The show, “Naruto: Shippuden,” a Japanese anime set in a fantasy land reminiscent of Okayama Prefecture in Japan, represents a growing business for Hulu, the streaming video service.
As Hulu and other streaming services like Netflix grapple with Hollywood studios and TV networks to acquire rights for expensive prime-time series, they’ve found easy-to-get content in anime and other niche foreign programming.
What the stylized form of Japanese animation lacks in mass appeal it makes up for in price. Hulu typically pays anime distributors only a portion of advertising revenue. Netflix pays a relatively small licensing fee.
In contrast, earlier this month Netflix announced a deal worth an estimated $1 billion to gain access to shows on the CW network. On Friday, Hulu struck a five-year deal worth significantly less to broadcast CW shows like “Gossip Girl” and “Vampire Diaries.”
Typically shown with subtitles and known for characters with wide glimmering eyes and elongated bodies, anime stands at the center of Hulu’s strategy to differentiate itself from TV watched the old-fashioned way. “Networks might be happy to get a show that 20 million people kind of like,” said Andy Forssell, Hulu’s senior vice president for content. “We’re more interested in finding a show that a million people love to death.”
In Japan, anime varies from children’s programming to sports, romantic comedies and even public service announcements and pornography. The shows that resonate in the United States tend to be action-driven, with lots of violence, as well as sexually provocative shows. The small but avid audience is made up of mostly male viewers aged 18 to 34. Distributors said comedies, sports shows and anything aimed at women tend to not work.
Hulu has 9,500 episodes of anime titles. Earlier this month it signed a deal with the anime distribution company FUNimation Entertainment to show five new subtitled series within 48 hours of their original broadcast in Japan. Netflix offers 4,000 anime episodes for streaming.
This month four of the top 40 titles on Hulu and its subscription service, Hulu Plus, are anime. “Naruto: Shippuden,” a continuation of the popular “Naruto,” which shows the young ninja leave his village to train, is the sixth most popular series on Hulu Plus, competing with episodes of “Family Guy” on Fox and “The Office” on NBC.
Hulu is expanding its offering of foreign shows with similarly devoted audiences. In May, a Hulu executive flew to Seoul to attend a presentation by South Korean broadcasters and producers. Held at the luxurious Shilla Hotel, the lecture, titled “The Potential for Korean Drama in the U.S. Market,” reinforced Hulu’s push into Korean dramas. It now offers 90 different shows.
They appeal largely to non-Korean viewers who listen to Korean pop music or love soapy dramas, according to Suk Park, co-founder of DramaFever.com, a Web site that streams Korean dramas in North America and struck the deal with Hulu. The company is seeking other trendy Asian programs to bring to the United States. (Hulu, coincidentally, has Chinese roots. The company was named after the Mandarin words that roughly translate to the “holder of precious things” and “interactive recording.”)
This month, Hulu, a joint venture of the NBCUniversal division of the Comcast Corporation, News Corporation, Walt Disney and Providence Equity Partners, announced a deal to carry Spanish-language telenovelas and other shows from Univision, the most-watched Spanish-language network in the United States.
Internet streaming services have upended the business model for Japanese animation. A decade ago when the genre exploded among the young comic book set in the United States, viewers mostly watched pirated versions. These online videos posted on fan Web sites with sloppy English subtitles left the Japanese anime industry powerless to profit from even the most popular titles overseas.
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