Preview The Spring Anime Season For Free On VRV

Media streaming company Ellation really wants you to check out their new a la carte media service, VRV. So much so that they’re giving away some of their best stuff for free.

VRV, pronounced “verve,” delivers content from media producers in the anime, video games, cartoons and horror genres—including Ellation’s own child company, Crunchyroll, which just happens to be one of the largest anime streaming services in the world. Normally, freemium users need to wait seven days before watching new anime episodes on Crunchyroll (while they are available as simulcasts immediately for paying subscribers).

This spring anime season, however, Ellation is drumming up interest in VRV by making new anime episodes available there, in high definition and with reduced ads, immediately. This will include the first episodes of the second seasons of fan favorites My Hero Academia and Attack on Titan, among others.

“We are going to make the first episode of all the new simulcasts available for free with no wait,” said Ace St. Germain, VRV’s head of content and programming. “Usually you have to wait a week after premium users for each episode, but just for the first episode, you’ll be able to come to VRV and watch that at the same time, for free.”

See also: Streaming App VRV Wants To Be Netflix For Geeks

St. Germain noted that since VRV is usually a paid service, these freemium visitors will observe high definition and fewer ads compared to watching anime on Crunchyroll for free normally. (If the visitors are tempted to sign up for the paid service, they will see zero ads after that.) The goal is to encourage people to check out VRV in hopes that they’ll stick around longer, lured by VRV’s high-quality experience.

Recently Ellation and Crunchyroll experienced a setback when subscribers observed lowered quality on some older anime titles due to a glitch. Arlen Marmel, VRV’s General Manager, said that the hiccup told the team that they were on the right track by prioritizing video quality, and that at Ellation, “we take user feedback very seriously.”

“We are one family with Crunchyroll, and we have a unique understanding of our audience through the Crunchyroll experience,” said Marmel. “We understand how passionate people are about consuming this content in the best possible format, and we have a contract with our audience to deliver the most high quality experience.”

See also: Crunchyroll Leads By Example: The Future Of Streaming Video Is Niche

VRV is also aiming for quality by targeting viewing experiences on larger screens. Mainly, that means media devices that you’ll find in the living room.

“A third of Crunchyroll’s overall consumption comes from living room devices, and a vast, vast majority of that from game consoles. We used that insight into how we rolled out the VRV experience. We know in particular that our audience values a high quality experience in big screen in the living room, so PlayStation, Xbox, and Chromecast were big pieces of the puzzle,” said Marmel. Marmel said Roku support is coming in the next few weeks, as well.

Other than the spring anime preview, most content at VRV is behind a paywall. While Crunchyroll is already well-established, the team said that paying for content creators like Cartoon Hangover, MONDO, Rooster Teeth and more helps lesser-established creators build their best work to meet fans’ high standards.

“Part of the value of their being a VRV is that help we support the content ecosystem,” said Marmel. “We pay some of these partners to participate, in particular those you can find in our combo pack, and I think we hopefully enabled a number of them to up the production value and create more content. Rooster Teeth has definitely increased their output and quality, for one. I think the same goes for Cartoon Hangover and MONDO. I hope that every season, each of our partners will have a major slate of new announcements, so people will find things to be excited about from more than one of our partners each time.”

Is it worth it to fans? VRV thinks so, based on the statistics they gave me. Over a million people have tried out VRV since its launch last November, and fans have watched over two million hours of content in 2017 alone. But for those still on the fence, nothing can argue with the power of free. Their spring season anime giveaway just might sway fans into checking the service out.