Hollywood bets on anime
The U.S. streaming industry has embraced anime, with Crunchyroll emerging as a key player in delivering a wide range of content to fans. Founded in 2006, Crunchyroll offers more than 1,000 anime titles for $8-$15 per month. The service’s app exceeded 100 million downloads in July across iOS and Google Play, per data.ai. (Crunchyroll would not share how many paid subscribers it currently has.)
Netflix Inc. is increasingly tapping into the anime market as well. Half of the service’s 222 million subscribers watched some anime on Netflix in 2021, according to the company, while Morning Consult data found that more than a quarter (27%) of anime fans said they watched anime at least once per day on Netflix in the last month. Netflix, which announced at April’s AnimeJapan convention that it would soon launch 40 new anime titles, recently struck a new distribution deal with Nippon TV to add 13 popular anime titles to the platform, such as “Ouran High School Host Club” and “Death Note.”
The influence of anime and its eye-catching style is now being used in blockbuster Hollywood franchises, a sign that it’s truly been accepted in the U.S. mainstream. Warner Bros. Pictures plans to release the anime feature “Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrim” in April 2024, while Adult Swim recently ordered a “Rick and Morty: The Anime” spinoff series. About half of anime fans have seen, read or heard about both projects, according to Morning Consult data.
Anime has been “a huge piece of several streamers’ global strategies, in terms of trying to reach younger audiences,” said David Jesteadt, president of GKIDS, which produces and distributes feature animation for adult and family audiences, including the North American distribution of Studio Ghibli. “The ability that anime has to travel across a lot of different demographics and countries is what makes it appealing for export.”
That crossover appeal is starting to show up at the American box office. In the last two years, multiple films based on popular anime titles have found success, despite the coronavirus pandemic’s effects on theater attendance. In 2021, Toho and Aniplex’s “Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train” became the second highest-grossing anime feature film at the domestic box office by earning $45 million, while Crunchyroll’s “Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero” took the top spot in its debut weekend beating out the Idris Elba-led action thriller “Beast.”
The Morning Consult data suggests anime fans are most interested in seeing film or TV adaptations of familiar franchises such as “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” ‘Pokémon” and ‘“Dragon Ball Z.”
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