The Criterion Collection, aka your cinephile friends’ favorite thing to yap about alongside their Letterboxd ratings, has announced it is adding a special anime section to its illustrious streaming catalog. Criterion made the announcement at the very end of a new blog post with reserved and refined excitement.
“Look out for a new section on the Channel highlighting restlessly creative, stylistically flamboyant gems from Japan’s juggernaut animation industry,” Criterion Collection wrote.
It goes without saying that the company wouldn’t build on this announcement—which further ushers in the mainstreamification of anime in pop culture—by adding any old podunk anime to the Criterion Channel. Featured titles include Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell, studio Madhouse’s Redline, legendary anime director Satoshi Kon‘s Paprika, and Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat In Space.
Criterion’s embrace of anime on its streaming service comes at a time when streamers like Netflix are noticeably beefing up their libraries with more anime. Earlier this month, Variety released a report drawing on Netflix’s typically guarded internal user data that found “more than 50 percent of its members—amounting to over 150 million households, or an estimated 300 million viewers—now watch anime. The company says anime viewership on the platform has tripled over the past five years, with 2024 marking a record-breaking year: 33 anime titles appeared in Netflix’s Global Top 10 (Non-English) rankings, more than double the number in 2021.”
Variety reported that Netflix’s anime content was viewed over 1 billion times globally in 2024. Notably for longtime anime fans, 80 to 90 percent of viewers choose dubbed anime. In short, if Netflix’s data is saying 300 million anime fans are tuning into new exclusive shows like Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Sakamoto Days, and, in some cases, preferring its format for returning shows like Dan Da Dan, it’s a no-brainer that Criterion would want to get in on the fun. It also doesn’t hurt that Ghost in the Shell and Paprika served as inspirations for modern-day Hollywood classics, such as the Wachowskis’ Matrix and Christopher Nolan’s Inception.
To further sweeten the pot, Criterion is offering a seven-day free trial for new members to get their anime on. Given Criterion’s knack for reviving movies from the past, it’s a welcome change of pace for the service to extend its hand to anime as a cornerstone of art and entertainment as well. Plus, it would do folks good to have some Redline in their lives.