Each year, anime fans anxiously await news of what manga or light novel is getting an adaptation or what completely new show their favorite director/studio is creating. But there is still a lot of fondness for older anime series. Not just stuff from the previous decade but shows that were made when Generation Xers and Millennials were kids. Stuff like Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon are still immensely popular and still are getting adaptations, and other series like The Rose of Versailles and Fist of the North Star have dedicated fanbases.
But for those of you who love anime from these generations will be excited by the latest streaming service: RetroCrush.
RetroCrush
According to its LinkedIn, “Digital Media Rights is a premiere digital media and advertising company” that was founded in 2010. It works with partners and licenses content for itself to distribute and manage video content. Digital Media Rights operates five on-demand channels: AsianCrush (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean shows), Cocoro (kids), KMTV (K-pop), Midnight Pulp (horror and sci-fi), and Yuyu (international and indie).
AsianCrush, Cocoro, and Midnight Pulp feature anime and includes series and movies like Fushigi Yugi, Jungle Emperor Leo, Tenjho Tenge, and Pop Team Epic.
Now, Digital Media Rights has launched another platform called RetroCrush. RetroCrush features anime from the 70s, 80s, and 90s available to stream for free with ads.
The service has been hinted at or promoted for a while (their YouTube channel has been uploading stuff for almost a year), but it officially launched at the end of March.
Most of their titles are gathered from Digital Media Rights’ other services, and some are available on other platforms (Crunchyroll for instance). The list of shows include Creamy Mami, Cromartie High School, DearS, Flame of Recca, Gakuen Heaven, GodMars, GTO, Otaku no Video, Samurai Pizza Cats, Ultramaniac, Vampire Princess Miyu, and the three aforementioned series. Most titles have both subbed and dubbed versions available. According to Anime News Network, RetroCrush will add titles that haven’t been available to stream outside Japan, and among their current partners are Discotek Media, TMS, NHK, and Studio Pierrot. They also list some upcoming titles like Cat’s Eye and Itazura na Kiss.
While most of Digital Media Rights’ other services have the ability to watch shows from your browser, RetroCrush is currently limited to streaming on Apple and Android apps along with Roku and Fire TV devices. It is also currently only available in the US and Canada, although they hope to open it up to other markets as well as add a browser player.
Testing Out RetroCrush
So I downloaded RetroCrush on my iPad to try it.
The app can only be viewed in landscape mode. I am not a fan of apps that force you into one view, but at least you can rotate either way. The app seemed easy to browse, although maybe a bit busy with the scrolling large banners at the top. I’d rather the posters for each series to be a little larger instead. There’s a “Trending Now”, “New Arrivals”, and A-Zs groupings on the main page, or you can browse by genre either here or by accessing “Browse Genre” in the menu. I think it would also be neat to have an option to browse by decade.
The IGN article boasts of “more than 100 series and 40 features at launch”, but if you group related series together (like the various Fushigi Yugi seasons/OVAs as one), I counted about 80 titles. Still, it was nice to see some variety, from sweet, all-ages fare to mature, ecchi content and historical to futuristic. Definitely a focus on fantasy fare though, although perhaps that’s unsurprising. The more modern titles (00s) did tend to stand out while browsing versus the more dated designs and animation style of 90s and earlier anime. Again, this is where a “browse by decade” option would be nice. Nothing wrong with modern anime, but sometimes, users just may want to experience or relive a decade, just as how there are 70s parties or music albums of the 80s.
So I tested two episodes. First, I started with Ultra Maniac episode 1. The episode is listed as 23 minutes, 45 seconds long. I started the episode at 8:57 and finished at 9:25, so about four minutes worth of ads. There were three commercial breaks, two ads in the first break and four in the other two. Out of those ten ads, six of those were the exact same one for AsianCrush (including twice one right after the other), and three of the same KMTV ad. The odd one out was for something called Mask Moments. The stream was steady and smooth. After finishing, it showed the next episode and eventually started episode 2 with another ad for — you guessed it — AsianCrush.
Then, Flame of Recca episode 1. It’s 23 minutes, 11 seconds long, and I started at 9:38. Again, it opened with an AsianCrush commercial…and that was it. I finished at 10:02. However, this time, all I got was a blank grey screen after the episode was finished. Don’t know if I ran into some kind of glitch that made me miss the required ad breaks or what.
Either way, assuming that commercials run four minutes or less, that’s not bad for a streaming site that doesn’t require payment or even a membership. Just hope they’ll include more ads besides the repeated AsianCrush!
I also like how their YouTube page is already filled with trailers, clips, and “best of” moments from their series, which is a nice way to pass the time when you need a quick smile or nostalgia trip.
Final Thoughts
I am excited to see a site devoted to these older titles. While Crunchyroll, HIDIVE, Funimation, and others do have some 70s-90s anime, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by all the latest hot things and for these older titles to get lost in the crowd. Plus, it’s great that this is a free service, although it’s possible it will follow AsianCrush’s footsteps and have an ad-free paid version ($4.99 a month for AsianCrush). Perhaps then they’ll be able to team up with more studios, particularly Toei since they made several classic series that would be a good fit. Marmalade Boy, for instance, has just been added to Crunchyroll and is also a Discotek Media release. Plus, and the author’s adaptation of her Ultra Maniac series is already on RetroCrush.
Regardless, I’m looking forward to what other new-to-streaming series and movies RetroCrush will acquire.