This is my entry for this months Japansoc Blog Matsuri, hosted by muzu-chan. The theme this month is Japan Toplists, so here’s my toplist of how to watch Japanese TV and movies without actually owning a TV, ranked by awesomeness.
Torrent sites:
Most torrents aren’t legal, but they’re still the best way to get Japanese movies and TV, often with subtitles! If you follow my previous guide on securing your connection for Windows or OsX, you needn’t be worried about being caught. If you’re not familiar with torrents, go read up on the whole concept first; then register on these sites for all your Japanese movie, anime, and j-drama needs:
Tokyo Toshokan is free and requires no registration. It mostly focusses on anime and music, but the archive is so huge it’s difficult to find random new content. This is the best site to go if you have a specific anime or album in mind, and the anime releases often have a number of different quality and fansub versions, including a lot of HD/Blu-ray content. No login required.
Asian Torrents is the best asian movie site out there, I think. A ton of movies are uploaded every day, but the blog does an excellent job of highlighting notable movies and always including a synopsis, cover art and trailer – so it’s a great way to discover new movies. The site requires free registration and you must login to download.
Akiba Online (NSFW) is down right now due to server issues, but the forums have a small Japanese media related torrent section, though it’s not regularly updated. The site has a decidely otaku feel to it and there’s a large amount of Japanese idol, porn, and hentai content in there too so be careful where you click.
SELECTION: 3/5 - Tons of movies and anime, though TV broadcasts are generally limited to the most popular
EASE OF USE: 4/5 - Once you get the whole torrent thing down, it’s as easy as browsing a website!
QUALITY: 5/5 – much better than streaming, and TV shows are usually recorded in HD too where available!
SUBTITLES: 4/5 – Most Japanese torrents will come with subtitles written by fans or taken from the DVD
TOTAL: 16/20
PPStream:
I wrote an English guide to the Chinese-only software PPStream last week. For me, it’s the best way to get TV and movies on demand semi-legally (you can feign ignorance because it’s all in Chinese!), but it’s far from perfect and even less so for Japanese content. You can read all about it and try it for yourself with my previous guide, but here’s a summary review.
SELECTION: 4/5 - All the latest and popular dramas
EASE OF USE: 2/5 – you’ll need to know the Chinese title of movies
QUALITY: 3/5 – varies, generally tv quality or DVD for movies
SUBTITLES: 1/5 – Well, they are subtitles, just in Chinese!
TOTAL: 10/20
KeyHoleTV:
KeyholeTV is only legal way to get Japanese TV, as it’s an experiement in p2p sponsored by the Japanese government. As such, it pretty much sucks – but what do you really expect from the Japanese government? You’re also going to need a TV guide. There’s a good guide at xorsyst.com to getting the app running and configuring it. It streams live, so you going to have start adjusting your schedule to watch what you want, and there’s no way to record anything or access content archives. In additional, warn you now that 99% of Japanese TV really, really sucks; every show can categorised as the following:
1. Food
2. Onsen
3. “Talent” (or lack of) discussion panels
4. All of the above.
For example, a group of talents travel to an onsen and eat something, as we are treated to them saying “kimochi” (that feels so nice!) and “oishii” (delicious) over and over again. This is the pinnacle of Japanese TV.
SELECTION: 1/5 – limited, live-streaming of crapy Japanese TV in Japan time, some password protected areas
EASE OF USE: 4/5 – doubleclick on a channel
QUALITY: 2/5 – streaming, live
SUBTITLES: 0/5 – none
TOTAL: 7/20
