The 20+ Best Masterani.me Alternatives | Plus Master Anime Shutdown Backstory

The masterani.me (Master Anime) streaming anime site joins a long list of websites that have been shut down.

There isn’t a ton of information about the reasons. At the time of this writing, you can see there is a shutdown notice on their website:

Why Was It Shutdown?

According to One Angry Gamer, “The owners denied that it was strictly to do with DMCA or copyright infringement, but they didn’t elaborate on the reasons for the shut down.”

They did post a link to their Discord server:

https://discordapp.com/invite/xpqsVu6

So you can join that if you need a masterani.me fix.

Reaction

As you can imagine, a lot of people were upset about this shutdown:

I’m still highkey salty about the fact that https://t.co/YJjDkpUjIg is g o n e shshhshs

— 𝑠𝑜𝑝ℎ (@kyosoftbot) April 23, 2019

In more important news rip https://t.co/QECKMfLgxB 💔

— MJK (@mjkset) March 7, 2019

no more https://t.co/Y6LVx5Jak2 it will definitely be missed

— rayla (@riakyoin) March 7, 2019

Generally what happens with websites like these is that once they get really popular they get on the radar of the corporations they’re ripping the content from.

Some of these sites don’t actually host of video content but only link out to where it can be found. Regardless, we’ve seen both styles of sites get taken down and/or deindexed from Google.

What happens next is a variety of imitator sites pop up to harvest all of the traffic the original site was getting.

Often times these imitators sites use aggressive ads and even malware to exploit people Google trusted the original website.

It’s a vicious cycle, sort of like whack-a-mole where sites pop up, become popular, get destroyed and then a fleet of imitation streaming sites emerge confusing everybody.

More Reaction

Over on Reddit, one user was particularly upset because Masteranime had a particularly easy-to-use interface as opposed to other streaming platforms:

AAAAAAAAH when did Masterani.me shut down, 4years user returning. from masteranime

Over on the Anime Piracy Subreddit, A user said that other websites had auto-downloaded something onto thier PCs, so They were particularly upset with the shutdown:

Masterani.me shutting down from animepiracy

Reddit users had a long and involved discussion about the user interface style they wanted to see from a website.

It reflects the recurring complaint that a lot of these anime streaming sites do not have an easy-to-navigate interface. As well, since anime streaming sites already sit in a gray or black hat territory, many of these sites are havens for malware.

Torrenting?

One user wondered why other people don’t use torrents and just download the anime content they want to watch instead of relying on these streaming sites that seem to get shut down so frequently.

One user responded that the last time they used BitTorrent that they ended up with a virus.

Specifically, it was a flashing box that could not be closed. If he hadn’t had task manager up and running at the same time, they said, they wouldn’t have been able to get rid of it.

However, a veteran torrent user said that he’s been using BitTorrent for over 15 years and has never experienced a virus or an unremovable flashing box.

He explained that it doesn’t seem likely to get a virus if all you’re doing is supplying a .torrent file to a torrent program to get a movie file.

Alternatives

It’s somewhat tricky to select alternatives because many of these sites go down, as we mentioned, and fake imitator sites emerge.

As always, we recommend paying for a streaming service to ensure that the creators are fairly compensated and your browsing experience is safe. That said, we aggregated a list of common anime streaming sites from Reddit recommendations:

This video provides some other alternatives, as well:

Top Legal Streaming Alternatives

It is possible to watch anime legally online. In the last few years, Japanese animated movies and TV shows have gained popularity as people have discovered this tremendous fusion of animation, music, storytelling, and art. Here is a list of platforms where you can watch quality content legally.

Crunchyroll

Crunchyroll is the king of anime streaming. You do not need an account to watch videos, and if you want to create one, it’s free. An account helps you keep track of the shows you have viewed and also create a queue of new ones. This website has a basic free plan and paid premium plans. The free ones are full of commercial adverts with up to three in every episode, and the quality of the video is 480p. The stream rate is steady and has no lag. Besides, you can use the filters to explore various categories and genres.

Netflix

Netflix is not free, but it’s worth paying for. It only costs $11 per month and offers instant streaming. Anyone can watch because it provides English titles with Japanese audio and English audio in a dubbed version.

Netflix has a great selection but doesn’t offer popular shows including One Piece. But, it does make a vast collection if you value quality video.

Yahoo View

Yahoo view is a legal platform to watch your favorite anime shows online. It has a wide variety of series and movies including the Cowboy Bebop, Attack on Titan, One Punch Man and Death Note. But, it also includes many others that are not famous.

The site has no adverts, and this enriches your viewing experience. The shows are categorized into various genres. Simply go to the lists and choose what you like; you must get something exciting.

Crackle

Crackle is owned by Sony and offers free to watch anime shows. This site provides excellent quality videos. But, it does not have a wide variety. The best thing is that you do not pay and there are adverts. Also, the site is not available worldwide and therefore depending on your location, you may not be able to access the movies and shows.

Viewster

Viewster is a popular site for movie streaming, but it also hosts a good quantity of anime shows. The only shortcoming is that the content is not the latest. If you do not want to watch the old series, this platform may be disappointing. However, the series do not have any adverts, and they come with English titles. You can use the site away from home via their mobile app.

Tube TV

Tube TV allows you to watch free anime series. It has a minimal collection, and you will not find any of the latest shows here. However, the quality of the video is excellent and therefore worth watching the shows available. The clean interface makes the old shows exciting, and the high speed is excellent for live streaming.

If you find free sites that allow you to watch the latest anime shows for free, most probably they are illegal. Such platforms are not licensed and are taken down without any notice once identified. Sign up with a site streaming anime series legally online, and you will enjoy viewing your favorite series.

Summing Up

If you are looking to stream anime, there are a variety of websites out there that promise the world, but you need to be careful because many of them have auto-downloads or malware. It’s an unpopular opinion, but we recommend that you purchase access to a streaming service if you are an anime fan.

Many of the big-name streaming providers like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu have large libraries of anime content. In addition, if you do not pay for the anime content you are streaming, you are depriving the creators invaluable revenue that incentivizes them to keep creating good work.

It is an age-old debate – many people these days seem to expect that all digital media content should be free. However, if everything is free, and there is no profit incentive, animators do not have any reason to invest their efforts in creating new content.