Netflix Japan – SoraNews24 —Japan News— https://soranews24.com Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today. Thu, 15 May 2025 13:00:47 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.4 https://soranews24.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2020/05/en_rocket_1024.png?w=32 Netflix Japan – SoraNews24 —Japan News— https://soranews24.com 32 32 176746664 Studio Ghibli anime to stream online in Japan for first time ever, but not from any deal with Ghibli https://soranews24.com/2025/05/15/studio-ghibli-anime-to-stream-online-in-japan-for-first-time-ever-but-not-from-any-deal-with-ghibli/ https://soranews24.com/2025/05/15/studio-ghibli-anime-to-stream-online-in-japan-for-first-time-ever-but-not-from-any-deal-with-ghibli/#comments Thu, 15 May 2025 13:00:45 +0000 https://soranews24.com/?p=702135 
Netflix Japan will be the first service to stream Ghibli anime online in Japan, but the debut won’t be a tale of whimsical adventures.
Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki is well known for his fondness for doing things the old-fashioned way and distaste for digital technology. As an example, it wasn’t until 2019 that Ghibli finally agreed to partially acquiesce to modern media consumption patterns and allow its anime films to be available for online streaming. Since then, viewers in nearly 200 different countries around the globe have been able to watch the studio’s works online, but to this day no Studio Ghibli film has ever been made available for streaming within Japan.
That will finally be changing this summer, though, through a deal that Netflix Japan has just announced. Netflix was Ghibli’s second streaming partner, and while it was HBO Max that secured the Ghibli streaming rights for the U.S., Netflix has been the streaming source for Ghibli anime for most of the rest of the world through a 2020 agreement that specifically excluded Japan.
However, while Netflix Japan will become the first service to stream Ghibli anime within Japan, they won’t immediately be providing access to the full Ghibli library. In fact, they’re starting with only a single movie, and while one might assume it would be My Neighbor Totoro for the presence of the studio’s de-facto mascot, Spirited Away for its critical acclaim, or The Boy and the Heron by nature of being the most modern Ghibli anime, it’s actually none of those, and is instead Grave of the Fireflies.
▼ Netflix Japan’s tweet announcing the deal
スタジオジブリによるアニメーション映画『火垂るの墓』
7月15日よりNetflixにて独占配信が決定！1988年の公開以降、国内外から多くの関心を集めてきた不朽の名作が、この夏ついに日本のNetflixへ。
戦災孤児の兄妹が生きた
忘れることができない夏を、もう一度#火垂るの墓 pic.twitter.com/ibiqAb8GsQ— Netflix Japan | ネットフリックス (@NetflixJP) May 14, 2025
Originally released in Japanese theaters in 1988, Grave of the Fireflies doesn’t have the sense of whimsical adventure found in many of Ghibli’s most popular anime, nor is it a magic-infused journey of empowering self-discovery. That’s because Grave of the Fireflies, directed by the late Isao Takahata, is about a young orphaned boy and his even younger sister struggling to survive in the closing days of World War II. Despite originally playing as a double-feature in Japanese theaters with My Neighbor Totoro, Grave of the Fireflies is an unflinching depiction of the terrible, tragic effects war can have on children and other non-combatants.
But why is Netflix starting with Grave of the Fireflies, and Grave of the Fireflies alone? Likely because it’s the only Ghibli movie that neither the studio itself nor its parent company control the rights to. Though Studio Ghibli made the movie, it was produced for Shinchosha, the Japanese publishing company which also has the rights to the semi-autobiographical book of the same name that Grave of the Fireflies is based on. Shinchosha’s ownership of Grave of the Fireflies is why the movie is often left out of home video collections in Japan of the rest of Ghibli’s works, and also why you won’t find Grave of the Fireflies exhibits at the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo or Ghibli Park in Aichi Prefecture.
Considering that it took some convincing to bring Miyazaki around to the idea of Netflix streaming Ghibli anime even outside of Japan, it wouldn’t be surprising if the studio’s decision makers still aren’t ready to let the films they have control over stream domestically. TV broadcasts of Ghibli movies on Friday nights in summertime also continue to bring in high ratings, keeping them in the public conscious and conversation year after year. So it might be some time until the rest of the studio’s anime can be streamed in Japan, but Grave of the Fireflies is a start, and it’ll be available on Netflix Japan starting July 15.
