Crunchyroll and Sony will distribute Makoto Shinkai's next film. Here is what our highest-rated shelf gives you free
A wide theatrical deal for a new film is a fair moment to ask what the top of our own rated shelf costs nothing to watch. The answer is short.
By Sana Whitfield · AnimeSphere staff · August 12, 2026
Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures will distribute Makoto Shinkai's next film together in territories outside Asia, and in India as well, as reported by Anime News Network. That is a reasonable moment to turn to our own shelf and ask a narrower question: at the very top of the scores we record, how much is free to watch right now?
The 85 line
Our index carries 20,497 entries and records an average score for 15,271 of them. Setting the bar at 85 or higher out of 100 leaves 133 titles. That is the threshold this piece uses.
All 133 of those pages were requested from animesphere.app today, and all 133 returned successfully, with no failures. Seven of them state at least one free episode. Between those seven, the pages state 17 episodes. That is the figure for the whole band: seven titles, 17 episodes.
What the seven state
The largest single run belongs to Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting!, whose page states seven free episodes against the 75 we have recorded. To Be Hero X states three free against 24 recorded, and Umamusume: Cinderella Gray states three against 13. Vinland Saga, ODDTAXI and Witch Hat Atelier each state one. Those six are a selection from the group rather than the complete list of seven.
Where both numbers appear above, the free count sits short of the recorded one.
A run that reaches its end
Mu Shen Ji is not in the census. We record it at 78, below the line, and as a 26-episode work with China as its country of origin, which is the origin our site files as donghua. Its page states 26 free episodes, in Chinese audio with English subtitles.
Our database holds 26 rows for it: 26 distinct videos across 26 distinct episode slots, carrying 26 distinct upload titles. No video is filed against two episodes, and none is shared with another series. The free run reaches the recorded end at 26.
The uploads sit on the channel Made By Bilibili (@MadeByBilibili), which carries a YouTube verified badge, confirmed today. Episodes 1, 13 and 26 were opened in full today. They run 1,144, 1,317 and 1,309 seconds against a recorded length of 20 minutes, so these are whole episodes and not clips. Each reports two authored subtitle tracks, one Simplified Chinese and one English. An authored English track means a real English subtitle track, supplied rather than machine generated. The upload titles number themselves 1, 13 and 26, matching the episode numbers we store at all three points, and the rows carry no country restriction.
So the shelf offers two figures today. At 85 and above, seven titles state 17 free episodes between them. Mu Shen Ji, recorded at 78, states 26, which is every episode we have recorded for it, subtitled in English from a verified channel.