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Amazon's Prime Video Looking to Go Big on Anime and Asian Content

Amazon's Jennifer Salke and Kelly Day discussed plans to continue expanding investments in anime and Japanese/Asia content for Prime Video.

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Article Summary

  • Amazon boosts investment in anime and Asian content, focusing on Prime Video's growth.
  • Japan is a key market for Prime Video, offering a vast library and high Prime membership.
  • Prime Video plans to expand its anime slate, emphasizing original content in Japan.
  • Streaming platform explores global appeal of Asian content, including K-dramas and anime.

Amazon confirmed they have been spending more on streaming Japanese anime and Asian content as a cornerstone of Prime Video's global expansion strategy. Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon MGM Studios, and Kelly Day, VP of international for Prime Video, discussed their ambitious vision for the streaming service Prime Video in Asia in an exclusive interview with Variety. "We're very committed to a strong pipeline for customers in Japan. We have a huge opportunity," Salke said.

Prime Video
"Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc." key graphic: Amazon

Japan now represents one of Prime Video's most valuable territories, offering a large marketplace business with 72 add-on subscriptions and nearly 300,000 titles available for transactional video on demand (TVOD). Salke said that Prime Video is "committed to a growing slate," especially when it comes to licensing original anime. "One of the most exciting things we're doing here in Japan is talking about our plans for ramping up those that content strategy for the next several years."

Prime Video has already established itself as a market leader in Japan, with Day noting that the country has "one of the largest install bases for Prime members," making it "one of our largest markets outside the U.S." The same Japanese content, including anime, is also available worldwide to Prime Video viewers. When asked about maintaining a competitive edge in Japan, Salke confirmed that anime is a priority. "We have a big commitment to an anime slate that we're pulling together, and the teams are all working on it," she said. "There's a lot of exciting stuff in the works that we're looking forward to sharing, and that's an ongoing commitment."

Looking at the next phase for Japanese and Asian content, Salke was bullish about projects like "The Silent Service," based on a popular award-winning Kodansha manga, which had a theatrical release in partnership with Toho before premiering on the streaming platform, and "Oshi-no-ko," a live-action adaptation of a Shueisha manga, both heading to Prime Video. Day highlighted the growing international appeal of content from Asia: "We see more global opportunity for some of the different titles coming out of Asia, in particular anime and the K-dramas, which we've started sourcing more of both, and are starting to distribute those more around the world."

Anyone casually browsing Prime Video would notice that the streamer has been including more exclusive Japanese content, including some of the major films of the last few years, Japanese TV dramas, genre content like crime, supernatural fantasy, romance, and anime titles exclusively available on Prime Video, including the final Evangelion feature films.

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Adi TantimedhAbout Adi Tantimedh

Adi Tantimedh is a filmmaker, screenwriter and novelist. He wrote radio plays for the BBC Radio, “JLA: Age of Wonder” for DC Comics, “Blackshirt” for Moonstone Books, and “La Muse” for Big Head Press. Most recently, he wrote “Her Nightly Embrace”, “Her Beautiful Monster” and “Her Fugitive Heart”, a trilogy of novels featuring a British-Indian private eye published by Atria Books, a division Simon & Schuster.
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