11 Best Anime You Can Stream Completely Free of Charge Right Now
Go subscription-free with these streaming titles
Anime is more widely accessible than ever before. Platforms like Crunchyroll and HIDIVE have established a monopoly over the market, while Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and Disney+ are doing their utmost to keep up. Maintaining paid subscriptions to more than one streaming giant can be a hassle, not to mention expensive.
Fortunately, there are alternatives. Free, ad-supported platforms like Pluto TV, RetroCrush, Tubi, and Roku offer surprisingly diverse anime libraries without requiring paid subscriptions. It might be tempting to disregard these somewhat overlooked options, but you will be surprised to discover titles like My Deer Friend Nokotan, Tenjho Tenge, and Ranma ½ tucked somewhere between genre staples such as Pokémon and Death Note. To that end, here are 11 anime worth checking out that you can stream for free.
11 The Rose of Versailles
Where to watch: Pluto TV, RetroCrush
Riyoko Ikeda’s The Rose of Versailles is a groundbreaking manga that dissects gender nonconformity and political revolution. Its 1979 anime adaptation follows Oscar François de Jarjayes, a young female commander of the Royal Guards at the Palace of Versailles. Similar to Sapphire in Princess Knight, Oscar is raised like a man for succession reasons, and her exceptional swordsmanship helps Oscar become a bodyguard to none other than Marie Antoinette. The Palace of Versailles soon becomes a symbol of empty opulence, with Antoinette’s reckless actions creating a divide between her and the restless, starving populace. Oscar is caught in the crosshairs of duty and justice, and the Rose of Versailles maps this grounded political drama with great verve and complexity.
10 JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure
Where to watch: Pluto TV, Tubi
The Joestar family might be the beating heart of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, but this wonderful anime stands out due to its signature eccentricity. Even before mangaka Hirohiko Araki adopted the concept of Stands in the ongoing story, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure brought fresh ideas to the quintessential conflict between good and evil. Each installment of JoJo mimics a different genre, allowing it to switch between one-locating settings (Diamond Is Unbreakable) and globe-trotting adventures (Stardust Crusaders) with ease. No matter how sprawling or contained the stakes might be, Araki’s vivid worldbuilding — which liberally draws from Western rock and haute couture — makes these battle-driven adventures feel innately special.
9 Vampire Knight
Where to watch: Tubi
If you’re a fan of gothic romance and vampire horror, Vampire Knight might help scratch the itch for toxic desire in supernatural fiction. The story takes place in Cross Academy, where two batches of students come to study: the Day Class of humans, and the Night Class of vampires. Yuki, the adoptive daughter of the headmaster, must do her duty to protect Day Class students and hide the truth about the vampiric Night Class. While the academy strives for peaceful co-existence, Vampire Knight exposes the deep-seated biases that lead to inevitable conflict. The element of forbidden romance heightens this clouded perspective, drawing a stark contrast between human restraint and vampiric instinct.
8 Sailor Moon
Where to watch: Pluto TV, Tubi
Sailor Moon requires no introduction. The superhero anime revolutionized the magical girl genre while embracing the most relatable aspects of teenage growing pains and the enduring bonds formed during this time. Set in Tokyo in the 1990s, the story follows a 14-year-old schoolgirl named Usagi, who is able to transform into the magical alter ego Sailor Moon after meeting a talking cat named Luna. This classic escapist fantasy lets Usagi temporarily forget about the toils of adolescence — instead, she becomes friends with other Sailor Guardians, who team up with her to defeat evil using their cosmic powers. When not preoccupied with such fantastical events, Sailor Moon embraces the slice-of-life mundanity of navigating school crushes and stressing over bad grades.
