AMC is joining the race for anime content after announcing it has acquired the anime distributor Sentai and its anime streaming service HIDIVE.
Variety reports that Sentai and its anime service will be a part of AMC’s growing streaming service offerings which include AMC Plus, Acorn TV, Shudder, Sundance Now, and ALLBLK. Sentai Filmworks is an anime licensing company based in Houston Texas and has published such titles as Haikyu!!, Made in Abyss, and Shirobako in western markets.
HIDIVE, Sentai’s anime streaming service, costs $4.99 a month for access to a library of exclusive anime titles. HIDIVE offers simulcasts, meaning they premiere on the service soon after the episode airs in Japan, and HIDIVE also offers dubs of its shows for fans who prefer the option.
The popularity of anime can be seen with how rivals in the streaming space are bulking up their anime offerings. Netflix has been funding and promoting anime and animated content to critical acclaim, and Sony-owned Funimation acquired Crunchyroll for $1.145 billion last August.
AMC is primarily known for its prestige dramas like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and The Walking Dead, though the latter crosses over into genre territory. Alongside horror-focused streaming platform Shudder, AMC is amassing a varied collection of services, which anime will fit into.
Sentai founder John Ledford says the AMC acquisition “Will not change Sentai’s mission to deliver the most exciting anime content to our audiences around the world — it will expand it greatly and will give our content business more distribution, more partnerships, more scale and more reach.”
Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.
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Variety reports that Sentai and its anime service will be a part of AMC’s growing streaming service offerings which include AMC Plus, Acorn TV, Shudder, Sundance Now, and ALLBLK. Sentai Filmworks is an anime licensing company based in Houston Texas and has published such titles as Haikyu!!, Made in Abyss, and Shirobako in western markets.
HIDIVE, Sentai’s anime streaming service, costs $4.99 a month for access to a library of exclusive anime titles. HIDIVE offers simulcasts, meaning they premiere on the service soon after the episode airs in Japan, and HIDIVE also offers dubs of its shows for fans who prefer the option.
The popularity of anime can be seen with how rivals in the streaming space are bulking up their anime offerings. Netflix has been funding and promoting anime and animated content to critical acclaim, and Sony-owned Funimation acquired Crunchyroll for $1.145 billion last August.
AMC is primarily known for its prestige dramas like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and The Walking Dead, though the latter crosses over into genre territory. Alongside horror-focused streaming platform Shudder, AMC is amassing a varied collection of services, which anime will fit into.
Sentai founder John Ledford says the AMC acquisition “Will not change Sentai’s mission to deliver the most exciting anime content to our audiences around the world — it will expand it greatly and will give our content business more distribution, more partnerships, more scale and more reach.”
Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.
Continue reading...