The Criterion Channel Is Beefing Up Its Anime Content material

The Criterion Collection, aka your cinephile associates’ favourite factor to yap about alongside their Letterboxd scores, has introduced it’s including a particular anime part to its illustrious streaming catalog. Criterion made the announcement on the very finish of a new blog post with reserved and refined pleasure.

“Look out for a brand new part on the Channel highlighting restlessly inventive, stylistically flamboyant gems from Japan’s juggernaut animation trade,” Criterion Assortment wrote.

It goes with out saying that the corporate wouldn’t construct on this announcement—which additional ushers within the mainstreamification of anime in popular culture—by including any previous podunk anime to the Criterion Channel. Featured titles embody Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell, studio Madhouse’s Redline, legendary anime director Satoshi Kon‘s Paprika, and Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat In Space.

ANIME 📺 Coming to @criterionchannl in August! https://t.co/SPhFIltzhb pic.twitter.com/Gfrb0foOvu

— Criterion Assortment (@Criterion) July 17, 2025

Criterion’s embrace of anime on its streaming service comes at a time when streamers like Netflix are noticeably beefing up their libraries with more anime. Earlier this month, Variety launched a report drawing on Netflix’s sometimes guarded inside person information that discovered “greater than 50 % of its members—amounting to over 150 million households, or an estimated 300 million viewers—now watch anime. The corporate says anime viewership on the platform has tripled over the previous 5 years, with 2024 marking a record-breaking yr: 33 anime titles appeared in Netflix’s International Prime 10 (Non-English) rankings, greater than double the quantity in 2021.”

Selection reported that Netflix’s anime content material was seen over 1 billion occasions globally in 2024. Notably for longtime anime followers, 80 to 90 % of viewers select dubbed anime. Briefly, if Netflix’s information is saying 300 million anime followers are tuning into new unique reveals like Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Sakamoto Days, and, in some circumstances, preferring its format for returning reveals like Dan Da Dan, it’s a no brainer that Criterion would wish to get in on the enjoyable. It additionally doesn’t harm that Ghost within the Shell and Paprika served as inspirations for modern-day Hollywood classics, such because the Wachowskis’ Matrix and Christopher Nolan’s Inception.

To additional sweeten the pot, Criterion is providing a seven-day free trial for brand spanking new members to get their anime on. Given Criterion’s knack for reviving movies from the past, it’s a welcome change of tempo for the service to increase its hand to anime as a cornerstone of artwork and leisure as nicely. Plus, it could do people good to have some Redline of their lives.

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