Animax - Bunch of Jokers

Completely agree with Rui.

Frankly I don't use Animax for two reasons right now:

(1 Perhaps the most important reason for me personally, they always seem to be a few days behind everyone else, which makes me resent them having their 'simulcasts'. Not all the people I know will watch shows legally unless Crunchyroll have them, and being behind my friends is frankly always going to be annoying. It hinders discussion and gives me more time to run across spoilers. I wouldn't mind too much if they even just had a set time and day for the episodes going up, but more often than not it's completely at random with little to no warning which also makes it very easy to miss episodes going up and fall behind enough to miss out on watching the episodes for free.

(2 The site is pretty impossible to get around when you're looking for something. A quick glance just now at the simulcasts page and none of the episodes have their show listed, and a couple are completely without names. The screencap they use doesn't always make it obvious which show is which either, leaving me completely lost at the very least for the first 3-6 episodes.

As someone who has already seen most of the shows Animax offer as part of their paid-for service, I'm only interested in the simulcasts, of which they handle very poorly. I'm more than happy to watch stuff legally with Wakanim, Crunchyroll and Daisuki, but you have to have the site usable and have your episodes up somewhat on time. Wakanim stream Samurai Flamenco and quite often Kill la Kill a day late, but I can live with that because they at least keep you informed and provide a solid service otherwise.

Animax has a lot of things to overcome really. xD
 
All good points. On the subject of Wakanim I don't mind them being a bit behind either. One day is way better than several and they/Andrew have always told us what's going on, whereas when I asked Animax about Magi they lied and told me that Thursday was the day it first aired in Japan (even though the US gets it several days earlier, huh?). Wakanim also seem to fix the flaky things faster than their competitors, though as a minor improvement I wish they could fit four episodes on their front page feed and three series in their series menu. They're currently both unable to list the full range of titles now that Space Dandy takes up two slots. It's a very minor complaint when all of their titles actually play in HD on my computer.

I kinda like the French ads, too.

R
 
Elaniel said:
Hi all,

Not sure if anyone else has had any issues with them?

I took out the free 2 week trial and was charged straight away. I've actually tried contacting them via phone 5 times and 2 times they have cut me off and the others I have been promised a call back with none coming through.

I chased up again today and was put through to someone who claims it was escalated to her and that she now has to escalate to someone else. It really shouldn't take this much hassle to deal with.

Sorry for ranting, but want to know if other's have had any issues in the past? I'm going to see it as a sign that I should stick with physical discs and not bother with streaming.
Click to expand...
I took out the deal for AoD subscribers of a two week trial and half price for the first month. I was charged £3 straight away and £5.99 exactly a month later. While they have replied to other things on Twitter, they never say anything when I bring this up. Especially annoying is since then they keep bringing out 3 month half price offers open to everyone that I can't now take advantage of - way to thank the people who have stuck with them since the ANN-hosted days (I did let my subscription lapse for the season when they had a single show though, before they went free).

Rui said:
The problem I have with them being terrible is that they license a bunch of titles with exclusivity, and they're titles the US gets to see on Crunchyroll.
Click to expand...
The titles thus far are 100% Kaze licenses so they're the ones to blame on that score.

Ath said:
I've only been to Animax's website a couple of times, and from what I've read here I see no reason to change that. It really is Anime-on-Demand 2.0, except I think they've actually made it worse. That you still get ads on simulcasts even when subscribing is absolutely ridiculous. This is precisely the wrong way of providing competition for Crunchyroll.
Click to expand...
I can't think of any measure in which AoD was not better than what we have now in terms of the technical working of the site - the My AoD screen for keeping track of what you are watching and what new episodes are available was actually pretty good - until Crunchyroll improved theirs it was actually better for a while IIRC.
 
devilrules666 said:
andrew
Click to expand...

On the Wakanim side - firstly thanks for the general positive comments! To be honest the biggest issues we're working on right now are localisation of the site and there is an eye to what platforms could be next for expansion too so watch this space - but for now my focus is on content primarily and I have some ideas for next season that shockingly don't include simulcasts for a season. Watch this space...

No comment on the Animax stuff here as it's not really my place to say.
 
