A great news, indeed, but there's also a couple of bad ones... Starting off with the good news, the semi-hax streaming website Crunchyroll made another step toward legality, by entering an agreement with ADV Films allowing them to stream one of the best animes of 2006: Welcome to the NHK (NHK ni Youkoso!), which would've been the best, had it not been for Higurashi.

For starters, they are streaming episode 1 and episode 2 for free, and two additional (but presumably not-so-free) episodes will be added each Thursday, over the next five weeks. And to top it off, ADV is running a special promotion to purchase the DVDs at 50% off, while Crunchyroll is running a contest with NHK volumes 1-4 DVDs as prizes.

So what's the bad news? What more could we possibly, reasonably ask for? Well, being able to actually watch it would be nice... But, alas, we - like many others - can't, due to a typical geographical discrimination. As it stands now, NHK is only streaming on Crunchyroll for North-American and UK residents. Oh, and the streaming version is English dubbed only, so better cover your ears before watching it.

ADV currently has the first four volumes of Welcome to the NHK on DVD in stores, and volume 5 (from a total of 6) is scheduled to go on sale this July 8.

Update: Added some NHK screenshots with Misaki-chan I had lying around...