Me in the future: “Nobody watches anime anymore. It’s too popular”
Ampere Analysis sees that anime has become a mainstream culture in the U.S. and Europe with significant potential for expansion from $31.2 billion in 2023 to $60.1 billion by 2030.
Spotify (SPOT) also reported an increase of 395% in anime music streams since 2021.
Netflix are so fucking terrible for anime, though. The way they handle “simulcasts” is absolutely embarrassing, and their exit from the industry cannot come a moment too soon.
What did they do, the simulcast I mean? I don’t use Netflix.
Netflix don’t simulcast. They always delay Western releases, too. The way they handled the US release of Violet Evergarden is forever unforgivable (making Americans wait three months after literally every other country on the fucking planet). I’ll pirate anything Netflix ever make for that. Fuck them.
They have gotten better about that. Dungeon Meshi was simulcast (at least within the same day), as is Orb this season. Netflix’s value proposition is pretty poor these days though after a series of price increases. This is especially true if you have a 4k TV and actually want to use it at full resolution since you need to pay a higher tier for 4k resolution.
And yet they also fumbled Blue Box. Tbh anime piracy is the best value proposition in general, and I don’t see that changing.
Netflix still does whole season drops of its original/exclusive shows (e.g. Kengan Ashura, TP-Bon, JoJoBA Stone Ocean), which kind of ruins the weekly episode anticipation slow burn.
A whole season is too much to digest, and without the weekly notifications, otherwise fine series just fade into the background.
Dungeon Meshi was an exception, for whatever reason that was released weekly.
There are several simulcast Anime on Netflix right now, though. They are getting better at it and give every kind of viewer something. I mean they even give you the date for the next episode so they’re clearly aware of your kind of viewer.
I had forgotten about TP-Bon, which gave the bot some headaches. So…they might be improving, but far from ideal.