Whilst download to own isn't my thing (if I'm paying for something I want a physical copy) I like Wakanim. I can deal with a 30 second ad in French at the beginning of an episode, and I think it's great that you're trying to provide that option for people who do want it. If you're trying to get stuff on Crunchyroll that'd be amazing.
 
Shiroi Hane said:
Rui said:
The problem I have with them being terrible is that they license a bunch of titles with exclusivity, and they're titles the US gets to see on Crunchyroll.
Click to expand...
The titles thus far are 100% Kaze licenses so they're the ones to blame on that score.
Click to expand...

Can't I still blame Animax on the grounds that Kaze would have had to turn to the more acceptable alternatives of Crunchyroll or Wakanim if they never existed (and indeed without Kaze they'd have no reason to exist in the first place as far as I can tell)? :D

I'm not a big Kaze fan these days either, though. They'd probably just sit on the licenses if they weren't trying to force Animax on people so we'd lose out either way. Exclusivity is annoying and Animax is a textbook case of how it stops companies having any motivation to improve their terrible service.

(Incidentally, I used to subscribe to AoD and was never offered the migration discount. Though I'm sort of glad since it sounds as though they're a bunch of thieves.)

R
 
st_owly said:
Kaze should just go die in a fire as well. After the debacle that was their Bakuman release I'm not buying anything of theirs again.
Click to expand...

The problem is they can't because they need to finish Bleach first, which should be done by late 2014/early 2015.
 
Chuu2ren episode 9. Really late (largely thanks to them spelling the title wrong at first) and packed full of typos. Disappointing. Seriously. Then again they haven't bothered announcing the episode releases of that series since episode 7, so maybe they just don't care.
 
kuuderes_shadow said:
Chuu2ren episode 9. Really late (largely thanks to them spelling the title wrong at first) and packed full of typos. Disappointing. Seriously. Then again they haven't bothered announcing the episode releases of that series since episode 7, so maybe they just don't care.
Click to expand...
Just goes to show that they are completely out of touch with their audience - much like Khazi.
I initially thought Animax could be something decent like the UK equivalent of Neon Alley with simulcasts. Turns out It's become Anime on Delay 2.0, to nobody's surprise.
 
Contrary to what some other people claim to have experienced, they got back to my complaint, so I fed them with a little list of things wanting/needing fixing. Let's see how much actually gets done.
 
More so general things, just noticed that the homepage has changed the format for showing "Free Simulcasts". Hopefully this is a sign of some more small navigation changes coming across the site.

The supported devices page also seems to hint at TV and phone apps that are "coming soon".
 
What the heck has happened with Kill La Kill episode 23 as it is saying on Wakanim homepage it will not be on there until the 28th March? Yet on their FB page it says the 24th March?

I know it has been delayed because of a holiday in Japan but they could at least agree on one date for the UK.
 
I believe the schedule is a typo. There's a belated apology on their Facebook page saying that both Kill la Kill and Samurai Flamenco will go up on Monday instead (Space Dandy went up today as planned). It's annoying that - like Animax - they only seem to post news on Facebook instead of on all of their services where people might actually see it; like say, on their actual website!

R, who hates Facebook
 
Rui said:
I believe the schedule is a typo. There's a belated apology on their Facebook page saying that both Kill la Kill and Samurai Flamenco will go up on Monday instead (Space Dandy went up today as planned). It's annoying that - like Animax - they only seem to post news on Facebook instead of on all of their services where people might actually see it; like say, on their actual website!

R, who hates Facebook
Click to expand...

Yeah I did wonder if that was error & completely agree with you on the FB thing. It's purely by chance I found their FB page & as you say there is no info at all on their actually website.
 
Rui said:
I believe the schedule is a typo. There's a belated apology on their Facebook page saying that both Kill la Kill and Samurai Flamenco will go up on Monday instead (Space Dandy went up today as planned). It's annoying that - like Animax - they only seem to post news on Facebook instead of on all of their services where people might actually see it; like say, on their actual website!

R, who hates Facebook
Click to expand...
As someone who doesn't like Facebook, I would prefer for them to get rid of the News page or replace it with a Facebook feed system if they can't be bothered updating it. They should get Facebook to send updates to Twitter too.

But then again I still think Wakanim needs their website design cleaning up.
 
Back
Top