Japanese media reported that the service of the American company Netflix, has dominated the streaming market in Japan during the health emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.
According to the results reports published on April 21, the number of members subscribed to the service reached 188.26 million users, an increase of 15.77 million in just three months. The number of members subscribed in Japan was not specified, but it is clear that it has grown significantly by at least three million users since the summer of 2019.
One of the most consumed content on the platform in Japan is anime. The dynamic of "Today's Top 10" began on the Netflix platform this year, and presents a ranking of the most viewed and popular content of the day, and the series Kimetsu no Yaiba and Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 dominate these listings. However, Netflix has not only attached importance to streaming anime, but also producing it.
There are two main reasons why Netflix has been giving so much importance to anime. One is how easy it is to encourage the masses of fans by offering this content, making it a powerful tool when it comes to gaining more service subscribers. And the other is that it is content that can easily be distributed worldwide.
With anime, the production has the freedom to use the characters and places that they like, and it's easy to travel through time between past and future. In addition, anime productions provide a facility to offer stories that can be safely understood wherever they are viewed. For Netflix, a platform that operates globally, this is a great advantage.
Netflix's animation business has now been divided into two strands: acquiring distribution licenses and original productions. The first clearly focuses on the purchase of distribution rights for series that were broadcast on television in Japan.
However, there are two types of distribution licenses: one to acquire rights shared with other platforms and another to obtain exclusive rights. Netflix quickly became a monopoly on anime distribution when it arrived in Japan in 2015, and while other platforms have already begun to gain traction in this market today, they are still nowhere near reaching the level of the American giant.
Source: Toyokeizai Online
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