Twitter, I mean X, will make weird history when it streams anime for the first time next year

Kaiju No. 8, an upcoming series all about beating and turning into kaiju, will make weird history next year by being the first anime to officially stream on Twitter.

Alright, so here's a bit of a weird one. Next year, as is pretty par for the course for most big anime releases, the first season of Kaiju No. 8 is going to stream on Crunchyroll when it arrives next April. Pretty normal, right? Plenty of the top names in anime come to Crunchyroll, it's the de facto place to go to for anime these days. It's not the only place that streams anime - both Netflix and Prime Video are making their own waves with the medium. The odd thing about Kaiju No. 8, though, is that it'll also be available on Twitter (or X, if we're being annoying about it) the same time it's available on Crunchyroll.

This surprising announcement was made over the weekend, but there's been no indication as to how this will actually work. Despite what that guy Elon might want from the site, it isn't a particularly good one when it comes to sharing videos. I'm watching the Kaiju No. 8 trailer shared directly to Twitter right now as I'm watching it and the quality is awful! And I don't exactly feel confident that Musk will get those quality issues sorted by April, given, you know, the rest of how he's treated the site.

It'll be an interesting experiment at the very least, as there is a very active anime community on Twitter, but I can't help but feel like this will be a way to drive up "X Premium" subscriptions. Why would anyone bother paying to watch anime on a mediocre service, when they're probably already doing so for a site like Crunchyroll, which will literally also have the anime? Look, I'm not saying I know how to run a business, but I'm not exactly convinced by some of these decisions.

Anyway, Kaiju No. 8 is looking pretty good so far at the very least, and you'll be able to check it out on either Crunchyroll or "X" (eugh) April 2024.