It’s been pretty obvious for awhile that Netflix is ramping up more and more original content from around the world, particularly since there’s different costs in different areas and sometimes it’s definitely easier to work outside of Hollywood itself. As a huge fan of their foreign crime thrillers, from the UK and elsewhere in Europe, it’s definitely been a feast for me with so many different things to explore.
When Netflix got itself up and running in Japan, the focus was largely on easy to produce and acquire projects of a live-action nature and then picking up a few things on the anime side for distribution before getting far more invested in projects. That’s now moving more fully toward the next phase as the streaming service has announced a new continuing partnership with Production I.G. and studio Bones for new works that will be coming in the next few years. At the moment, no titles are announced as part of this new partnership now how many there will be over the course of it.
Netflix’s approach in all of this ends up sidestepping the production committee route in certain regards in order to secure worldwide distribution and that helps to further their reach, offering multiple dubs and subtitle tracks for a range of viewers – something they can expand upon easily enough when they see growing interest in streaming in different regions.
While we expect plenty of familiar types of titles in the coming years there’s also the fact that the creative side has more freedom as they don’t have to worry about broadcast restrictions, hence a show like Devilman Crybaby getting out there this month.
[Source: Animation Business Journal, Anime! Anime! Biz, Netflix, MAL]
