The strongest movie on RetroCrush right now is *Future Boy Conan*, Hayao Miyazaki's 1978 post-apocalyptic directorial debut, which the service streams as a US exclusive licensed from GKIDS. Close behind it, four major franchise films — *Hunter x Hunter: Phantom Rouge*, *Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon R: The Movie*, *Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow*, and *Bleach the Movie: Hell Verse* — are arriving from a new VIZ Media deal, the first time any of those franchises has appeared on the platform. RetroCrush is Cineverse's classic-anime streaming service, free and ad-supported, with an optional ad-free tier. That matters for how you plan a watchlist: nothing below costs anything to try, so the real question is what to watch first, and which titles are live today versus still labelled "coming soon.".
Table of Contents
- The one exclusive to watch first
- What the VIZ Media deal adds
- Check the app before you plan around the new films
- Strong picks that are already live
- The free Peacock channel, and when to use it instead
- Cost and content warnings
- Frequently Asked Questions
The one exclusive to watch first
It is a television series rather than a film, which is worth knowing before you sit down expecting a two-hour watch. The practical upside is that no competing subscription gets you there — if you want it legally in the United States, this is the address.
For anyone building a single evening around the catalog, pair it with *Galaxy Express 999* or *Space Adventure Cobra*. Both are longstanding catalog pillars named in Nerdist's overview of the service, and both sit in the same era of widescreen, melancholy science fiction.
- Future Boy Conan* is the clearest reason to open the app. Miyazaki directed the 1978 series before founding Studio Ghibli, and it carries the themes his features later made famous — flight, ruined landscapes, children outpacing adults — in a rougher, more adventurous register. RetroCrush holds exclusive US streaming rights to it, announced in a Cineverse press release as a GKIDS license.
What the VIZ Media deal adds
On 2026-08-27, Cineverse announced that RetroCrush had acquired US streaming rights to classic anime from VIZ Media — its first licensing deal with VIZ, timed to the service's presence at Anime NYC. The film side of that package is the headline: *Hunter x Hunter: Phantom Rouge*, *Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon R: The Movie*, *Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow*, and *Bleach the Movie: Hell Verse*. The series side is deeper than the film list suggests.
Per Anime News Network's report on the deal, it also brings *Hikaru no Go*, *Accel World*, *Vampire Knight*, *Captain Tsubasa*, and *Captain Tsubasa: Junior Youth Arc* to the subscription app. That shifts what RetroCrush is for. Its reputation rested on 1970s and 1980s material that is hard to find elsewhere; the VIZ titles are 2000s-era franchise anime with large existing audiences. If you bounced off the service before because the catalog felt too archival, this is the batch that changes the calculation.
Check the app before you plan around the new films
The VIZ titles were announced as "coming soon" to the RetroCrush SVOD app, with no premiere dates given in the Cineverse announcement. An acquisition announcement is a rights deal, not a release date, and the two can sit months apart. So treat the four films as a watchlist to confirm rather than a plan for tonight:.
- Open the RetroCrush app and search the exact film title before assuming it has landed.
- If a franchise page exists but shows only series episodes, the film has not gone live yet.
- The announcement covers the subscription app specifically — not the free linear channel described below.
- Nothing in the deal was described as time-limited, so there is no urgency to rush a viewing.
Strong picks that are already live
If you want something certain, the standing catalog is where to look. Roku's RetroCrush guide lists *Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit*, *The Twelve Kingdoms*, *Project A-ko: The Complete Collection*, *Nagasarete Airantō*, and *Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog* among trending titles on the service. *Project A-ko* is the one closest to a conventional movie night: a short, loud, very 1980s action comedy.
Longer commitments are available for viewers who want a series instead. *Devil Lady* runs 26 episodes and *Creamy Mami* runs 52, both named in Nerdist's catalog rundown, alongside *Cardcaptor Sakura* and *The Rose of Versailles*. These are the titles that defined the service before the VIZ deal, and they are not going anywhere.
The free Peacock channel, and when to use it instead
RetroCrush also runs a 24/7 FAST channel inside Peacock's free channel lineup. Per Animation World Network, that channel carries titles including *Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade*, *Black Jack: The Movie*, *Appleseed*, *GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka*, and *Area 88* — a notably film-heavy selection compared with much of the app.
The trade-off is control. The FAST channel is linear, meaning you watch whatever is scheduled at that moment with no on-demand picking. It is good for discovery and bad for a specific title, so use the app when you have something in mind and the channel when you do not.
Cost and content warnings
Every title above is watchable at no charge with ads. App-store listings, including the Microsoft Store page, put the optional ad-free Premium tier at $4.99 per month or $49.99 per year.
The only thing the paid tier buys is the removal of ads, so there is no catalog reason to subscribe before you have tested the free version. Most RetroCrush content is rated for ages 13 and up and carries substantial violence and mature content. That applies across the catalog, not just to obvious cases like *Jin-Roh* or *Devil Lady* — a nostalgic-sounding 1980s title is not automatically family viewing here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is *Future Boy Conan* a film or a series?
A 1978 television series, directed by Hayao Miyazaki before he co-founded Studio Ghibli. Plan for episodes, not a single feature-length sitting.
Do I need Peacock to watch RetroCrush?
No. RetroCrush has its own free ad-supported app. The Peacock channel is a separate, linear version of the same brand with its own film lineup.
Will the Naruto and Bleach films be free too?
They were announced for the RetroCrush subscription app, which is free with ads and has a $4.99-per-month ad-free option. No separate purchase was described.