Exciting news came for Anime fans across the world yesterday when Japanese advertising company Asatsu-DK announced they were launching a joint venture to stream anime globally in multiple languages. While previously fans have had to wait months or years for a series to be available legally in their language, this new service seems to be expecting to deliver to overseas fans within days, if not immediately after airing on television in Japan.
Six production companies have purchased stake in the company: Toei Animation, Aniplex, Sunrise, TMS Entertainment, Nihon Ad Systems, and Dentsu. These companies have some of the most internationally loved and profitable anime titles . They intend to launch the site “Daisuki” in April, which will have over 500 translated titles, and will also have a retail merchandise operation eventually. Advertising and fees of some kind are also planned.
While in decades previous international fans of anime have had to wait patiently for anime titles to become available through companies in their home country on television, video, DVD, and then on streaming web services, this will be the first service of it’s kind that distributes anime from Japan itself to it’s overseas customers directly. No one has begun to speculate how this will begin to affect the localization industry. Of particular note, anime journalist @moonkitty, a prominent Sailor Moon news blogger, speculates that this service will be how Toei Animation will deliver Sailor Moon’s anxiously awaited new release simultaneously worldwide as they have promised.
I would pay a monthly fee for this! I would watch more anime if I didn’t have to wait too long and have to buy DVDs. I live in a small space. Also, Netflix only showed the dubbed version; I like subtitles.