I remember back in the early 2010s everyone was downloading episodes through torrents, waiting for fan subtitles. Now we have Yandex.Kinopoisk, Crunchyroll and other services. But sometimes you come across anime that aren't licensed anywhere - you have to look in the old places. Do you do the same or have you completely switched to legal platforms?
I'm mostly on streaming now, of course - it's more convenient and faster than waiting for torrents. But yeah, sometimes I run into stuff that isn't available anywhere officially, especially like older episodes or obscure titles - then I have to go back to the old ways. I think a lot of people are in the same boat, if only because not all anime is licensed, even now.
Streaming is more convenient, yeah, but I wouldn't say it's a complete replacement. The catalog on Kinopoisk and Crunchyroll has genuinely expanded, but there are still gaps - especially with exotic titles or old series that came out in microscopic VHS runs back in the day. Sometimes even popular anime can disappear from streaming if its license expires and nobody picks up a new one.
Plus there's something a lot of people overlook: quality. On torrents you can find berries in 1080p or even higher, whereas streaming platforms often skimp on bitrate. If you're watching on a big screen, the difference is noticeable. So for anything particularly gorgeous I still dig into the old places, honestly.
Overall I've switched to streaming like 80 percent - it's fast, legal, convenient. But I don't see the point in completely ditching torrents until everything is actually available everywhere. So you're on the right track mixing both ways.
I switched to streaming three or four years ago and don't regret it, but the catalogs are still full of holes. Recently I wanted to rewatch some old shounen - it wasn't on Kinopoisk, wasn't on Crunchyroll either. Googling led me to some sketchy site packed with ads, and I figured it's not worth the hassle. Now when that happens I just look for different anime instead - life's too short to hunt down one specific title.
But the series that are on official platforms, I watch those more willingly: no need to wait for downloads, no need to hunt for decent subtitles. On streaming it's usually solid, video quality is stable. Plus, if I liked some anime, I'm more likely to come back to it - unlike torrents, where files are gone after six months anyway.
I think for popular and mid-tier titles, streaming has basically killed torrents. But niche stuff - old OVAs, spinoffs with a third-rate budget, or something that only came out in certain countries - that's still a black hole. In my opinion, that's the services' problem, not the people looking for unofficial sources.
I'm curious - have you ever run into situations where the "official" translation turns out to be worse than the fan version? I'm mostly on Kinopoisk and Crunchyroll, but I've noticed the localization quality varies wildly: sometimes the translators do a great job, sometimes it's clearly just machine translation. So I sometimes hunt down old fansubs to compare, especially for my favorite episodes. Plus yeah, same as what the other comments said - with rare and old titles there's just no choice, you can't find them officially anywhere.
I've mostly switched to streaming for a while now - it's just more convenient to turn it on and watch without messing around with torrents. But I agree about the translation quality: sometimes the official localization really loses out to fan versions, especially when the translators try to adapt jokes or wordplay for a Russian audience and miss the point. For rare titles I still have to dig up old sources, though the catalogs are way more complete than they used to be.
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