If you are a fan of Japanese dramas, then you will know that finding places to watch them legally is much more difficult (compared to Korean or Chinese dramas anyway).
Netflix is working on expanding its range of Japanese dramas, which is good news for international fans. However if your budget cannot stretch to a Netflix subscription, there are other options out there. I personally use the following two places to get my J-drama fix for free (or very cheap)!
Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll has been established for some time as the go-to place to watch the latest anime, and to a lesser extent manga. Crunchyroll has evolved over the years to provide a wide range of Japanese shows in an on-demand format. This includes a pretty good range of Japanese dramas; whether you enjoy suspense dramas or romcoms, you will find something you enjoy here.
Crunchyroll (like the others on this list) operates on a ‘freemium’ model, meaning you can watch most of the content in standard definition for free with adverts interspersed in each episode (usually at least 4 ad breaks in a 45-minute drama episode). To get rid of the ads and stream in HD, you need to pay a subscription cost of £4.99/$6.95 per month.
Pros:
- Can install the Crunchyroll app on a variety of platforms: iOS, Android, pretty much all video game platforms
- Broad range of dramas to watch
Cons:
- Annoying adverts (on the Android App, you tend to get 2-3 ads at the same time which are not skippable at all)
- No options for Japanese subtitles
Being mostly interested in Japanese dramas, I’ve listed the Jdramas you can watch for free (further content is available if you have a subscription).
List of Japanese Dramas available on Crunchyroll:
99 Days with the Superstar
Akagi
Always the Two of Us
Angel Heart
Anohana: The Flower We Saw that Day
Antiquarian Bookshop Biblia’s Case Files
A Taste of Honey
Biyou Shounen Celebrity
Crazy for Me
Death Note (live action drama)
Desperate Motherhood
Detective vs Detectives
Dinner
Doctor’s Affairs
Dr Coto’s Clinic
Forget Me Not
Frenemy ~Rumble of the Rat~
Future Diary: Another World
Galileo
Ghostwriter
Gokaku Ganbo
GTO/ Great Teacher Onizuka
GTO: Taiwan Special
Happy Boys
Hard to Say I Love You
Hero (2014)
High School Entrance Exam
I’m Mita, Your Housekeeper
Iryu: Team Medical Dragon
Last Cinderella
Liar Game
Life in Additional Time
Mischievous Kiss – Love in Tokyo
Mischievous Kiss 2 – Love in Tokyo
Mr. Nietzche in the Convenience Store
Mooncake
Nobunaga Concerto
Nodame Cantabile
No Dropping Out ~Back to School at 35~
Onna Nobunaga
Ordinary Miracles
Power Office Girls 2013
Rebound
RH Plus
Shiratori Reiko
Switch Girl
The 101st Proposal
The Perfect Insider
Time Taxi
Ultraman 80
Ultraman Gaia
Ultraman Ginga
Ultraman Leo
Ultraman Max
Ultraman Mebius
Ultraman Nexus
Ultraman Orb
Ultraman X
Wakakozake
Wild Mom
You Taught Me All the Precious Things
Viki
Viki is a website that is a subsidiary of Japanese online retail giant Rakuten. The website has a large collection of Korean, Mainland Chinese, and Taiwanese dramas in addition to Japanese dramas. The collection of Japanese dramas is relatively small but there is some variety in terms of genres.
What I like about the website (and app) is that it is very easy to use. It is easy to filter by Japanese dramas and if you create an account, you can save a list of dramas you want to watch later. You can read drama reviews by other members, and it is possible to turn on live comments showing reactions from other users whilst you watch the drama too which helps foster a sense of community.
For language learners, you usually have the option to switch subtitles in the options between English, Japanese, and many other languages. Viki members help with the translations, which helps make the dramas accessible to many people around the world.
Viki is free to view, but ad-free and higher quality videos require a Viki pass, which has a subscription cost of $4.99 per month.
Pros:
- Sense of community
- Japanese subtitles available for a lot of dramas
- App is very slick and easy to use
Cons:
- Limited selection of dramas
- Annoying adverts (slightly better than Crunchyroll in that they are usually skippable)
List of Japanese dramas available on Viki:
A Doctors’ Affairs
A Heartfelt Trip to Fukushima [TV show]
All About My Siblings
Blue Fire
Clinic on the Sea
Dear Sister
Delicious Niigata in Japan [TV show]
Dokurogeki
Festival: Pride for Hometown [TV show]
FLASHBACK
Galileo
Girls Night Out [TV show]
GTO in Taiwan
Hakuoki SSL: Sweet School Life
HEAT
Hello! Project Station [TV show]
Hirugao: Love Affairs in the Afternoon
I am Reiko Shiratori!
