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Viz to Stream Dubbed Naruto Episodes on Joost, Hulu

The North American anime distributor Viz Media has announced on Monday that the Joost and Hulu video websites will stream English-dubbed, uncut episodes of the original Naruto anime series for free. The first five episodes of this 2002-2007 television adaptation of Masashi Kishimoto's ninja manga series will go live on April 15. A new episode will be added every Wednesday. Joost is available in the United States and Canada, while Hulu is available in the United States. Each episode will remain on the site for about five weeks.

Joost and Hulu have already been streaming English-subtitled episodes of Naruto since last September. Joost, Hulu, Viz's own Naruto.com site, and the Crunchyroll site have also been streaming subtitled episodes of the Naruto Shippūden television sequel since the beginning of the year.

Another North American anime distributor, 4Kids Entertainment, announced earlier this month that the YouTube video site is now streaming its Yu-Gi-Oh! episodes "everywhere except Asia (sorry Asia)." 4Kids began posting episodes with Japanese dubbing (but without English subtitles) and with English dubbing last month, but the episodes were initially available only to viewers with American Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.

Thank you to Derek Wallace for the Yu-Gi-Oh! news tip.

Image © 2002 Masashi Kishimoto