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The Mike Toole Show - Stream Warriors


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Kicksville



Joined: 20 Nov 2010
Posts: 1168
PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 3:07 pm Reply with quote
Oh boy, I remember my sadness and resigned lack of surprise when I couldn't get Patlabor to stream properly from Toonami Reactor on my family's 1995 Packard Bell.
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belvadeer





PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 3:16 pm Reply with quote
I do remember when both Reactor and Jetstream started up when both were advertised on the Toonami block back then (who could forget all that Daft Punk bumper tagging). I never utilized either service, though, due to having a slow-as-molasses computer at the time.
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Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
Posts: 5406
Location: Iscandar
PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 3:23 pm Reply with quote
I subscribed to Crunchyroll on March 2012 and have remained with them for all these years. I also subscribed to Funimation for a while, but I dropped it when they ceased to do subbed simulcasts. I also subscribe to Anime Strike and HIDIVE, but I may drop them soon.

Ideally I would like for Crunchyroll to have all simulcasts, but that is not feasible. What I want to see is CR get 75% of all simulcasts and for Sentai to stop using Amazon and pick up 10-12 new shows per season and stream them on HIDIVE. I am not against Amazon and Netflix being involved, but they should keep their hands away from simulcasts of late night Japanese tv anime series and instead just focus on funding truly original anime.
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Parsifal24





PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 3:34 pm Reply with quote
I remember the Neon Ally ads from when I'd buy a Viz Manga and at the time I didn't see the point at signing up for it. I liked Daisuki sure the video player had lag issues but I got to watch Bottle Fairy and Gundam Unicorn and won a Tales of Zestiria poster and it was the first streaming service I paid a subscription for.

I like finding a vein of old or obscure titles on streaming services HiDive is pretty good for that as I've now got The Skull Man, A Little Snow Fairy Sugar, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and Space Runaway Ideon in my queue. Hulu used to be really good for that before it wen subscription and purged it's library .

I was "out" of Anime Fandom for most of the early 2000s so I was not around for Anime streaming's infancy. Crunchyroll's genesis as a pirate website has always struck me as a little funny. I like it as a service even if the online social media presence of some of it's employees is a little cringe.

As far as finding obscure DVDs go for me I have a used CD store that's occasional fun to browse but it's weird collections of stuff like episodes 7-10 of Betterman on one DVD or huge boxsets of My-Hime or Girls Bravo it can be kind of fun like excavating a cultural archaeological dig of old Anime titles . Although I did get the RahXephon box set for $40 and Doomed Megalopolis for a good price.

Mostly if I buy DVDs I get them through Amazon, I got Welcome To The NHK and Speed Grapher (which is better than people make it out to be) for $40 thanks to both being put out on Funimation's S.A.V.E Edition line.
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Primus



Joined: 01 Mar 2006
Posts: 2758
Location: Toronto
PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 4:11 pm Reply with quote
I was too young to know what Sputnik7 was and being a Canadian kid, I had little familiarity with the Toonami brand to check out Reactor. Though, I seem to feel like Toonami Jetstream was an early point of region blocking frustration for me. By that point I think I was reading Shonen Jump, ANN and forums, so that's probably what tipped me off.

My first legit streaming experience probably came from 4Kids.tv or one of Funimation/Manga/Anime Village's YouTube channels. I remember being a part of when 4Kids live streamed the first Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monsters DTV online. I also remember YTV.com streaming a bit of Pandalian.

edit: Looking at my join date on this site, yeah, I was definitely reading ANN and posting on forums by then. Laughing
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BodaciousSpacePirate
Subscriber



Joined: 17 Apr 2015
Posts: 3017
PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 4:20 pm Reply with quote
I remember using Sputnik7 to watch a whole bunch of trashy ninja anime, and then figuring out the videos' direct URL addresses (and writing them all down on a piece of paper!) so I could watch them in RealPlayer rather than in-browser.

At some point I forgot all about the site (I was going off to college around that time, and college meant being able to watch anime off of other people's computers on the campus network) and the next time I thought to check, the site had gone the way of the dodo.
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Takkun4343



Joined: 19 Jul 2007
Posts: 1493
Location: Englewood, Ohio
PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 5:00 pm Reply with quote
Ah, online legal streaming. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have my share of memories surrounding it. My first foray into it had to be [adult swim]'s on-site video service, where I watched a few episodes of Eureka seveN before their premieres (episode 50, I watched in its full uncut glory days before the infamous "Eureka Severed" incident), the final episode of Death Note, and episode 14 of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood in a series of individual clips after my VCR failed to record the show as it usually did one week.

After that came Anime Network's online service. I watched the first six episodes of Air Gear and the first five of Kurau: Phantom Memory before the site's inability to load anything forced me to give it up. By the time I came back to it, both shows were off the service, but in that return trip, I managed to watch and finish Divergence Eve, Misaki Chronicles and Mezzo DSA. Tangentially related was my watching of the first 12 episodes of Welcome to the NHK! on Crunchyroll before the show's licensing changeover from ADV to FUNimation resulted in it being taken down. It was a sad day.

I barely remember Funico by name, but I remember watching BLOOD-C and Guilty Crown on their services. I made it a priority to watch each episode of the former twice; once to actually watch it, and again to read all the hilarious mocking comments inputted by the other users (and contribute to them, too).

There were several anime I watched on Crunchyroll after it got big and Hulu also, and recently I've been using Netflix to watch Kuromukuro and Your Lie in April. If they have the episodes, I plan on using it to finally put the original Naruto's Filler Hell to bed sometime next year, alongside checking out Devilman crybaby and B: The Beginning.

