Yahoo News Netflix Expands Anime Supply Through Quartet of Deals in Japan and Korea
Global streaming giant Netflix has expanded its roster of anime studio suppliers. It has signed content deals with three Japanese animation houses and one from Korea, lifting its total to nine.
It said Friday that it had struck “production line partnerships” with Anima & Company (owner of NAZ), Science Saru and Mappa from Japan, and with Studio Mir based in Korea “to explore new stories and formats to entertain anime fans around the world.”
Netflix previously hatched non-exclusive production line partnerships with other Japanese production houses Production I.G and Bones in 2018. In 2019 it added deals with Anima, Sublimation and David Production.
These have yielded shows including “Altered Carbon: Resleeved” (Anima); “Ghost in the Shell SAC 2045” (Production I.G); and “Dragon’s Dogma” (Sublimation). Currently in the pipeline are: “Spriggan” (David Production); “Vampire in the Garden” (Wit Studio, part of Production I.G); and “Super Crooks” (Bones).
“In just four years, we’ve built a dedicated team based in Tokyo that serves to entertain the global anime community through new and aspirational storytelling,” said Taiki Sakurai, Netflix’ anime chief producer, in a statement. “These additional partnerships with industry trailblazers .. do amazing work, often marrying the latest technologies and traditional hand-drawn animation.”
Naz creates video productions for animation, live-action, promotional videos, commercials, music videos, movies and series. Notable recent works include animation sequences from Koizumi Norihiro’s “Chihayafuru: Kami No Ku,” and “Angolmois.”
Science Saru’s debut feature film “Lu Over The Wall, won the Crystal award for best feature film at the Annecy festival in 2017. Its most recent release is the Netflix original anime series, “Japan Sinks: 2020”. It is currently working on the animated feature film “Inu-Oh,” due for release in 2021.
Launched in 2011, Mappa prides itself on the originality of its creators and not being bound to any genre or media.
Korea’s Studio Mir was founded a year earlier, in 2010, and works across 2D animation and CGI formats. It is best known for “The Legend of Korra,” “Voltron: Legendary Defender,” and the recently announced “The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf.”
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