What was KissAnime ?? Like I mentioned above it is/was a service to stream anime illegitimately, while it was something that many abused, what I saw was always something that was a "necessary" evil. Why do I say that ? Two reasons. Reason one is KissAnime kept massive backlogs of classic anime: if you wanted to watch old episodes of Detective Conan, the original Gundam, Astro Boy, etc. they are all on there. The other reason is KissAnime provided something important to anime fans everywhere and that is for many countries outside of Japan, there are A LOT of shows, fantastic shows, we are denied the ability to watch because they are never brought to any of the big services. A lot of shows are never on these so called "services", in fact, I'd say they can be more of an inconvenience sometimes; how can you call yourself an anime service when you're not willing to try and get as many contracts as you can. Well recently, KissAnime was shut down, which technically puts an end to all this.
Well KissAnime's death follows semi-in the wake of Toei Animation and several other big Japanese anime studios announcing they'd be putting up shows for free on a YouTube channel. Well that's fantastic news !!!! Right ??
Wrong.
Let's look at what Toei and these other studios are doing, while they haven't said officially that they'd be pulling out of companies like Crunchyroll and FUNimation, it's heavily implied that it makes sense for them to do so as it was their plan for this YouTube site. When it comes to Crunchyroll and FUNimation why would both of those services continue to purchase licenses from companies who might throw that stuff up for free and why would the anime companies sell it to begin with anymore ??
Which leads to my rabbit hole issue. This new free site is going to cripple those two companies, one's which kept an "archive" of the licensed anime they had from these Japanese studios. Who was the only other site that kept an archive of anime.......KissAnime. We have absolutely no guarantee whatsoever that this new Japanese website will load all of their old stuff on there as they might just wish to stay current and seasonal and then delete the old videos. Without KissAnime to have that old backlog, with this website coming along that will most likely smash Crunchyroll and FUNimation's business.......where exactly will that old anime be ??
In the void, gone forever, because one thing is certain the industry is terrible at releasing via DVD and Bluray collections of their shows; maybe it's different in the East but in the West IF they do they are also at exorbitant prices. Which I have no problem paying from time to time on top of my 14.99/month Crunchyroll and 8.99/month FUNimation but I know what all that gets me; access to everything they have and new things that they get. IF or WHEN this new website destroys these two companies because you can't compete with free......gone will be the ability to watch commercial free anime, gone will be the ability to look up old shows and discover things you missed. Will you have KissAnime to fall back on anymore when that happens ?? Unfortunately no.
So while Toei Animation and I believe Kyoto Animation and two others have the best intentions in mind for this product of theirs, I think it will be nothing but damaging to the anime community in the West, where things are already difficult to come by.
That's just my two cents though......feel free to think different, especially my thoughts on KissAnime. Because as far as opinions go just remember what Uzaki-chan says.