Anime and manga community Crunchyroll has partnered with Twitch to host a five-day marathon featuring more than 15 different anime series. This event will be the first anime marathon on Twitch—not counting the Pokémon animated series—adding to a growing list of TV programming streamed across the site.
The anime marathon will run July 27 to August 1 on the TwitchPresents channel. While the full programming schedule won’t be revealed until July 21, the slate of anime series confirmed include: Yuri on Ice, Mob Psycho 100, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid and Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers.
Twitch was originally founded to stream games, but it has become a thriving community that gathers for whatever passions they share. For fans, this means more access to their favorite animated shows. For marketers, this means access to an engaged fan base in a market that fetched ¥1.8 trillion ($15.9 billion) in 2016.
“Anime content on Twitch always sparks a lot of positive feedback from our community given how gaming and anime cultures have borrowed a lot from each other,” Annie Berrones, director of emerging content marketing at Twitch, said in a statement. “By partnering with Crunchyroll for our first ever anime marathon . . . we will be able to tap into this passion of our community in a much more robust fashion than ever before.”
Subscribers to the TwitchPresents channel will receive access to new, exclusive emotes themed after some of the featured shows.
“We’re bringing two powerful fandoms together around our shared passions, and we look forward to introducing new viewers to some of our favorite anime series starting next weekend,” Kun Gao, Crunchyroll’s co-founder and general manager, said in a statement.
The Japanese animation industry is experiencing its fourth “Anime Boom,” according to The Association of Japanese Animations, especially in the United States. This boom can be attributed to increases in market channels including internet distribution like Amazon, Netflix and Crunchyroll. You’d think that Amazon-owned Twitch would partner with AnimeStrike for its first anime marathon, but a mutual love of the animation transcends competition.
“Crunchyroll and Twitch have had a close relationship for some time, including featuring some of their talent on our shows and audiences that are very adjacent,” Michael Aragon, Twitch SVP of content told AlistDaily. “Because we already knew their team and content, we proposed Twitch as an ideal platform to highlight their shows via a marathon since it would ultimately drive a new audience to their paid subscription service.”
Crunchyroll partnered with LootCrate last year to further its brand outreach and encourage subscriptions to its anime streaming service. For the first time, Crunchyroll will have its own booth at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con.
“Anime has been a fundamental part of Japanese culture for several decades, and it’s been an increasing part of worldwide culture over the past 25-plus years,” Dallas Middaugh, head of brand and community at Crunchyroll, told AlistDaily in an interview last year “You can make several arguments as to why ranging from the coolness factor to the accessibility of the art. But in the end, I believe it comes down to compelling stories and characters.”
