Viz Media has taken what was already unprecedented in their decision to stream episodes of the currently airing Naruto series in Japan and translating them to English in a week and made it, well, even more unprecedented.

They’ve announced that starting with episode 101 of Naruto Shippuden, airing on March 26, 2009 the English subtitled streams will be airing on www.naruto.com on the same day that the episodes air in Japan. PopCultureShock has confirmed with Viz that not only will it be streaming on the same day as release overseas, but that the stream will begin within an hour of the episodes airing in Japan.

Previously, the move was already a bold direction for any anime company to make. What Viz has done is take a hugely successful property, that was being downloaded millions of times per week from fansubbing groups and killed the need or demand for fans to get it from anyone other than them. This allows Viz to cut out the fansubbing groups, which spoils domestic viewers from anticipating, viewing and purchasing the episodes when they’re localized and released here and also monetize it by allowing fans to view it for free but show ads through the stream.

The only question now is not IF, but WHEN other anime license holders will start to do the same.