Anime Network has a great idea: full episodes of dubbed anime online for free, with commercials. The problem is their site sucks ass.

When I first got to the site, their location script incorrectly informed me that I’m not in the United States or Canada….which is very odd since I’m in California. I hit the forums on the site and found that this problem is extremely common, and has been so for months! Not a good start.

So, being the tech geek that I am, I decide to use a U.S. proxy to hide my IP address, hoping to convince the site that I really am a U.S. resident. That gets me further into the site, but then I get a Runtime Error when I click to agree to their terms of service! Another check of the forums reveals a whole host of problems; even when people successfully get to the videos things are horribly buggy.

When I wrote The Fansubbing Dilemma for IGN, I stressed timely online distribution of anime as key to resolving this perceived problem of fansubbing. I think Anime Network is taking a great step, but they MUST FIX THEIR SITE to have any kind of adoption and get cred with the anime fans.

Anyway, you can see the promo vid for it below. I hope other US and Canadian viewers have better luck.

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