How is Watanare able to be free on YT at such high quality?

The animation style is undeniably one of the prettiest, and crisply executed I've seen in a long time (could also be in part due to CR reducing video quality over the years).

The voice acting is phenomenal. There's *a lot* of lines per episode. Each episode is well designed, and the drama/story is more than sufficient.

The rating for S1 on MAL seems criminally low, but while watching S2 I just cannot think of a recent romcom/drama that comes close to this quality.

How is this show able to be free on YT for not just 1, but 2 seasons? Is there some other payment model I'm missing? Did all the best romance animators come together to work on this passion project?

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Commentaires

Kadmos12026-01-29 12:22

Could be licensing agreements and/or the Japanese powers that be decided for it to be that weight on YT.

maewemeetagain2026-01-29 12:25

FYI Those last five episodes are not "season 2". It is a TV special added onto season 1 that previously received a theatrical release. There is a reason it retains the same OP and ED and is only 5 episodes long.

Also remember: "free on YouTube" doesn't *really* mean free. They do make money from it.

Kadmos12026-01-29 13:03

Additionally, an ad-free anime is on an official YT channel means the anime might have more of a global range. Well, there are going to places that censor/restrict YT. However, such wide availability can people with lesser income in less-developed countries who like anime. The quality/accuracy of the subtitles/closed captions can be concerning.

MitsuhaTakiName2026-01-29 13:18

More than how it can be on YouTube for free, I wonder how it can be on YouTube at all lol. I feel like if you just posted a YouTube video as a regular person that got as spicy as Watanare did, it would get taken down.

pjepja2026-01-29 13:54

This worked really well for Cingray. It was free on YouTube and gained a lot of new fans for the series. Some of them started spending money in the gacha game and they probably made way more than they could by selling a licence.

sidewinderaw112026-01-29 14:18

It's not viewable in Japan on YT for example, but it was viewable on Abema

VoidEmbracedWitch2026-01-29 12:41

I am a fan of Watanare, but the prettiest romance it is not. The first episode had that one phenomenal first person cut and was very tightly boarded, yet the production for the rest of the series wasn't anywhere close to up there. It's fine visually, just nothing standout. And even the first falls short of, to bring a summer 2025 contemporary, Dress-up Darling S2.

As for why it's on YT, well, that's because the licensor (pretty sure it was Remow) wanted it to be there.

E: My point is that we could and should ask for more rather than saying "this is as good as it gets" on Watanare. Next Shine is a great romance story and it'll likely end up one of my favorite anime this year, but do not give it unfounded praise for what it doesn't achieve. This is far from what the ceiling for romance anime productions looks like.

Stern_Writer2026-01-29 12:54

Dress up Darling is disgusting femcel/cuck fantasy. Shouldn’t be compared to anything.

VoidEmbracedWitch2026-01-29 12:58

Wow, that is uncalled for when I'm talking about production quality. Regardless of what you think about the show, as far as storyboarding and character acting + animation go—without even mentioning the exceptionally well-done genre pastiches like S2's cold open—it's way ahead of every other 2025 romance.

Stern_Writer2026-01-29 13:05

I just dislike that my favorite medium is being whored out to satisfy fetishes because it’s what makes the most money.

In terms of writing it’s nothing special, and that’s what makes romance good or bad. But money was made available for the anime because certain subgroups with disposable income love the IP.

NegativeShape22026-01-29 13:32

Romance genre exist by default to satisfy fetishes with mid writing the same way trash isekai exist by default to be wish fulfilment with mid writing. It's not that serious.

Stern_Writer2026-01-29 13:47

You’re the one taking it seriously dude, same with every other loser downvoting my comments, so I don’t think I’m the one who needs a reminder.

Ok, it’s the same as isekai… so? Did you think I thought any differently of all the garbage isekai flooding the market? Only way your reply makes sense is if I assume you’re too young to remember a time *before* that happened. So while I know it’s all you know, lemme tell you this: isekai isn’t some special cornerstone of the anime genre.

NegativeShape22026-01-29 14:36

I don't really understand what you are trying to say (or if you even try to say something.)

I just reminded you the romance genre was always slop since it exists and used isekai to gave you a scale you might understand since you tend to insinuate it was a good genre back in the days and seem to take it too seriously.

But whatever.

Stern_Writer2026-01-29 14:58

Just like there’s good isekai, there’s good romance. Romance as a genre can’t be entirely considered slop because most of the greatest works published through every medium can be considered romance in some way.

It’s just that we’re given trash to fill some people’s pockets, and somehow gotta act like there’s nothing wrong with that.

korinokiri2026-01-29 13:28

"one of"

VoidEmbracedWitch2026-01-29 13:38

Still not even close. Do you want me to start counting all the better productions we got the past few years? Watanare doesn't come anywhere close to the top.

korinokiri2026-01-29 13:50

Please list literally any series since you seem to have a treasure trove of prettier anime.

