Criterion Channel Announces New Anime Section Coming To Service in August

Currently, the streamer has six anime films: Naoko Yamada and Kyoto Animation’s brilliant coming-of-age film, Liz and the Blue Bird, alongside Makoto Shinkai’s two oldest features, 5 Centimeters per Second and The Place Promised in Our Early Days, alongside three of his shorts.

Of the four movies added, Paprika is a very understandable choice due to its popularity among cinephiles. Satoshi Kon has often been described as one of the most talented anime film directors of all time, with movies like Inception and Black Swan drawing clear inspiration from his oeuvre. Meanwhile, Ghost in the Shell has a similar degree of influence over culture, with the Wachowski sisters describing it as a strong influence on The Matrix films.

While Redline is a slightly more surprising choice, its visual creativity makes it a maximalist treat. Lastly, there’s Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat In Space, a deep cut that follows an anthropomorphic cat in a cyberpunk world. It will be interesting to see if the inclusion of these films is a small blip on the service or if Criterion will continue to add more anime films down the line.

When it comes to the Criterion Collection (the physical 4K UHD, Blu-Ray and DVD releases handled by the company), the only anime film they’ve ever done was the 1992 release of Akira on LaserDisc. In general, the Criterion Collection doesn’t tend to release many animated films, with only 10 movies currently categorized as such in their online store. Of course, that doesn’t prevent us from hoping this changes sometime soon: one copy of Angel’s Egg on a 4K UHD Blu-Ray, please!