And that's pretty much all there is for me to say.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
Posts: 23667
PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 5:14 pm Reply with quote
Very interesting summary of the early days of streaming. I would have first streamed something back in 2009 when I got into anime in a big way. Chances are excellent that whatever that first title was it wasn't hosted on a legit site. I can't remember what my first legit stream would have been. It was either off Crunchy or off of ANN which used to host videos. Actually, come to think of it, Mike forgot to mention ANN's incredibly brief foray into simulcasting. I believe OreImo was one of the titles. Boy that didn't last long. I believe that both Shangri-La and Saki which ran on Crunchyroll in the spring of 2009 were my first legit simulcasting streaming experiences.
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Weazul-chan



Joined: 10 May 2005
Posts: 625
Location: Michigan
PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 6:07 pm Reply with quote
I remember TRYING to watch the Lodoss War TV on Toonami Reactor. between the low quality and being on dialup still it was terrible and I couldn't stand it. I appreciated the attempt, but the internet really just wasn't quite ready for something like that at that time.
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lostbirdinatree





PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 6:31 pm Reply with quote
I actually want things to go back to being on Crunchyroll or my legal streaming sublicensor of Funi + most other anime. Amazon and Netflix mean that you can't watch some shows without scaling that paywall and Hidive's locked away its season 2s and past season "exclusives" behind a paywall as well (dangit, Classicaloid, Kabukibu and Hozuki no Reitetsu!).

I'm a fairly new entrant, legal streaming-wise. My first legal stream was Gugure! Kokkuri-san on Crunchyroll, although I'd taken a look at the Funi dub of the first episode of Kuroshitsuji on my local legal streaming site briefly before it (but since I only listened to a few minutes, that doesn't count). I distinctly remember Neo Angelique Abyss on Crunchyroll was the first backlog show I tackled via legal streams, because I achieved "first dropped show" with it as well. Had I given into the hype, I would've watched Parasyte's anime as it aired. That reminds me - I still need to get back to it...
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
Posts: 3767
PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 8:25 pm Reply with quote
I actually started my anime streaming experience legally on Hulu, with Bleach in late 2009 I believe. As my interest expanded, the legal streaming options weren't quite satisfactory and let's say I found other options. I was aware of CR at that time, but that wasn't long after they purged their catalog, and it was naturally very modest as a result, so I passed on it at the time. I did return to legal streaming in 2012, when after dropping my Netflix subscription (which I resumed later), I figured instead of just cutting that expense entirely, I would replace it with a subscription that I would use. CR came to mind and I've been a member ever since (five years two days ago).

I had a Anime Network subscription in 2013 to watch Tamako Market and Sasami@Ganbaranai, but I dropped it after they stopped getting exclusives that I wanted, though I reluctantly resumed it earlier this year to get Rinne's third season. Thankfully it was quickly replaced by the more functional and better designed HIDIVE.

I started out as a free member of Funi but I subscribed once they started making their simulcasts subscriber only for a week to match CR's model, in 2014 I believe, for Buddy Complex among others. Like others, I dropped it after it went dub only.

While it wasn't the best, I didn't find Daisuki so troublesome. It usually had a couple shows that I wanted to watch (Monogatari Second Season was a real coup) and my biggest complaint was they didn't have a Roku app. It was also the place where I got my first figures so I can't hold it in such ill regard.

The Omakase box was interesting, so I got the first box (Kill la kill), but I wasn't really interested in getting a loot box every month and they never really got any exclusive simulcasts, so I ended up dropping it by the next set. It would have been better if they had a subscription without the loot box, as the box made it a bit expensive, but without exclusive simulcasts, I don't know that I would have kept it anyways.

I've subscribed to Prime since Kabaneri (though I had a Student membership for a year in college) and got Strike when it started. While I don't think the double paywall is advisable, it has been worth the price so far and it does have a place in the industry in my opinion, getting stuff like Nanoha and Garden of Sinners streaming.

I do vaguely recall Jetstream from when I watched Toonami when I was younger, but I never visited the site as I didn't use the internet very much at that age.
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Kadmos1



Joined: 08 May 2014
Posts: 13540
Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP
PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 8:25 pm Reply with quote
I've been a member of Crunchyroll since 11/27/2007. So, I saw a lot of shows during their pirated-stream era. I also enjoyed Jetstream.
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Flah



Joined: 18 May 2014
Posts: 25
PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 9:06 pm Reply with quote
Ah, Sputnik7. The service that introduced me to such classics as Gunbuster, Giant Robo, and Wings of Honneamise. And such wonderful pieces of trash as Angel Cop, Mad Bull 34, and Violence Jack.

I remember they started to show the first few episodes of Armored Trooper Votoms when they decided to up and dump their entire anime catalogue in favour of music videos. In hindsight, I should have realized it wouldn't last.
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ninjamitsuki



Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Posts: 589
Location: Anywhere (Thanks, technology)
PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 9:27 pm Reply with quote
I remember Gaia Online had a short-lived anime streaming feature around 2007 or 2008 where you could sample the first few episodes of select Funimation titles in a virtual movie theater while chatting/MSTing/throwing popcorn at the screen.
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v1cious



Joined: 31 Dec 2002
Posts: 6199
Location: Houston, TX
PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 10:41 pm Reply with quote
Glad to see someone finally acknowledge Crunchyroll's shady past. What's even worse is the old Crunchyroll wasn't as generous as it is now. The original was a full-on subscription service where you paid to watch fansubs. It's a wonder nobody went down for that. Crunchyroll is proof that crime does sometimes pay.
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