It's the end of an era for anime viewing, as Crunchyroll is officially shutting down its ad-supported streaming tier today. After years of gradually scaling back the free catalog, the ad-supported services fully ends today, December 31st.
What this means as we head into the New Year is that you'll now need a paid membership to one of the Premium tiers currently offered to enjoy Crunchyroll's anime services. There are three options available for viewers: Fan, Mega Fan, and Ultimate Fan.
Fan is the cheapest option at $79.99/year (or $7.99/month) and offers ad-free streaming, complete access to Crunchyroll's library, and new episodes shortly after they air in Japan.
The Mega Fan ($119.99/year) and Ultimate Fan ($149.99/year) include ad-free streaming on multiple devices plus access to all content, as well as additional perks such as HD video download, offline viewing, access to the Crunchyroll Game Vault.
While Crunchyroll had been scaling back its ad-supported offerings, fans were still able to watch a number of popular anime for free with ads including Beast Tamer, Blue Lock, Chainsaw Man, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch of Mercury, My Dress-up Darling, Soul Eater, Spy x Family, and more. While many other streaming services, such as Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, and Prime Video, have ramped up their anime offerings, they all require monthly or yearly paid subscriptions as well. And despite paying monthly, even the cheapest subscription to these services include ads.
Where to watch free anime legally in 2026
Now, with all that being said, there are still some options to watch anime for free in 2026. And, for the record, we are only listing safe, legal options. We all know piracy is rampant among the anime industry, but there has been a large crackdown on that in recent months.
So if you're looking to watch free anime legally in 2026, your best option is an ad-supported free streaming service. Tubi TV and Pluto TV are among the largest free, ad-supported streaming services curently available. These offer thousands of on-demand movies, TV shows, and live channels all for without a subscription fee.
Tubi TV offers a surprisingly large catalog of anime series and movies to choose from including Yu-Gi-Oh!, Ghost in the Shell, Ranma ½, Pokemon, and more.
Pluto TV has a similarly large offering, including multiple anime-themed channels that replicate the live TV experience. Just earlier in 2025, Pluto TV announced its largest anime content refresh to date, adding over 800 hours of anime programming, including over 800 hours of programming and more than 120 movies. This included iconic titles like Inuyasha: The Final Act, Bleach: Hellverse, ZOM 100: Bucket List of the Dead, and Hunter x Hunter films joining fan-favorite classics such as the Naruto Shippuden films, Fate/Stay Night, Saiyuki Reload, and BLEACH films.
For classic anime, RetroCrush is another fantastic option offered on just about every smart device. This website/app offers mostly older vintage anime for free with ads. There is a Premium option that removes ads and provides access to a deeper library of older titles, but it's completely optional if you don't mind ads.
There's also Anime-Planet, which streams licensed anime from official partners such as HiDive, Crunchyroll, and Viki. This is probably the last option I'd go-to for free anime streaming, but the platform itself offers much more for fans including a huge manga database and fan community to interact with.
Beyond these platforms and services, YouTube hosts a selection of anime, though this depends more on the individual rights holder and distributor.
Now it's also worth noting that even though Crunchyroll is ending its free, ad-supported on-demand anime tier on its main website and app, some of this Crunchyroll content will still be accessible through these FAST channels and YouTube partnerships. Crunchyroll anime will continue to be available through free channels that you can watch on Roku, Samsung TV Plus, Pluto TV, The Roku Channel, and others. They almost certainly won't be any new episodes or simulcasts, but you can find older titles and reruns of popular shows.
It's unfortunate that Crunchyroll is pulling the plug on its ad-supported tier, but certainly not unexpected. As the anime streaming space becomes more crowded and expensive to license, ad revenue simply isn't enough to sustain the cost of anime rights. Removing the free option also increases the value of its paid plans and could justify raising the price of its paid tiers. As anime continues to become more popular, some fans worry that even Crunchyroll will begin to inject ads into its lowest-priced Fan tier, effectively forcing viewers to upgrade to Mega Fan or Ultimate Fan for completely ad-free streaming.
Bottom line, it almost certainly comes down to money. There's more money to be made with subscriptions than there is to be made with advertising, especially in 2026. So while there are free options still available, this marks a dramatic shift in the industry.