You know, it amazes me sometimes how many people really are clueless of what is being simulcasted. “Oh, FUNi is doing RAINBOW?” And while the spring season is coming to an end and the summer will be taking off in just a few more weeks, here’s a run down at what is currently being simulcasted straight from Japan.

FUNimation:

FUNi decided to jump on the simulcast train more than a few seasons ago originally picking up PHANTOM and Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. Both were delayed a few days from their Japanese airdate, and since then, FUNimation has learned that to have a successful simulcast you need to get it out as soon as possible.  They’ve recently even gone as far as to license a whole program block of anime from Fuji TV known as Noitamina which has hosted shows such as Nodame Cantabile, Honey & Clover, and Eden of the East.

• Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood – Every Thursday at 12:00 Central
• One Piece – Every Saturday at 9:00pm Central
• The Tatami Galaxy – Every Thursday at 11:45am Central
• The House of Five Leaves – Every Thursday at 12:30pm Central
• RAINBOW – Every Monday at 12:00pm Central

Every simulcast, aside from FMA, streams an hour after the air date in Japan — how awesome is that? One Piece can be found at http://onepieceofficial.com, while everything else at FUNimation’s personal video site. All episodes can then be found on sources like Hulu and Youtube a week or so after their initial streaming date. Tatami and Five Leaves actually stream first day on Hulu, which is another first for FUNimation. One thing needs to be noted though: since FUNimation is an American company, they rarely are able to obtain licenses outside of North America, and even in some cases, they can only get it for the United States. This does section out a lot of the world, and is one thing that still is keeping fansubs going, but at least they are trying. I’m sure we will continue to see more simulcasts from them. Who calls Basara 2 and maybe some more Noitamina for the summer?

CrunchyRoll:

CR is the original simulcast forerunner. Starting back in early 2009 when they made the shift from illegal video site to hosting legal videos from Toei such as Slam Dunk and Digimon 02, Crunchyroll has continued to up the bar on how streaming video should be done. Now doing a whopping 13 weekly simulcasts for shows such as Bleach, Naruto, and Fairy Tail in sparkling HD, CR will continue to expand as the years go by (or so I hope).

• Naruto Shippuden – Thursday at 7:00am
• Bleach – Tuesday at 7:00am
• REBORN! –  Friday at 10:30am
• Fairy Tail – Monday at 7:00am
• Kaasan – Mom’s Life – Wednesday at 6:30am
• Yumeiro Patissiere – Saturday at 4:00pm
• Durarara – Friday at 2:00pm
• HEROMAN – Thursday at 6:00am
• Ichiban Ushiro no Daimao – Friday at 2:00pm
• Uraboku – Monday at 12:00pm
• Shin Koihime Musou Otome Tairan – Friday at 2:00pm
• Giant Killing – Sunday at 11:30pm
• Lilpri – Friday at 8:30

Like FUNimation’s newer simulcasts, every episode begins to stream an hour after they broadcast in Japan. However, to view CR’s streams at that hour, you have to become a member by paying their certain fee they charge. Of course, you could always wait a week for when that episode becomes free to view, but really, who wants to wait a week and watch something LQ when you can pay a few dollars and watch it right then and there in HD? C’mon people.

AnimeNetwork:

Not to be confused with AnimeNewsNetwork, the AnimeNetwork is the last and the smallest of the groups of current simulcasters. They’ve only have done one show, and it’s a show that CR does as well — Ichiban Ushiro no Daimao, or Demon King Daimao as they call it. I’m not sure why they were given/got a show that CR did as well (it certainly was the best choice for a first simulcast), but they did. I thought I would talk about them even if that’s the only thing they’ve done so far… and might be forever. I personally can’t see them doing anything worthwhile in the future. They are currently barely staying up with their “Premium” service which is just streams of old ADV shows for the most part. I personally haven’t checked out their streaming site, but it seems to have some decent perks such as hosting the English dub for Clannad.

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I hope to see that simulcasts will continue to grow over the coming seasons, and with three companies now taking their own grabs at the titles out there, I could definitely see every legitimate anime title airing in a season having an official simulcast. CR already takes half of them, FUNi is picking up more than a few now, so if AnimeNetwork jumps on it, I’m sure everything will be fine and dandy. Will this stop fansubs? Of course not. Will this help mend the problems that fansubs bring to the anime companies out there? Not really, but it does slightly help… which is more than just sitting around and letting fansubs run rampant as they had begun to do over a year ago. With legal means of watching the newest anime episode instantly for free out and running now, companies have now begun to attack scanlations. That’s a whole ‘nother discussion, which I won’t start here, but hopefully everything ends well for the manga world.