Source, top image: Netflix Japan
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
]]> https://soranews24.com/2025/05/15/studio-ghibli-anime-to-stream-online-in-japan-for-first-time-ever-but-not-from-any-deal-with-ghibli/feed/ 0 702135 GF 1 Shinkansen Explosion from Netflix may look like Speed rip-off, but its roots go farther back【Vid】 https://soranews24.com/2025/03/05/shinkansen-explosion-from-netflix-may-look-like-speed-rip-off-but-its-roots-go-farther-back%e3%80%90vid%e3%80%91/ https://soranews24.com/2025/03/05/shinkansen-explosion-from-netflix-may-look-like-speed-rip-off-but-its-roots-go-farther-back%e3%80%90vid%e3%80%91/#comments Wed, 05 Mar 2025 03:00:11 +0000 https://soranews24.com/?p=692688 
New movie from Shin Godzilla director stars former boy band star on bullet train that can’t slow down.
In recent years, there’s been a trend in anime and light novels towards exhaustively comprehensive titles that meander through a dozen words or more to spell out their premise. So it’s really refreshing that for its latest Japan-produced project, Netflix has gone with a title that’s lets you know what the movie is about while still being positively pithy: Bullet Train Explosion.
Set aboard a Hayabusa-class Shinkansen, Bullet Train Explosion (which has the slightly more descriptive title Shinkansen Daibakuhaku, or “Big Shinkansen Explosion” in Japanese) is the newest work from Shin Godzilla co-director Shinju Higuchi. Former boy band SMAP member Tsuyoshi Kusanagi stars as a Shinkansen driver on the Tohoku Shinkansen line which connects Aomori Prefecture and Tokyo. After the train departs for the capital, a bomb threat comes in explaining that the train will explode if its speed drops under 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour. In exchange for the passengers’ lives, the bomber is demanding 100 billion yen.
▼ Even with the weak yen, that still works out to about US$675 million.
This is a movie concept that’s been done before, but if the setup of “public transportation vehicle will explode if it slows down” has you thinking that Shinkansen Explosion is ripping off Speed, that’s not what’s happening. The inspiration for Shinkansen Explosion is quite a bit older than the 1994 Keanu Reeves blockbuster, as Netflix’s new movie is actually a remake of a 1975 Japanese film known as The Bullet Train or The Bullet Train, Super Express 109 in English, and which has the exact same title in Japanese, Shinkansen Daibakuhaku.
▼ Poster for The Bullet Train, starring Sonny Chiba
▼ Promotional art for Shinkansen Explosion
There are a few differences between Shinkansen Explosion and The Bullet Train, however. The original was set on a bullet train traveling from Tokyo to Fukuoka, which had only been added to the Shinkansen rail network three years prior to the film’s release. While the Tokyo-to-Fukuoka route passes through alternating rural and urban areas, for most of the second half of the line from Aomori to Tokyo the Shinkansen travels through increasingly populous area, which should add an extra layer of tension to the new Shinkansen Explosion as it approaches its climax.
▼ By the way, a Hayabusa-class Shinkansen makes the trip from Aomori to Tokyo in roughly three and a half hours, so it’s possible that the movie’s events will happen in real-time.
With the Shinkansen’s sterling safety record, the idea of making a movie in which the pride of Japan’s rail network is vulnerable to a bomb threat might seem like something East Japan Railway Company/JR East, which operates the Tohoku Shinkansen, would want no part in. However, it turns out that Shinkansen Explosion was produced with cooperation from JR East (which revealed the design of the new Tohoku Shinkansen train just one day before the Shinkansen Explosion trailer was released). Judging from the preview, it looks like the secondary antagonists won’t be inept rail workers, but callous government officials.
▼ Unskilled and uncaring politicians also feature into the plots of Shin Godzilla, but it’s unlikely that the King of the Monsters will show in Shinkansen Explosion.
Aside offering thrills and action, Shinkansen Explosion looks to be a treat for rail fans, with online commenters already getting hyped about a scene in the trailer featuring the ALFA-X, a real-world experimental Shinkansen model used for testing purposes on the Tohoku Shinkansen line.
Shinkansen Explosion starts streaming on Netflix on April 23.
Source: YouTube/Netflix Asia
Top image: YouTube/Netflix Asia
Insert images: YouTube/Netflix Asia, PR Times, Netflix
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
]]> https://soranews24.com/2025/03/05/shinkansen-explosion-from-netflix-may-look-like-speed-rip-off-but-its-roots-go-farther-back%e3%80%90vid%e3%80%91/feed/ 0 692688 SE 0