Aug 18, 2020

Japanese Anime Giant Launches Youtube Channel for Classic Family Animation

Never before has there been so many legitimate streaming options for anime fans, with Crunchyroll, Funimation, Netflix, and their competitors bringing most of the new shows and some of the old ones to the world. To break into this booming market, you need a niche.

One option is to offer classic shows that the big streaming services have not tapped. A new player, Animelog, is taking a similar path: launched this month as a Youtube channel, the platform offers library titles focused on family audiences.

The initiative carries weight because it is backed by major Japanese animation production companies such as Toei Animation, Nippon Animation, Shin-Ei Animation, and Tezuka Productions (founded by animation and manga giant Osamu Tezuka). As revealed in the press release, the idea is to consolidate the companies' online services, previously dispersed among individual Youtube channels, into a single, much broader platform.

The result is an impressive lineup of well-known programs, including Hayao Miyazaki's debut feature "Future Boy Conan" (top image) and the film adaptation of the Tezuka manga "Black Jack. Other series will be added to the platform, including the 1980 remake of Astro Boy, a pioneering Tezuka manga, and "Mother wo Tazunete Sanzensen," directed by Isao Takahata, co-founder of Studio Ghibli. The goal is to have 3,000 titles offered by 30 companies and 300 million monthly views within two years.

At this time, AnimeLog is only available in Japan. According to the press release, they plan to eventually add subtitles, including English and Chinese, to "help bring valuable Japanese animation to the world." What that actually means is still unclear. Without dubbing, the channel will likely have only limited appeal to children overseas. Overseas, the channel may be marketed to fans rather than to families.

Until today, many shows for AnimeLog were only available as pirated copies outside of Japan (the closure this week of the major anime piracy site Kissanime made that option a little more difficult). While it makes sense to try to monetize unlicensed programming, AnimeLog is not the fundamental shakeup of the industry that some have claimed.

Family entertainment is only a small part of anime piracy. In any case, Youtube's advertising revenue-based niche services will never compete with subscription giants like Netflix and AT&T-owned Crunchyroll. If it does expand into North America, it would be a welcome complement to these platforms.

It is worth noting that Animelog is by no means a Japan-only venture. Founded in 2018 with the backing of U.S.-based venture capitalist Benjamin Grubbs (former global head of YouTube's Top Creator Partnerships) and his Next10 Ventures-led digital solutions firm Launched by Analyzelog.