×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Simulcast

A contraction of the words "simultaneous broadcast," the term traditionally referred to the simultaneous broadcast of the same program on 2 or more mediums. For example a radio show broadcast on FM radio and satellite radio at the same time would be said to be "simulcast."

The term has been co-opted by the anime industry to refer to anime that are simultaneously broadcast in on television in Japan and over the Internet in international markets. This is actually a slight misnomer as very few of these anime titles are actually streamed online at the exact same time as they are aired in Japan. The term simulcast has come to be used for shows that are streamed online within approximately 24 hours of the original Japanese broadcast, however it has been used on occasion for shows streamed several days after the original broadcast.

Anime News Network does not use the term "simulcast" to refer to anything streamed more than 24 hours after the initial Japanese broadcast.

Shows streamed online 24 hours to 7 days after the initial online broadcast are referred to as "nearcasts."

The first major Internet simulcasts were Gonzo anime titles The Tower of Druaga: the Aegis of Uruk and Blassreiter anime series, which were simulcast on BOST, Crunchyroll and YouTube starting in April 2008.

The only North American television simulcast of anime was Kurokami, which aired on iaTV the same day as in Japan. Kurokami was also the only English dubbed simulcast.

return to lexicon