A few years ago the japanese animation series that arrived in Spain were relatively limited, and often conditioned by what was being seen in the United States or France (with their corresponding “openings” changed, and if not, you only have to look at ‘Knights of the Zodiac’). Today access is much easier thanks to streaming, and precisely for this reason anime demand It has doubled in the last two years.
The magic of streaming
In the late 1990s and early 2000s there was all an explosion of Japanese animation series on our screens, partly thanks to the regional chains and the new national chains that emerged at the time.
However, the arrival of streaming services has meant a before and after in understanding the way we consume anime. Now it is much easier to access complete series and movies of all kinds of genres and themes, and we can watch them dubbed or in the original version with subtitles, whichever best suits our preferences.
Is ease of access to content dubbed and subtitled has led to more and more audiences watching anime, so if it was already big before, the demand for anime content has multiplied in recent years.
According to a study conducted by Parrot Analytics, in just two years demand for Japanese animation content grew by 118%, making it one of the fastest growing genres during the pandemic.
anime in abundance
As with other types of content, the lockdowns caused huge growth in demand for streaming. From the platforms themselves they have noticed the increase in interest in streaming, and each service is trying to create its own anime catalog that differentiates it from the others and attract potential new users.
“In other English-speaking countries, a lot of people want to continue to try other things and watch more and more types of anime, so it’s a good tool to attract new users,” said Michael Dempsey, partner at Compound and animation expert. “It’s much more mainstream now, it’s not as much of a niche content as it used to be. It’s probably because there’s a much bigger and ongoing hunger for animation content now.”
In fact, the use of anime is one of the strategies that Netflix is following to be able to measure itself against its great competitors HBO Max and Disney +. By producing original anime such as ‘The Seven Deadly Sins’ or ‘Castlevania’ or exclusively licensing large series ‘ JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure’ or ‘Shaman King’.
And they are not the only ones. Prime Video is acquiring licenses for some of the most popular anime of the moment, such as the end of the Evangelion saga, and producing its own series such as ‘Invincible’ or ‘The Legend of Vox Machina’, which, although not strictly anime, also seek to attract a type of public that consumes animation.
Since I couldn’t miss Disney He also jumped on the anime bandwagon with his ‘Star Wars: Visions’, and the move must have worked out because there are already more original anime in development for Disney +.
These strategies also go beyond just catalog creation, but anime is also impacting business strategies. Last summer, Sony took over Crunchyroll, one of the largest anime streaming services in the world, for more than a billion dollars, proving that the demand for anime is not only growing but also makes a lot of money.