In an exclusive report released last week on Variety, Warner Bros. Discovery revealed its plans to significantly expand its investment and production of Japanese anime, aiming to produce at least 10 new titles per year through its existing animation studio in Japan.
WBD president of Asia-Pacific James Gibbons says that the company has access to its own Japanese anime studio that had been producing “five or ten anime series per year, over the last few years” and that his team has “approved expansion to take that to more than ten series per year.”
Gibbons points to the success of titles currently on third party platforms, and series such as JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Record of Ragnarok ranking strongly on Netflix’s global weekly top ten lists. “Anime is one of the best ways to reach the 18 to 30-year-old audience, which is incredibly elusive,” he adds. Globally, albeit not in every market, but certainly in the U.S., parts of Europe and Latin America, we’ve got strong anime audiences.”
Warner Bros Japan’s upcoming release of Suicide Squad ISEKAI is a recent example of an anime adaptation based on an existing series. In regards to this, Gibbons states:
There is Japanese anime that comes from original IP. But there’s also anime that comes from elsewhere. And we’ve looked at our DC universe and said, ‘Can we take these characters and reinvent them in [a world] of anime,’ which is not straightforward because you have to do it the right way. You have to work with the right studios to make it happen and to build your fan base.
The conglomerate also expressed a desire to take an active role in content categories in Asia, such as Korean drama series, Chinese-language content, and Japanese scripted media to a certain extent. Its first step is to bring its Max streaming service into East Asia, where a stopgap HBO Go service is operating in the interim.
Warner Bros. Japan’s anime unit was first established in 2011 under Warner Bros. Discovery and has been involved in several anime productions such as Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma, and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, among many other titles. The studio has also done work on Western cartoon series like RWBY, Tom and Jerry, and several entries in the DC Universe.
Besides Suicide Squad ISEKAI, Warner Bros. Japan is also continuing to work on its forthcoming new Fist of the North Star anime adaptation.