Monster No. 8An upcoming series about beating up and turning into monsters will make strange history next year by becoming the first anime to be officially broadcast live on Twitter.
Okay, this is a little weird. Next year, as is the case with most major anime releases, Monster No. 8 Season 1 will be available on Crunchyroll next April. Pretty normal, right? Many of the top names in anime have come to Crunchyroll, which is actually a great place to watch anime today. It’s not the only place to stream anime – both Netflix and Prime Video are making waves with the medium. The weird thing about Kaiju No. 8, though, is that at the same time it was released on Crunchyroll, it was also released on Twitter (or X, if we’re tired of that).
The surprising announcement was made over the weekend, but there was no indication of how this would actually work. Despite what Elon might want from this site, it’s not a particularly good site for sharing videos. I’m watching the Kaiju No. 8 trailer that was shared directly on Twitter and I’m watching it and the quality is terrible! I’m less confident that Musk will be able to address these quality issues in April, given the rest of how he’s treated the site.
It would be a fun experiment at least, as there is a very active anime community on Twitter, but I can’t help but feel like it would be a way to boost “X Premium” subscriptions. Why would anyone bother paying to watch anime on a mediocre service when they’re probably already doing it on a site like Crunchyroll that actually has anime? Look, I’m not saying I know how to run a business, but I’m not entirely convinced of some of the decisions.
Anyway, at least so far, Kaiju No. 8 looks pretty good, and you can check it out on Crunchyroll or X (duh) in April 2024.
