Crunchyroll partners with NBCU Japan on ‘international anime’

Anime video-on-demand service Crunchyroll has partnered with NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan (NUEJ) to co-develop new content with “international appeal”.

The companies will work together to produce a range of anime titles based on existing content, as well as new projects designed to make “anime more accessible to a global audience”.

“Crunchyroll and NUEJ share a passion for producing anime that has widespread appeal around the globe. The partnership made sense as an exciting opportunity to bring more high-quality content to the anime community,” said Crunchyroll founder and general manager, Kun Gao.

Crunchyroll has been an international distribution partner for NUEJ-produced Japanese content for a number of years and the companies said the new deal grew out of this long-standing relationship.

“With Crunchyroll we will make the newest and best anime titles accessible to audiences outside of Japan. Together, we look forward to working with fresh and exciting talent to bring anime fans around the world more of what they love – premium anime content,” said James Takagi, managing director, NUEJ.

Crunchyroll offers Japanese anime and Asian content for an international audience and claims to have a catalogue of some 25,000 episodes and 15,000 hours of programmes translated into multiple languages.

The company’s majority investor is Otter Media – a joint venture between AT&T and The Chernin Group – and it has offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Tokyo.