I’ve spoken before about ways that you can watch anime legally through streaming services with Netflix being one of those options. However, I think it’s also worth having a discussion about the impact that Netflix is having on the anime industry as well as some fascinating ways that their relationship has played out.
It has been clear for a long time now that Netflix has a great interest in the anime market. Prior to 2017, Netflix primarily bought the streaming rights for anime series once the shows had been released. However, it was announced then that Netflix was going to heavily invest in anime by funding thirty anime series themselves. It was also noted that these investments were more lucrative for anime studios than the typical production committee model.
It’s also worth noting that Netflix has recognised that the anime industry is in dire need of new animators. Therefore, Netflix has decided to work with WIT studio, the company responsible for animating the first three seasons of Attack on Titan, Vinland Saga and Spy x Family, to set up WIT Animator Academy, a school that provides free training and a stipend for living expenses to students. Of course, this is relatively small as the real issue is the poor wages and retention in the anime industry but it’s a sign that Netflix is taking the production of anime seriously.
Having discussed that, I think it’s time, and particularly important, that we take a look at Netflix’s current interest in anime. To provide some background, Netflix reported their first drop in subscribers in over a decade recently and this has prompted Netflix to panic and begin several initiatives. One of these initiatives was a downsizing of their animation department and the cancellation of several animated series.
Understandably, you can imagine that, upon hearing this news, I was curious if this would impact Netflix’s interest in anime. However, it seems that Netflix considers anime to be separate from their animation and a recent article stated that Netflix is going to continue investing in producing anime. Kaata Sakamoto, the vice president of content for Japan at Netflix stated “We are ramping up our investment in Japan content“.
This is a positive sign for the anime industry as demand continues to grow worldwide. Let me know your thoughts on Netflix and their fascinating relationship with anime, what you think about all of this investment, whether you like the anime content that Netflix provides, whether you think foreign investment can help solve the issues plaguing the anime industry and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk and amazon.com for all of your needs!
Netlix is a big red flag for me when it comes to anime. It’s not even the way they release stuff by holding it hostage for months as apposed to simulcasting it weekly but the way they do their localization is absolutely abysmal. Komi can’t communicate in particular is really bad. As you might know the series has lot’s of on screen text which is kind of important. But since Netflix can’t do proper typsesetting they just leave stuff untranslated. They could burn the typsets into the video but that would mean having to encode 30+ versions of the same episode for different languages. Now you could say well just watch the dub. And oh boy you’re in for a surprise… I don’t know about the english dub but what they did to the german dub is absolutely redicolous. Basically they rewrote a character in the series and made them “non-binary” in the dub. Not only that but they started using made up pronouns for this character. Words that aren’t even part of the language (!) This isn’t present in the original and just a cheap attempt at changing things as they see fit. So now I either have to keep up with barebones subtitles or a ruined dub. And people pay money for it. Honestly I just wished Netflix would stop licencing Anime all together and leave it to companies that actually cared about it. /Rant off
That’s quite interesting. I’ve heard about the criticism about their subtitling but I hadn’t heard about them changing content in the dub. Thanks for letting me know!