Hidive

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Hidive is an American subscription streaming service that delivers Japanese anime to paid subscribers, its name always stylized in capital letters. It launched in June 2017, taking over for a smaller predecessor called Anime Network Online. Today it also offers live chat, customizable viewing settings, personalized viewer profiles, subtitle options, and parental controls. Getting there took years of licensing deals, a rival streaming partnership, and a final change of ownership. Who built Anime Network Online, and why did it stop operating? How did Hidive end up sharing a channel on a rival platform, only to leave once that rival changed hands? And what changed once ownership shifted to a new corporate parent?

• 2. From Anime Network Online

  ›

  Around 2007, A.D. Vision began experimenting with online streaming of its anime catalog through Anime Network, launching a VOD service called Anime Network Online. The new platform started with shows that had already aired on the Anime Network channel, drawing mainly from titles A.D. Vision had licensed. Anime Network Online kept operating even after A.D. Vision's own assets were liquidated in 2009, continuing on under Anime Network. Its licensing later shifted toward A.D. Vision's successor, Sentai Filmworks, whose titles kept the platform's catalog stocked in the years that followed.

  Hidive, LLC formed as an entirely separate company from Anime Network, with no formal ties between the two. It soon acquired Anime Network Online's assets and spun them off into a new streaming service. Existing subscriptions from Anime Network Online were transferred over to Hidive as part of that handoff.

  Section23 and Sentai supplied most of Hidive's licensed catalog from the outset, the same arrangement Anime Network Online had relied on. A small number of titles once held by A.D. Vision carried over too. That group included a handful of shows that had previously streamed only on the now-defunct channel Anime Strike. Within weeks, Hidive would announce plans to expand its subtitle offerings far beyond English.

• 3. Racing Funimation's Dubs

  ›

  On the 21st of July 2017, Hidive announced it would begin offering select anime titles with Spanish and Portuguese subtitles. Dubcasts followed in March 2018. They let Hidive release English dubs of simulcast titles roughly two to three weeks after the original Japanese broadcast. The format worked much like Funimation's SimulDub program, and the two services became direct rivals for viewers chasing fast-turnaround English dubs.

  That competitive pressure would soon extend beyond dubbing, as Hidive picked a new place to be found: a shared streaming platform called VRV.

• 4. The VRV Interlude

  ›

  VRV announced on the 18th of October 2018 that Hidive would launch a channel on its service. The move filled a gap left when Funimation ended its partnership with Crunchyroll. Hidive's channel effectively replaced Funimation's spot on VRV once Funimation exited the service on the 9th of November 2018.

  Sony announced on the 9th of August 2021 that it was acquiring VRV's parent company, Crunchyroll, from AT&T through its Funimation subsidiary. Hidive left VRV a month later, on the 30th of September, in response to that acquisition.

  Hidive's own corporate parent, Sentai Filmworks, was just months from a sale of its own.

• 5. The AMC Era

  ›

  AMC Global Media, then still operating as AMC Networks, acquired Sentai and Hidive together in early January 2022. In November 2023, Hidive announced it would end service in certain areas outside North America. That change took effect the following month and left the service focused on English-language markets.

  In March 2024, Hidive's website received a new interface, adding offline viewing, updated history queues, and support for multiple customized watchlists. The service later restored its schedule and customized profile features that August. Both had existed before the redesign but had disappeared with it.

  None of those redesigns touched the deeper question of what actually filled Hidive's library, where at least one show slipped outside Sentai's usual licensing net.

• 6. Beyond Sentai's Catalog

  ›

  Hidive streamed The Promised Neverland starting in January 2019, a title that fell outside Sentai's own licensing. A similar case followed with Pon no Michi, which Hidive added in January 2026, again a title Sentai did not hold.

  In September 2022, Hidive briefly stepped into original programming when it co-premiered Pantheon, an AMC+ original series. That co-premiere with AMC+ hinted at a bigger crossover still to come: a Hidive-branded channel built for an entirely different platform.

• 7. ANIME x HIDIVE

  ›

  AMC announced in April 2022 the development of a Hidive-branded FAST channel called ANIME x HIDIVE. It was built from titles already licensed by Sentai and available on the main Hidive service. The channel launched on Plex on the 10th of March 2023, carrying that same anime library onto a free, ad-supported platform.

  That Plex debut put Sentai's licensed anime in front of viewers who had never subscribed to Hidive directly. The same catalog now reached a free platform built for casual viewers rather than paying subscribers.