ATTENTION ALL BLEACH FANS! If you download Japanese Bleach episodes weekly, then this article may be of interest to you! The video-streaming website, Crunchyroll, will begin a Bleach simulcast starting on June 8th.

What does this mean? Well, it means that one hour after the airing of the anime on the TV Tokyo station in Japan, premium Crunchyroll members will be able to watch the episode in high definition and with English subtitles provided by Viz Media. One week later, the episode will be available for viewing in standard definition for free. The simulcast will be available in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Streaming will begin with episode 274, which is the latest one.

The bad news about this is that once the simulcasts begin, fansubbing sites, such as dattebayo, will cease to sub the series anymore due to some strong legal binds, leaving well over 200,000 people to search elsewhere for their Bleach needs. I’m actually sort of torn on this situation. To me, Crunchyroll kind of seems like the giant corporation that is trying to push the little man out of business! The nice thing about fansubs is that they are absolutely free, and you can actually get pure HD quality without having to pay for something like a premium member subscription fee. It is, however, a double-edged sword. Fansubbing tends to be a little less than legal, and I see that Crunchyroll is trying to do this the legitimate way. Still, I sure will miss my free HD Bleach anime.

Anybody else a “fan” of fansubs? Thoughts?

Source: AnimeNewsNetwork