kiss-anime.ws
With the popularity of anime surging, the demand for easily accessible and low-cost streaming services is rising. So, to meet this demand, Watch Anime offers an impressive selection of quality videos on their streaming website.
Froppy greets us on the home page of Kissanime. Their decision in using the very popular My Hero Academia UA student is a smart choice, as it draws people in with the promise of familiarity in video archives.
The website's design seems simple and reliable. The history of the website is difficult to track down, but the creators seem to be anonymous. There are a few tech support communities created by people who are not affiliated with the web designers, but they're not especially impressive. The logo is a plain mirrored text image of the brand's name, unremarkable but straightforward.
Website Design
One of the most important aspects of any website is its aesthetics. The colors and layout are designed to create a positive night time theme and to make the site more user-friendly. For people who enjoy watching anime, using a dark color scheme can help reduce eyestrain over time. In addition, using simple colors makes the website easier to read and reduces the amount of blue light that is emitted. Overall, these factors are all worth considering when designing a website.
There is a menu at the top of the page with categories like manga, novels, and more. Underneath this, there is a bar that offers sister sites. These are websites that lead to different manga, novels, and other types of content. You can find the community-supported discord channel here. There is also an option to report messed up links.
Another feature worth noting about the kissanime design is its organization system and search functions. The design has an impressive 194 pages full of anime. That number sounds quite daunting, but luckily their search system is fantastic.
Their search bar is easily recognizable and is located at the top of their page. If you know what specific show you are searching for, it is very straight forward. However, if you are unsure of what you want to watch, you can search for keywords, and the results will pull up anything with your keyword in the title.
The site's organization system is even better than its search functions. The sidebar features a few popular styles that you can click on to sift through. If you go to advanced search, you will find many more options for genres. Not only do they have a category for everything, but it also allows you to check multiple genres that may cross over and finds you any titles that use the combination of the ones you choose. Even strange combinations are simpler to find. I checked off vampire, fantasy, and romance, and quite a few different titles popped up! You can also select an ongoing or completed series to categorize further. This feature is incredibly useful for finding easily binge-able shows! Two shows with short series worth looking into on the site are Devil is a Part-Timer! and Is It Wrong To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon.
Content
The site has an insane amount of anime, with more than 9,500 titles! They offer both subtitled and dubbed versions, and some popular titles I found included Fairy Tail, My Hero Academia, One Piece, Sword Art Online, and even Dragonball. There is something for everyone in their vast library.
The quality of the streams is excellent. There are no ad breaks in between shows. The links are constantly updated, and the community helps monitor which links crash, so it is helpful for site managers to fix bugs faster.
Kissanime features a lot of anime content, but their sister sites (linked in the top menu) have other popular content related to anime. Kissmanga has a lot of manga, Novaplanet has an impressive selection of novels, and Kissasian provides quality dramas. The associated sites have a similar feel and style, so they're useful resources if you're interested in those subjects.
Desktop & Mobile Accessibility
This website is good. The google chrome experience isn't great, but it's tolerable. Navigation is simple, but ads are excessive.
The placement of the ads themselves isn't really a big issue. Both sides have some massive advertisements that ultimately don't interfere with the flow of the site. However, there is a large block of them in between the top menu and the content of the lists that throws off the flow of the design.
The mobile experience is not great. The site isn't well prepared for mobile access. The text on a cellphone browser is incredibly small and causes a lot of eye strain. You can zoom in, but then it cuts some of the words off. It's not ideal, by any means.
If I could, I would stick to the desktop version of the app. The only positive note about the mobile experience is that when I flip my phone to make it fullscreen, it isn't as bad. The sorting and searching is as miserable as pulling teeth with pliers, but the actual viewing isn't.
Positives
There are a few good things about streaming anime with KissAnime as your main source. They seem to have a big following, and there are forums and communities for support on Discord and Reddit. The visuals and sound quality are better than expected for a free streaming website.
The biggest perk of using this streaming site is that it has a sizeable library of content. The variety of content on the site is sure to satisfy any viewer.
The color scheme of the website is very helpful. Limiting eye strain is important when it comes to watching hours on end of videos. Night theme websites can be implemented poorly by not utilizing multiple shades of gray, but Kissanime succeeds in their execution of it. They skillfully use the shades to improve readability.
Negatives
There are a lot of frustrating ads on streaming websites, but almost every site has them now. The only issue is the ad between the top menu and the searchable lists. Some of the ads are sneaky little buggers that pop up without warning.
When you click on the search bar, a new window will open up. There may be an app of some sort to block ads in that window. The Reddit or Discord communities would be a useful resource for more information on that subject.
Despite its strong points, the website's mobile version is unfortunately not as user friendly as the desktop version. Navigation is difficult, and the content is not as well organized.
Improvements Needed
There are a few areas on the website that could use improvement. The biggest problem is the ads. Moving the placement of the central ads to the bottom or even the top of the page would be much more appealing visually.
Another way to keep viewers longer and engage them more would be a recommendation system. Most large streaming sites have a system that recommends shows and series based on your previous watch history. It's not essential for this site, but it would be a fun bonus and keep users active longer.
A mobile application could give Kissanime a much-needed facelift. A large percentage of viewers watch Kissanime on mobile devices. If the website wasn't optimized, this could lead to a lack of interest in users. Even if creating an app isn't an option, they should consider redesigning their mobile browsing experience.
Summary
This website offers a lot of anime for free with no fees attached. If you're looking for a lot of anime to watch without having to pay anything, this is a good option. The desktop system library makes it easy to find what you're looking for.
On the other hand, the pop-up ads are really annoying. The mobile browser version is a pain to access. It's 2019, so it makes sense to develop a mobile app or even make improvements on the mobile browser.
The website isn't bad, but it's not great either. It's a good starting point for someone who wants a large quantity of shows to choose from. In the grand scale of streaming sites, it sits in the middle.
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