7 Kaiba
Where to watch: Pluto TV
Apart from boasting breathtaking animation, Kaiba uses its strange, dystopian world to tell a moving tale about self-discovery. In this reality, memories can live on even after a person dies, allowing their minds to be transferred to another body. This obviously comes with downsides, making identity theft and memory manipulation more commonplace than ever. We follow Kaiba, who wakes up with no memories while sporting a hole in his chest, holding a locket and a picture of an unknown girl. While Kaiba is keen to understand whether a person with implanted memories can have a soul, it is also a scathing critique of late-stage capitalism and its commodification of the human experience. These philosophical questions are posed over 12 episodes that patiently tackle the fluid nature of identity.
6 Naruto
Where to watch: Tubi, Pluto TV, Roku
Part of the “big three” of anime alongside One Piece and Bleach, Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto is pure shonen brilliance. This coming-of-age tale is about a young ninja named Naruto Uzumaki, whose socially isolated formative years are tempered by the determination to become the leader of his village. Naruto’s arc undoubtedly benefits from the power of friendship, but his growth is primarily fueled by the fear of losing his dear friend, Sasuke Uchiha. Naruto proves that it’s possible for children shaped by trauma to break the cycles of hatred that bind them, as empathy and forgiveness are necessary emotions they must invest in. Although suffering is an inescapable part of life, Naruto urges its characters to keep going and never give up.
5 Terror in Resonance
Where to watch: Tubi, RetroCrush
Shinichirō Watanabe might be best known for Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, but his 11-episode psychological thriller, Terror in Resonance, is a masterclass in suspense. Working with an alternative interpretation of the present, Terror in Resonance follows teenagers Nine and Twelve, who steal an atomic bomb during a terrorist attack. Their motivations aren’t clear at first, as their threats to blow up Tokyo don’t come with any ransom requests. Instead, they offer a complicated riddle, which needs to be solved before it is too late. Soon, it becomes clear that Nine and Twelve are victims of a broken system that robbed them of their childhood innocence without thought. Watanabe uses fear as a contagion to tell this bleak story, urging us to rethink what we know about institutional corruption and apathy.
4 Hunter x Hunter
Where to watch: Roku, Tubi
The world of Hunter x Hunter is home to rare treasures and dangerous monsters, which are tracked and claimed by elite individuals known as Hunters. A child named Gon discovers that his father, who abandoned him when he was younger, is a world-famous Hunter who has accomplished incredible feats. Eager to become a Hunter and reunite with his father, Gon takes part in the perilous Hunter Exam, where he befriends Kurapika, Leorio, and Killua, each with their own goals. As the kids grapple with fresh threats and are forced to learn survival strategies, Hunter x Hunter deconstructs the psychological toll obsessive ambition can take. It also holds up a mirror to the alarming duality of human nature, which is capable of both profound compassion and cruelty.
3 Terra Formars
Where to watch: Tubi
In Terra Formars, humanity takes a leap in space colonization by attempting to terraform Mars, whose soil gets seeded with modified algae and dead cockroaches to maximize yield. Roughly 500 years later, a crew of six experts is attacked by giant, mutated cockroaches as soon as their craft lands on Mars. Scientists back on Earth are alerted about this crisis before this crew is killed, prompting the need to send genetically modified humans on missions to exterminate these mutated creatures. Terra Formars asks whether humanity is equipped to combat the unpredictable pace of evolution or deal with the consequences of irresponsible biological engineering. As humans are forced to undergo a high-risk genetic procedure to improve their odds against the creatures, questions about the cruel cost of survival are posed.
2 Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
Where to watch: Tubi, Roku
An alternate continuity set in the world of Ghost in the Shell, Stand Alone Complex also follows the special operations task force, Public Security Section 9, who tackle cybercrime and terrorism in New Port City. Field commander Motoko Kusanagi and her team are in pursuit of The Laughing Man, a hacktivist who exposes government corruption after learning that an inexpensive cure for a disease was being hidden from the masses. While his intentions are noble, The Laughing Man’s use of extreme extortion measures makes him a viral symbol of rebellion, inspiring several copycats. In keeping with the themes of Ghost in the Shell, Stand Alone Complex also tackles the fragile individual-versus-system dynamic, along with the rampant institutional corruption gripping New Port City.