by Chris McDonald | staff writer
Viz Media’s Neon Alley service aims to provide anime enthusiasts with a concentrated helping of dubbed and uncut anime and martial arts movies via any Playstation 3 console with an internet connection.
The service has a monthly fee comparable to that of movie streaming giant Netflix, but instead acts as a television station solely dedicated to anime and the occasional martial arts flick (it even has a built in programming guide, which is rather useful). The most interesting feature of Neon Alley, however, is undoubtedly the fact that its the only place to watch newly dubbed episodes of shows previously lacking a proper North American release. Titles like Tiger & Bunny, InuYasha: The Final Chapter, and Blue Exorcist are being shown in syndication in a fashion identical to that of a normal television station.
While the stream quality itself is mostly good, I do have a few gripes with its reliability. Often times, I’d find myself utterly frustrated because the stream would freeze, or I’d have to relaunch the app altogether from my Playstation’s XMB. That issue aside, Neon Alley is easy to use and airs some great shows, with new movies premiering every couple of weeks (most recently of which was Bleach: Fade to Black).
Considering its cheap monthly price ($6.99/month) and the promise of a channel that exclusively airs anime around the clock, most viewers could do a whole lot worse than Neon Alley (especially if you don’t like reading subtitles).
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Tags: dubbed, neon alley, neon alley review, Viz Media
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Sound the troll alarm, non assholes man your stations
[...] AX: Review: Neon Alley [PS3 App], Interview Brian Age [VP of Animation, Viz [...]
Dubs vs. subs doesn’t matter to me or most of my friends. After doing a quick search of each series, it seems all of their titles are available on Hulu Plus, except subtitled. Does this service have commercials? That is the only thing I could think of to serve as a benefit to balance the drawback of not being able to watch when I want to. Also, it doesn’t seem like there’s any way to record things to watch later like most TV services would let you do now. The inclusion of movies is very cool, but they seem to have mostly movies of two of the shonen big three scheduled. It would be nice to see some more variety.
only 1 buck cheaper than Netflix, I can’t choose what I want to watch and you are screwing the VAs and the fans by not releasing dubs on DVD? Pass. Can’t see this thing lasting very long. Another bad idea by Viz, fun times.
to answer your inquiry, it does infact have commercials….sometimes too many of them; worse still, is the fact that its literally like 3 different commercials that just kinda loop for that month. It was annoying and it takes more bandwidth to run than netflix or hulu, resulting in a less stable service.