Crunchyroll Partners With NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan to Make New Anime
Popular anime streaming website Crunchyroll is partnering with NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan (NUEJ) to produce new anime. This collaboration will include entirely original projects as well as series based on existing or established properties.
The aim of the co-development partnership is to produce anime for a much wider audience. The majority of the anime titles currently being released cater to a mostly Japanese audience often with references to Japanese culture that might not be appealing to international audiences.
This could be the salvation of many promising titles that were either canceled or were unable to leave the pages of the manga. With most anime today serving a more secondary marketing role to mangas and visual novels, the partnership between the two companies could give series with exceptional stories a chance to shine.
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This cooperation between the two is hardly new. In the past, the streaming service distributed several anime titles from NUEJ on its platform, such as "Berserk" and "Drifters."
According to the founder and general manager of Crunchyroll, Kun Gao, both companies share a passion for anime that have widespread appeal. He added that the partnership is an exciting opportunity to bring more high-quality content to the anime community.
The streaming platform also announced a similar deal with Sumitomo Corporation of America back in 2015. This has highlighted their commitment to taking a more hands-on approach in creating new anime titles and subsequently invested in two dozen anime productions since.
The recent adaptation of the '80s mecha anime "Voltron" by DreamWorks and Netflix might have been the premise for Crunchyroll to begin creating anime of their own. Gao noted that 2017 will be the year "anime becomes mainstream" and this new deal could just be the beginning.
The streaming service is also starting an initiative called Anime Movie Night in order to bring anime films to theaters. As part of this program, the first three episodes of "The Ancient Magus' Bride" will be made available in 300 theaters across North America on July 26.
