Saturday, July 5, 2014

KNIGHTS OF SIDONIA -- The Future of Anime in America?

Tomorrow, KNIGHTS OF SIDONIA will be available on Netflix, in its entirety. While plenty of anime series come up and down from that selection slate without needing much comment, what’s noteworthy about
this is that the show’s being presented as a ‘Netflix Original.’ And that’s a
matter of semantics, obviously. It already ran in Japan throughout the
spring, and Netflix didn’t actually produce the show -- it’s just making the
sub available in America faster.

The blurb for this ran quietly on Gizmodo last week,
but I really find it to be one of the most intriguing bits of news going
into Anime Expo this weekend. The fact that Netflix would make a big deal of this acquisition, going so far as
to label it a Netflix Original, shows that their anime section must be getting
a response positive enough to take seriously.

Check out the trailer...

== TEASER ==

Since RWBY ran last year, it’s felt like we’ve been on the
cusp of American-produced anime becoming a more regular occurrence. It might’ve
seemed impossible before, but having seen Netflix re-write a lot of rules of
television between HOUSE OF CARDS and the upcoming, darker DAREDEVIL series,
the prospect of this being done well seems realer, and very exciting. Hell, the
network’s method of zeroing in on niche audiences isn’t all too different than
it’d be if they were making OVA’s.

Honestly, I wish that KNIGHTS OF SIDONIA would’ve been
rendered in a higher frame-rate. The models look beautiful, and actually
have a bit of gestural flair which you generally just see in 2D
animation. They just look… jerky in motion.

But that’s just a quibble. I’m excited about where this
could go. So I’ll turn the topic to you, Vicers. How many of you watch anime on
Netlfix? Are you going to binge-stream KNIGHTS OF SIDONIA this weekend? Do you
hope this leads to more involve East/West anime co-productions? What would you
like to see? Let your opinions be known in the comments.

No comments:

Post a Comment