Netflix will soon have a much larger anime collection by the end of the year. The streaming service has announced at Tokyo’s AnimeJapan 2021 Expo that it’s launching about 40 anime shows and movies this year, which is double the number of titles it released in 2020. So they are going all in. It looks like this is the company’s efforts to appeal to audiences in Asia and in international markets now that most North American viewers already have subscriptions.
Netflix also revealed that it’s involved in the anime adaptation of Japanese manga Record of Ragnarok, which is about 13 gods fighting 13 humans in one-on-one battles. The list of anime shows to premiere this year also includes The Way of the Househusband (available on April 8th) about a former yakuza who becomes a housemaker. There’s also Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness, which will feature Claire’s and Leon’s voice actors from the 2019 Resident Evil remake and will be available later this year.
Netflix has also revealed a new poster for Yasuke revolving around a Black samurai in an alternate feudal Japan. There’s also Eden, which is set thousands of years in the future and is about two robots secretly raising a human child who’s been woken from stasis.
While it most likely won’t be able to compete with Sony’s Crunchyroll acquisition, Netflix’s collection could still attract anime fans around the world. Netflix says that Eden and Yasuke are both “brand new stories brought to life by a wealth of international creators, further strengthening Netflix’s ambitions to diversify their lineup of original anime by working with top creators from both in- and outside of Japan.”
Source Engadget