Netflix Announces A Motherlode Of Anime Content For 2022

International markets are a key front in the current phase of competition among streaming media platforms, both as opportunities for subscriber growth and as sources for new content with global appeal. As Netflix
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strives to fend off competition from Disney Plus, HBO Max, Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video and other major platforms that have rounded into shape with their own slates of original, exclusive and international content, the original streamer is doubling down on its bet on anime, the high production-value animated content usually associated with Japan, but now coming from elsewhere in Asia and beyond.

Earlier this week at the AnimeJapan 2022 event, Netflix revealed a slate of 40 anime titles set to debut on the service through the end of the year, including some highly-anticipated new projects, several feature-length films, and new seasons of fan-favorite series.

Some of the highlights of the announcement include a second season of the current iteration of Ultraman, one of Japan’s most popular and long-lived IPs, which drops April 14^th and runs exclusively on Netflix. If that doesn’t satisfy fans of giant Kaiju fights, a second season of the anime tie-in to Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim franchise arrives April 19.

Two other popular titles, the lighthearted superhero series Tiger and Bunny, and the latest installment in the seminal cyberpunk epic Ghost In the Shell will also get released this spring.

Netflix also announced that its 2020 partnership with six top anime creators will start bearing fruit with the debut of Thermet Romae Novea, followed by family-oriented feature films including Bubble and Drifting Home.

Later in the year, we’ll see Netflix-exclusive original anime series set in the world of Legendary Pictures’ Kong and Godzilla, Skull Island; an adaptation of Tom Clancy’s technothriller Splinter Cell; an anime take on the popular videogame franchise Tomb Raider, and a new project from Zack and Deborah Snyder called Twilight of the Gods.

The high profile nature of these projects and the creators associated with them shows Netflix remains firmly committed to original anime content, and invested considerably in the production pipeline over the past several years. That proved a smart move since animation was one of the few media industries that was relatively unaffected by COVID-19 shutdowns, and in fact benefited from its own investments in technology and talent development to move to a more decentralized model.

Kohei Obara, director, anime creative, Netflix, underscored the streamer’s ongoing interest in this kind of content in the context of its global competitive strategy. “Anime is one of the cornerstones of our investment in Japan, watched by nearly 90% of our members here last year. At the same time, interest in anime has grown worldwide, and more than half of our members globally tuned into it last year. “From diversifying our slate to bringing back fan favorites, we want to continue growing our members’ discovery and love for anime, both in Japan and around the world with this next chapter of anime on Netflix.”