Every episode has two release times: when it airs on Japanese TV, and when it reaches the streaming service in your country. They're often close together, but not always the same.
Step 1: the Japanese broadcast
Most new anime premieres on Japanese TV late at night, between about 22:00 and 02:00 Japan time. Our weekly schedule and the countdowns on the season chart are based on that broadcast.
Japan Standard Time (JST) is UTC+9 and doesn't change for daylight saving. That means the gap to Europe moves twice a year:
| Japan (JST) | Netherlands, summer (CEST) | Netherlands, winter (CET) | UK, winter (GMT) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22:00 | 15:00 | 14:00 | 13:00 |
| 23:30 | 16:30 | 15:30 | 14:30 |
| 01:00 (written 25:00) | 18:00, day before | 17:00, day before | 16:00, day before |
That last row trips people up. Japanese listings write a 1:00 a.m. Sunday slot as Saturday 25:00, because it belongs to Saturday night's broadcast schedule. Converted to Europe, it lands on Saturday afternoon. Our schedule always shows the real calendar day in your timezone.
Step 2: the simulcast
A simulcast is the official stream of a new episode, subtitled, released shortly after the Japanese broadcast. For most seasonal shows on Crunchyroll and HIDIVE that's somewhere between straight away and a few hours later. Some shows stream a day or more after Japan, and a few even stream before the TV broadcast.
Netflix is the exception to watch for: some of its shows follow the weekly Japanese run, while others are released in one batch after the series has finished airing in Japan.
Step 3: the dub
Dubbed versions take longer, because they're recorded after the episode is finished. When a show gets a "simuldub", dubbed episodes usually follow the subtitled ones by a few weeks. Other dubs arrive after the season is over, or not at all. Each service announces its own dub slate.
Why a show skips a week
- Broadcast breaks. Sports, news specials and holiday programming can bump an episode by a week.
- Recap episodes. A summary episode buys a production team time. It still counts as a slot.
- Production delays. Sometimes episodes are postponed, or a show takes a few weeks off mid-season.
Our data comes from AniList's airing schedule and is refreshed with every rebuild, so delays that have been announced show up in the countdowns. Last-minute changes can still slip through, so when an episode is due, the streaming service has the final word.
Getting times in your timezone
The schedule converts every broadcast to the timezone your device is set to, so you don't have to do the maths above. Prefer Japanese times? Flip the toggle to Japan (JST). The countdowns on the season chart tick down live, and the yellow highlight marks anything airing in the next 24 hours.
