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Piracy is baked into anime's past, but, like Crunchyroll, we should move on from it [Popverse Jump]

It used to be very hard to get new anime to watch without flying the black flag. Now? We've got more legit anime than we know what to do with.

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Image credit: Toei Animation/ Popverse

Anime has been popular in the US for a lot longer than many people realize. Sailor Moon’s original DIC dub came out in 1995 and soon joined Dragon Ball Z on Toonami a few years later. And let’s not forget that Speed Racer was a cultural icon as far back as the 1960s. However, American anime fans usually had two options – they could either be satisfied with the small offering of shows that ended up on broadcast TV, or they could pay an often-extortionate amount of money for the home video releases.

Did I say two options? I meant three, because many anime fans felt they were forced to hoist the sails and pirate anime to get their fix. It is something that is baked into the fandom even today, when sites like Crunchyroll give us more legitimate anime than we could ever hope to

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Trent Cannon

Trent Cannon: Trent is a freelance writer who has been covering anime, video games, and pop culture for a decade. (He/Him)

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