VoidEmbracedWitch2026-01-29 14:01

Okay, then let's do this for romances from 2022 to now. The upper echelon of what I watched would be:

- Cosmic Princess Kaguya
- Dress-up Darling S2
- Katsute Mahou Shoujo to Aku wa Tekitai Shite Ita
- Kaguya-sama S3, First Kiss arc and the recent special
- Scott Pilgrim Takes Off
- Makeine

And for others at least above Watanare:

- Kimi ni Todoke S3
- Skip and Loafer
- Dance Dance Danseur
- Romantic Killer
- Kaoru Hana

ComfortablyRotten2026-01-29 14:04

[](#whisperwhisper "Romantic Killer is there twice")

VoidEmbracedWitch2026-01-29 14:06

[](#teehee "fixed it now")

korinokiri2026-01-29 14:27

I wouldn't call all of those objectively above watanare. I could take screen grabs of almost any frame of watanare and it pairs up with 90% of the animation of a lot of those (peaks != the whole anime). Those are all great options, but my initial point of "one of" is still accurate.

VoidEmbracedWitch2026-01-29 14:39

Sure, high points are not the whole anime. I agree there. In fact I agree so much that I consider Watanare #01 better than the average of some of the shows in the second list. Watanare #02-17 meanwhile are below their respective averages in terms of storyboarding, animation, backgrounds, compositing, etc.

> I could take screen grabs of almost any frame of watanare and it pairs up with 90% of the animation of a lot of those

You do realize why this sentence is nonsense, right?

melcarba2026-01-29 13:23

\>The animation style is undeniably one of the prettiest, and crisply executed I've seen in a long time

Eh? Not really. Its not even the prettiest show of its season, far from it by a large margin.

\>The rating for S1 on MAL seems criminally low...

Ngl, but Watanare doesn't even deserve the 7.70 score on MAL.

korinokiri2026-01-29 13:24

And those are? Also "one of" means it's not "the". So can you list all these prettier shows?

melcarba2026-01-29 14:45

In Summer 2025 alone

* Takopi's Original Sin

* CITY the animation

* Dandadan S2

* My Dress-Up Darling S2

* The Summer Hikaru Died

* Gachiakuta

* New Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt

* With You and the Rain

* Silent Witch

blakeavon2026-01-29 14:24

I beg to differ its art palette and animation is of rather high quality, especially given it is ‘just’ a yuri romance not some battle shonen. One doesn’t need to even like the show to appreciate its artistic quality.

melcarba2026-01-29 14:53

Its not really high quality though. The art, background and animation for Watanare is just **servicable**. Nothing wrong with being serviceable, but let's not mistake it for high quality. Heck, even "With You and the Rain" (a slice-of-life that aired in the same season as Watanare) is of higher quality in terms of art, animation and character writing.

Noobu_assassin2026-01-29 13:37

I'm reading through these comments and I genuinely think this sub might be worse then r/fantasy. Op didn't ask for your opinion on the show so why tf have multiple people only commented here to show their burning hatred for if?

Kgumaster2026-01-29 14:01

I feel like that's just how reddit is. It reminds me of some movie subs I follow, someone starts gushing about a hidden gem they found and there's always someone to say that it's trash. Can't imagine myself raining on people's parade for 0 reason like that instead of focusing on things I like

Zeallfnonex2026-01-29 15:08

I mean, half the premise of the question is that it's "The animation style is undeniably one of the prettiest, and crisply executed I've seen in a long time." If you think the question is unanswerable because the premise is incorrect, then of course you have to reply with that. What's the other option, only people who agree that it's one of the best things they've ever seen being allowed to answer? You won't get a balanced answer with that level of selection bias then.

dimyo2026-01-29 13:41

The episodes are only free in countries where it's not airing, or where it doesn't have direct distribution. You can check where the videos are banned for places with official releases. Like, if you're from Japan, you can't watch the episodes on YouTube.
I don't know what kind of contract they have but, Basically the channel is making some pocket change, from ads and YT premium, in places they're not selling the anime directly.

Comprehensive_Dog6512026-01-29 14:09

Man, if you live in SEA that's only a taste of all the goodness that is free

blakeavon2026-01-29 14:21

For the same reason Cinderella Grey could be on YouTube as well as on Amazon at the same time, it’s just a different form of licensing.

animepig2026-01-29 14:24

I promise you the YouTube bitrate isn’t higher than CR

timpkmn892026-01-29 14:47

Renow (who hosts it on YouTube) is actually on the production committee for the show. Now that actually raises more questions for you than it answers, but it's relevant.

xzerozeroninex2026-01-29 14:48

It’s licensed by Remow,if no streaming platform sub licenses it they air it on their YouTube channel.Past Remow titles were sub licensed by Crunchyroll,Amazon and/or Netflix.They used to have an anime streaming platform in South America but they shut it down last year.