Neon Alley Review (PS3, 360)

Well I am veering off into left field nowadays aren't I? First gaming products, now 24/7 anime stations; I promise to get back to actual GAMES soon but I felt like this was something I needed to talk about seeing as the next game I'll review comes with a free 30 day trial of this service. Today I'm gonna review Neon Alley.

Whats that? You want more back story on me (said no one ever) ? Well I'm an otaku. Like a serious otaku. Like an "I signed up for a 24/7 anime station cause it was relevant to my interests," type of otaku. Now I have Netflix as I assume most of the civilized world does and I had recently watched all the anime I was interested in at the time when I heard about Neon Alley. My first thought was "So this is Crunchyroll?", but it's not.

While Crunchyroll allows you to choose what you want to watch, Neon Alley is far more like TV. You have virtually no control. Another big difference is all the anime on Neon Alley is DUBBED. Now this is a HUGE difference cause most anime fans have a preference. Some people HATE dub some people don't mind dub but hate sub and some (like me) don't really care either way. But that's where personal preference comes in.

Neon Alley shows some pretty awesome series too. They have Naruto Shippuden, One Piece and Kekkashi, just to name a few. Most of them (if not all) are in HD. So if you're letting me watch the new Naruto fights in HD and dubbed (maybe I have a little preference) AND on the day of release, you're getting points from me. One thing i found peculiar though was that the episodes often repeated one day to the next. The reason I'm saying "peculiar" instead of some harsher words I could use is because I'm not entirely sure whether it's because of the trail or not. That's pretty much Neon Alley in a nutshell, the new Funimation channel with less repeats and newer (and better in my opinion) shows. And with that we can move on to my final thoughts.

Now this is about to get REALLY ranty, so if you'd rather not read it just know that Neon Alley is an anime network that does what it's advertised to do, nothing more, nothing less. For those of you still here, the MAJOR flaw of Neon Alley is it does what it's supposed to do. Neon Alley is on wether you are or not, period. Which means in a 26 episode anime you could easily be dropped into episode 20 and there's nothing you can do about it. Look at it like this; radio used to be one of the only form of media and everyone had one and listened to it , and now, who really listens to radio? Not many. Why? Because media had changed with the TV coming into popularity. It over took the radio and  now almost everyone has one and watches it. But something came around that shook the TV world. Netflix and on demand services. Now you had the choice of what YOU want to watch WHEN you want to watch it. That counts for a lot. So in a time where everyone is looking for instant gratification, how long will it be before cable networks die out? Think about it, when you're your parents age, do you really think cable networks will be the same or even around? That's Neon Alleys' flaw, the lack of flaws. Like I already said, it DOES what it's supposed to DO. It just doesn't stand up well in today's society. Let me say this though, NEON ALLEY IS COOL! I really like it, A LOT! But at the end if the day, it's behind the times in what the demographic of people coming to this app will be looking for. So can I recommend this? Yes and no. This is an instance where I can say the free trial is more than something to be exploited. The only thing I can recommend is to try this one before making a judgement. Sorry this can't be more helpful but I honestly have mixed feelings about it myself. This was a short one cause there wasn't much to say but we'll get back to real reviews soon. This is Aesop, and I'll see you next time.