Amazon has been ramping up its video offerings over the past year, with more and more subscription channels available via its service. Today the company added another, Anime Strike, but there is a major difference in that this channel doesn’t come from any other provider, but was instead put together by Amazon itself.
With Amazon’s previous channels, it mainly targeted popular brands like HBO or Starz, while anime seems like a much more niche offering. The company chose this for a reason however. “With anime in particular, there’s a strong, passionate audience that is underserved by traditional pay TV,” Amazon’s VP of digital video and head of Amazon Channels worldwide Michael Paull told Variety.
The service offers a mix of new and old anime series and movies, including Paprika, Tokyo Godfathers, and The Great Passage, as well as same-day broadcasts of series like Scum’s Wish and Blue Exorcist: Kyoto Saga. Some of these series are available via other services, while some like Scum’s Wish and The Great Passage are exclusive to Amazon in the United States.
Anime Strike is only the first of what will could be several on-demand subscription streaming channels. More are planned to launch in the coming months, but so far, what exactly these will be remains a mystery. Paull wouldn’t say what genres these upcoming channels will cover.
Amazon first launched channels in late 2015 as the Streaming Partners Program. Early offerings included channels from TV networks like Showtime and Starz, as well as other independent streaming services like CuriosityStream, Smithsonian, DramaFever, and Ring TV Boxing.
As with the subscription channels Amazon already offered, its own subscription channels are only available to Amazon Prime subscribers. Anime Strike itself will cost you $5 per month on top of your Prime subscription, which costs $100 per year or $10 per month. If you’d like to try the service out before subscribing, a seven-day free trial is available. For more information, see the Anime Strike channel page on the Amazon website.
