flair. Furthermore, by the end of it, the series has hooked you good enough to hurt you with an ending you realize was building throughout the entire series.
It is a shame that you can’t find this little gem because it is truly one of those anime series that you would call art.
Now and Then, Here and There
Maybe you can’t find this series on any streaming service because it is becoming increasingly close to real life. This early isekai series is not a light-hearted romp of escapism like isekai is now. Instead, it is a rather brutal show where a very young and often idealistic main character gets transported to a harsh new world filled with war and famine.
While it is not the happiest watch, it is a shame that you can’t stream it because it isn’t quite as same-y as all the “transported to a new world” series are now.
Summertime Render
This is one that I think might come off this list, and I hope it does. Summertime Render, of the Spring 2022 anime season, is Disney+’s first foray into acquiring exclusive streaming rights for currently airing shows. They’ve bungled it a a bit by making it only available on Japanese Disney+ streaming. Good for Japanese audiences, but bad for everyone else. Even Netflix adds anime to its international platform the season it airs and does things like dubbing much later.
Here’s hoping I can remove this.
Monster
Monster, like Berserk 1997, is one of those series I would call a masterpiece in terms of characters and storytelling. It creates a gripping thriller, a rarely well done genre in anime, and turns it ultimately into something pondering the different philosophical ideologies of the protagonist and antagonist.
It is a lovely game of cat and mouse between them, but a whole generation of anime fans will probably never know.
Planetes
Anime dabbles in sci-fi quite a bit, but finding a space show more grounded in reality and not about some sweeping intergalactic war is… a task. Planetes is one of the few shows that can provide that. It takes humanity a few steps further than we currently are and follows what equates to space garbage collectors. Interestingly enough, it expands into a more complex plot than just a space workplace comedy. It also is one of the few series to change a story from its source material and change it for the better.
Rainbow
The story of Rainbow is a story we’re likely to not see again. It takes place in the tenuous post-World War II era of Japan where the country was rapidly changing and a number of people were, well, damaged and disenfranchised. Rainbow tells the tale of a boy’s prison in which seven convicts end up in the same cell and form unshakable bonds of brotherhood.
While that all sounds very wholesome, the ordeals they go through past and present are anything but wholesome. It is a hellish place, and that makes the tale even more gripping.
Cross Game
Cross Game is likely lost in the sea of more popular sports anime like Haikyuu and Kuroko’s Basketball, but it is still a staple. It tells cat and dog relationship type of story between a boy that hates baseball despite a good batting ability and a girl who loves baseball despite having no professional prospects due to her gender. Their relationship is catalyzed by the girl’s little sister whom the boy has a crush on.
Like all Adachi sports series, a legendary sports mangaka who wrote the original Cross Game, the series is one just as much about the growth of the characters and their struggles as it is about the sport.
Baccano
There was a time when Baccano had feverish popularity, and then Funimation lost the licensing rights and now it is a series well on its way to fading from memory. Like the currently still streaming series by the same author Durarara, Baccano tells a frenetic story of many characters in different times and places that seem unrelated right up until every string weaves together into a cohesive rope.
Narita, the light novel’s author, does that weaving better than anyone else out there. While Durarara is good, Baccano is a special experience as well.
One Outs
I’ll admit, I find a lot of sports anime kind of same-y. You can make up a sport even, but the plot will almost always mirror the two standard sports plots that most sports anime follow. One Outs was a completely different beast. It follows a player in the titular fictional sport that is like baseball but only between a batter and pitcher. It then heaps in an interesting element of gambling where the cocky main character bets that every out he pitches nets him five million yen, but every hit loses him fifty million. It transforms an average sports series into a series about gambling with a strong emphasis on psychological manipulation.
Nodame Cantabile
Romance anime is a genre that doesn’t undergo too much change, nor do fans demand that it does. However, the best romance anime focus on something more than just relationship drama. When romance anime was drowning in a sea of the same romance drama done over and over again, there was Nodame Cantabile who dared to tell a romance story where the dominate drama was the character’s struggle with music as an art form.
What is most enjoyable is these characters grow close over time, which means they also grow to support each other in their differing musical career aspirations.
Hyouge Mono
Hyouge Mono is one of those series that people enjoy while airing, and then promptly forget about forever. I, however, won’t forget. I won’t forget this series that set itself in the Warring States period of Japan and dared to tell a story about a samurai passionate about tea ceremony rather than another story about a samurai on the battlefield.
It was so unique and expertly highlights that samurai often pursued many artistic hobbies outside of martial arts.
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei was always a bit of a cult hit, but by the time it reaches its last season, it had captured a lot of attention. Like most anime that deigns to give us an actual conclusive ending, much of the fandom has forgotten it now. Since you can’t stream it, I guess it might stay that way.
Regardless, this series about a despairing school teacher who frequently tries to kill himself is a master at dark humor, and, by the end, the series takes a magnificent turn in a way I never expected.
Aoi Bungaku
Admittedly, there probably isn’t a big demand for this series that adapts several Japanese literature stories into short animated arcs. Still, to get a tastes of a classic through anime is a good recipe to entice people to seek out the classics themselves.
If you have any interest in Japanese literature, hunt this one down. Even if you do not, each arc explores a story filled with emotion of every flavor, something which makes each story distinctly memorable.
Do you know more anime that you simply cannot find anywhere to stream? Well, I’m sorry for that, but probably leave it in the comments section below so people can commiserate.
