Japanese entertainment is changing.
In November 2024, Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria spoke of plans to increase the number of Japanese titles produced by the streaming service. This number had already been steadily on the increase after finding strong returns on major investments in anime production and exclusive licensing of films from Studio Colorido alongside milestones series such as queer dating show The Boyfriend, working with Kore-eda Hirokazu, and finding global live-action hits in Alice in Borderland. At the same time, Amazon continued a recent slew of big-money investments by joining the production committee for Look Back, using this influence to bring the critically-acclaimed hit to streaming services mere months from its release, all while developing other major series like an adaptation of Yakuza: Like a Dragon.
Both these major streamers have increased their investment in Japan, but they’re far from alone in the country’s growing streaming market. Domestic services have also grown in prominence. ABEMA, popular for years as a free-with-ads streaming service blending a large library of originals and licensed titles with ‘broadcast channels’ from news to anime to classics to mahjong, found major success in licensing live events after becoming the exclusive streaming service for the soccer World Cup and European Championships. U-Next have made high-profile investments into live and event streaming, with high-profile exclusive broadcast licenses for concerts from Utada Hikaru, Ado, and Cho Tokimeki Sendenbu while commanding access to live streaming of originals, the UK Premier League and award-winning hits including HBO’s library and Shogun.
Then you have TVer, first established in 2015 but continuing to grow as a home to freely access broadcast TV both live and archived from anywhere for the likes of TV Asahi, TV Tokyo, Fuji TV, and others, even without owning a TV.
For a country that was once slower to embrace streaming services than elsewhere, people are now spoiled for choice when it comes to streaming services. Tailored domestic options and global titans each offer their own niches, standing alongside rather than cannibalizing traditional TV that remains strong in areas like variety and drama and provide much of the library to these growing services. Yet their existence isn’t merely a new way to catch the same old shows with a bit more variety in the options of where to see them: no more clear than in 2024, major streaming services have both changed and integrated themselves into the existing structures of the Japanese entertainment industry, a move likely to continue into 2025 and beyond.
What makes the Japanese streaming market unique is its seeming coexistence and lower priority for originals over the library and distribution they provide. It’s not that the push for exclusive drama and series from streaming services doesn’t exist in Japan. Beyond Netflix and Amazon Prime expanding their global production of exclusive originals to the Japanese market, you have the aforementioned examples of reality and drama from Japanese streamers, with those more tuned to live broadcast through online channels like ABEMA even running their own live news and variety shows. Shows like First Love for Netflix, inspired by the Utada Hikaru song of the same name, Malice on U-Next and Gannibal on Disney+ received not only widespread promotion but were a major success for their respective services.
Yet beyond this, their convenience as an anytime library is far more important to attracting audiences, often working in tandem with traditional distribution rather than in opposition. Nowhere is this more apparent than with anime, which had always used late-night TV broadcast as both a distribution method and promotional tool for merchandise and home video releases, with some series at times even paying TV channels for access to broadcasting slots knowing they won’t attract record-breaking audiences at such late hours, but recognizing its importance in helping shift units and turn a profit. Exclusivity, even if a show was branded and premiered towards a particular channel’s broadcasting block like Fuji TV’s noitaminA block famous for launching series like Psycho Pass and AnoHana, was never prioritized, with the same show airing across channels at different time slots and in different regions.
This has continued the embrace of streaming. Rather than becoming a fight for exclusivity, only a select few series directly funded by streamers like Ranma 1/2 with Netflix will remain limited. Almost every show this season is available on over 6 different streaming services, with the only variance existing in the times at which episodes are uploaded to the platforms. You could watch MAPPA’s new anime Zenshuu on Netflix, but also on Prime Video, DMM TV, U-NEXT, d-anime, Lemino, Rakuten, TVer, and so, so many more.
Major TV drama already popular through established success on traditional broadcasters are more likely to find the biggest success over original creations on many of these platforms also, but the ability to watch these stories at any time makes them great tools whenever a new series or even movie adaptation is set to be broadcast on terrestrial TV or released in cinemas. Netflix became a home for Doctor X ahead of its series-concluding film, with U-Next the home for all the original series of Gran Maison Tokyo, just in time for the Gran Maison Paris movie to hit cinemas.
In many ways, as streamers globally have lost sight of their initial appeal as a convenient digital library available everywhere under a sea of rushed original stories often removed from services as quickly as they arrive, streamers in Japan are finding success by working with traditional distribution, not in opposition. For now, at least for domestically-operated services (and to an extent Amazon Prime, who are happy to become the largest funding partner on films like Look Back while still offering them traditional theatrical distribution and working with their other partners for home video and other traditional methods of merchandising and availability), they even adhere to this original promise. An expansive library of stories people love, available when they want it, with a sprinkling of original stories, variety and live entertainment to go with it.
Streaming has changed Japanese entertainment by working with it, not in opposition. The greater and easier accessibility to anime has been one of numerous reasons beyond the growth of the medium in the Japanese mainstream. Accessibility is its biggest draw, both for those seeking out the best in Japanese entertainment and companies looking to promote their next work, fueling bigger hits. It’s hard to imagine the latest Haikyuu!! film would grow to become one of the biggest anime films of all time if its blend of enjoyable action wasn’t supported by long-time easy availability that allowed anyone with a passing interest to get invested in the series with relative ease. It’s a system that, for now at least, has benefits for everyone.
