On November 9, 2018, Anime fans from all over the world wept while they saw one of their favorite ‘ships’ fall apart. No, we are not talking about NaruHina (Naruto and Hinata), or GoChi (Goku and Chi-Chi); we are talking about the end of the partnership between the popular Anime streaming companies Crunchyroll and Funimation. With the divorce, Funimation took masterpieces like My Hero Academy, Steins;Gate, and Noragami back to its home. By doing so, Funimation made it impossible for Anime fans living outside the U.S. – like in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand – to watch their favorite shows legally. However, before you start crying again while remembering that painful day, we want to give you the good news which is that you can go back to legally binge-watching all your favorite Anime. The answer is simple, use a VPN service.
Best VPN Services for Funimation of 2024
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Watching Funimation Outside the U.S.
The way to watch Funimation outside the U.S. is pretty simple; you just need to use a VPN to connect to the website while using an American server and you can start watching all of the free Animes Funimation provides on its site. However, things get a little tricky if you want to be a paid user.
Since there is no possible way to buy gift cards from places like Amazon, you are stuck with providing a payment method from the countries where Funimation is available. In other words, if you pay for the service with a credit/debit card or PayPal, you will need to have an address from one of those countries. Lucky for us, there is a way to circumvent this obstacle by using a prepaid virtual credit card which then can be used to set up a U.S.-based PayPal account.
Although Funimation does not precisely prohibit VPNs in its terms of use, it does state that you cannot use the service outside the territories where it offers its services and has “technologies to verify and enforce your compliance”. However, we could only find a few users' declarations about having their accounts blocked, which means that although Funimation has a firewall in place, it's not as strong as other streaming services such as Netflix or Hulu.
Unblocking the Funimation App
Funimation is created in a way that lets you watch Anime whenever and wherever you want. Naturally, it's available on a massive number of platforms, such as mobile (Android and iOS), smart TVs (Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Android TV, among others), consoles, such as Playstation 3, 4, and Vita, as well as Xbox One and 360, and of course, desktop through its website. This means that when looking for a VPN provider, you need to bear in mind which devices it's available on.
Nevertheless, there is a way to avoid all the work it takes to install the VPN service on all devices you want to use – connecting it directly to your router. By doing this, all devices connected to the router will be connected to the VPN as well, which means they will all be at the same location you set on the router.
Moreover, it's also essential to consider that just because there are not many accounts being blocked for VPN usage, that doesn't mean Funimation won't try to block VPN services altogether. Because of this, you need to also make sure that the VPN you are picking has various servers on the locations where Funimation streams, as well as its effort to bypass streaming firewalls.
Recommended VPN Services
While deciding which VPN to use with Funimation, there are three main factors to take into account; first of all, the VPN service must have excellent connection speeds, so you don't experience any buffering while watching your favorite Anime. Secondly, it has to have various servers throughout the countries where Funimation is available, especially in the U.S. Thirdly, you need to make sure the VPN does not have any IP or DNS leaks while using it. Bearing all of this in mind, here are three VPN we suggest.
SaferVPN
As the name states, SaferVPN offers an array of safety features that will make you sure you are protected at all times, such as a kill switch and trustworthy 256-bit encryption. Moreover, SaferVPN is also renowned for the speed and reliability of its service, which is crucial when streaming HD videos. On top of that, it has more than 700 servers across 34 countries, U.S. included, which will make sure that you don't see the “Sorry, but this content isn't available in your country.” message from Funimation never again.
Private Internet Access
Created in 2010, Private Internet Access is a veteran in the VPN industry and has been a benchmark for a long time. It has more than 3,300 servers covering 32 countries, U.S. included, providing good and reliable speeds throughout its network. Of course, it's also important to mention that it also offers a kill switch and has 256-bit encryption, making this user-friendly perfect to use with Funimation.
IPVanish
Thanks to its full arsenal of security features, IPVanish is one of the safest VPN providers on the market. Moreover, it has servers in more than 60 different countries worldwide, having multiple serves in each one of them, which translates into fast and reliable speeds, making IPVanish an excellent choice when looking for a VPN service to use with Funimation.
Best VPN Services of 2024
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