I am Reiko Shiratori the Movie
Juho 2405
Juho 2405 the Movie
Kakusei
Kimi wa Petto (2017 remake)
Koinaka
Lady Girls
Last Cinderella
Leiji Matsumoto’s OZMA
Let’s Explore Fukushima
Love Stories from Fukuoka
Murakami Grand Festival 2016
My Little Lover
Mysterious Summer
Nogizaka 46 Meets Asia [TV show]
Painless: The Eyes for Signs
Phoenix [Movie]
Railway Story [TV show]
Rainbow Rose
Ramen Loving Girl
Real Horror
Second to Last Love (Season 1 and 2)
Sendai Iroha Zoukangou [TV show]
Switch Girl Season 1
Tabiaruki from Iwate [TV show]
Tales of Tohoku [TV show]
Teddy Go!
The Hours of My Life
The Sanjo Great Kite Battle [TV show]
Torihada
Upcoming! [TV show]
Vampire Heaven
Visiting Sacred Places of the Tohoku Region
Other sites that stream Japanese dramas
*October 2018 update* Now that Dramafever has suddenly shut down, I have changed this post to include some other sites I believe stream Jdramas. However, as they are not available to me in the UK, I have not been able to try them myself. If any of these are incorrect, please let me know and I will update the blog post.
Here is a list of sites that I believe are free to use:
- AsianCrush (mix of Japanese animated and live action films available, not available in every country – I know it is available in the US and Canada)
- Viu (streams a number of Japanese dramas; available in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Indonesia, India, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Myanmar)
More options are available, but come at a cost (usually less than the cost of Netflix though). If you are able to pay for a subscription, it might be worth checking out the following sites:
- dTV (Japan only – requires a subscription, although the first episode of some dramas can be watched for free)
- Hooq (available in Thailand, Singapore, India, Indonesia and the Philippines)
- Hulu (United States only). Japan does have its own version of Hulu called Hulu Japan, but this is only available in Japan and will only have Japanese subtitles.
- Iflix (available in Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, Iraq, Kenya, Jordan. Kuwait, Lebanon, The Maldives, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda, Vietnam, Zimbabwe)
So that is my list of Netflix alternatives for Japanese dramas. I will keep updating this post as and when I find new sites!
The post I wrote on Netflix has some tips on how you can use TV shows in general to study Japanese.
Are you a Jdrama fan or not? What are your favourite dramas or TV shows to watch in Japanese? Let me know in the comments!
I just download that way I can watch with Japanese subs and “bookmark” lines with words I want to add to anki
Ah that’s interesting – being able to add words and phrases straight to Anki must be super useful!
the other upside is that you can rip the audio using sub2srs and just listen to the dialogue parts over and over. that way you understand the episode more after relistening to it multiple times compared to the first time.
but seriously what japanese can you learn from a streaming video??? i guess if there’s japanese subs you can manually type stuff out that you want to remember ? but if you just had the files you can open the subtitle file in chrome or firefox or whatever and use a pop-up dictionary and automatically generate anki cards using rikaisama. it just seems like if you’re goal is to just watch jdramas what you mention is fine… “just watching” is fine if you’re already fluent or if you just want to watch it and want to overestimate your comprehension abilities and feel better about yourself (it easily happens if you watch with english subs.) . but if you want to learn from the drama it’s best to just have the files. it’s too inefficient otherwise.
for me as a language learner i’ve been at it a long time and i’m obsessed with efficiency and streamlining at this point. i’m gonna make a post on it later
To be honest, I don’t actively study using tv shows and dramas. I usually try to watch shows with Japanese subs or no subs at all depending on the genre.
I’ll definitely read your post on studying more efficiently from dramas when you publish it!
so you watch and don’t look up anything or add anything to anki? you’re just swathing for fun?? i wanted to post on efficiency because i love saving time.
If I hear an interesting phrase I will look something up, but usually I just watch for fun 🙂
This is super helpful! Thanks, man!
No problem, glad I could help 🙂
This is great!
I’m not really find of tv shows, so I’m not really into dramas, I’ve finished maybe 5 JP dramas my whole life 😂
But this is definitely useful and great to see, few years back it was terrible to watch dramas or anime or try to read manga, since there was barely any way to get them legally.
I used to be really into dramas but stopped watching them, until I rediscovered Crunchyroll 😅
The ads are annoying, but I think it’s better to support Jdramas through legal means as it will hopefully encourage Japanese media to make more stuff available outside of Japan.
I didn’t know Crunchy had dramas, only knew about dramafever and viki haha x)
Japan has always been exclusive and it’s never been about piracy, they just like their market closed. Anime, manga and dramas only got exported because they were basically forced too :’)
But you’re right, we do need to support^^
I wish Japanese companies would open up more, I think it makes a lot of business sense! I think there is very slow progress being made, I do my best to show support in the hope that it will encourage more in the future 🙂
Thank you! I use to just watch what CrunchyRoll had and I’ve watched a lot of Netflix things, so this post is much appreciated!
Thanks for commenting, I’m glad you found the post useful!