Miru

Anime is pretty cool. If you’re not one to subscribe to Crunchyroll or Funimation, you’ll instead have to rely on some alternative solutions, most of which are often dubbed as more reliable and professional than the official platforms. This is rather paradoxical, but a quick glance at those websites will validate that notion.

But let’s say you want a desktop app for all of that. Some apps provide more functionality than others in that regard, and Miru comes forth with a polished, feature-rich take on anime streaming, where AniList and group watching functionalities are also integrated.

The program offers a viable alternative to some popular anime streaming websites that you dare not visit without an ad-blocker. Ads-wise, you get none of that here, making this a place where you can enjoy your favorite shows or movies without being disturbed.

Enough about distractions, though. A wide catalog of anime works awaits you: from the newest seasonal releases to the currently trending and most popular of all time, there’s enough to keep you occupied.

There’s clearly a lot of work that was put into designing the interface. The animations are smooth, accessing your favorite titles is easy enough, and each entry has a page of its own that brings some of its character forward. With that in mind, it will hopefully be simpler to choose your next anime.

As is often the case with peer-to-peer transfers, you’re at the mercy of the BitTorrent protocol. Some anime may load faster than others, while for some, it may be difficult to find a stable stream. Temper your expectations, and those quirks won’t stop you.

Integration with AniList is always appreciated. Linking your account means that anything you watch will automatically synchronize with your profile. Taking this further, the anime you’re currently watching, as well as the ones on your watchlist, will also have a category of their own on the interface.

The Watch Together feature is also nice. Create a lobby, share the link with your buddies, and enjoy some quality time.

Miru is a promising, well-featured app that brings you closer to your favorite anime. A lot of things look and feel good, but the biggest problem of the app is the high resource consumption.

A non-negligible amount of system resources is consumed whenever you’re watching anime, to the point where a 10th gen mobile i7 visibly struggled to keep up. Due to this, I'm reticent to recommending Miru for low-spec machines. Hopefully this will be addressed in future updates.