<story><title>Netflix Flexes</title><url>https://stratechery.com/2019/netflix-flexes/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nojvek</author><text>Any good Anime you recommend ?&lt;p&gt;I loved Violet Evergreen. It was very well done as an animation. The others are “your lie in April”. That legit made me sob. I usually don’t get that emotional.  (Although not a Netflix original).</text></item><item><author>giancarlostoro</author><text>And some of them are pretty damn good depending on your interest. Theres a few decent mecha ones at least. I am sure they will eventually land the rights to a solid winner. I do like the end result too lots of subs in different languages and I feel like they dub it in different languages too. The best of both worlds for any type of anime fan.</text></item><item><author>gh02t</author><text>Netflix has also been pushing anime&amp;#x2F;anime-style originals. I think this is a pretty interesting strategy, anime is relatively cheap to produce and is niche but has a huge fanbase worldwide.</text></item><item><author>40acres</author><text>If you look closely enough you can see a clear trend regarding Netflix&amp;#x27;s content strategy. They will continue to make movies like Bird Box, B-style movies and &amp;quot;cult classics&amp;quot; that they can draw big numbers to via their reach and marketing.&lt;p&gt;Oscar contenders like Roma and Beast of No Nation (a bit early for it&amp;#x27;s time if you ask me).&lt;p&gt;Partnerships with foreign content makers to act as an international distributor (BBC produced, Golden Globe Winner, The Bodyguard for example).&lt;p&gt;Top quality original TV: The Crown for example, fueled by contracts with big name show-runners and writers to produce them (Shonda Rhymes).&lt;p&gt;And finally, high value syndication targets (Friends, Mad Men, The Office).&lt;p&gt;Netflix&amp;#x27;s content allocation seems pretty clear, the next few years will be optimization at the margins.</text></item><item><author>2bitencryption</author><text>My takeaway from Bird Box is that if Netflix wants to make any of their original content one of the most-watched media events of the year, they can do it, regardless of the quality of the content itself.&lt;p&gt;All it takes is for them to slip it in to people&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;custom, curated&amp;quot; lists at a higher frequency, and maybe do a little subtle social-media engineering on Reddit&amp;#x2F;Facebook, and bam: instant box office smash of a derivative film with a 66% on Rotten Tomatoes.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s a huge &amp;quot;flex&amp;quot;.  Big studios could pump hundreds of millions into a decent film and still have it flop.  Netflix can take a B-movie and make it a sensation with relative ease.  No wonder every game in town is trying to break into this model.  Why invest millions on a potential flop when you can engineer one with 75% accuracy whenever you wish?&lt;p&gt;(though maybe I&amp;#x27;m being just a bit too paranoid here. I have to admit some of the Bird Box magic stems from its intriguing concept. guerilla marketing doesn&amp;#x27;t work so well if what you&amp;#x27;re selling doesn&amp;#x27;t seem too interesting)&lt;p&gt;edit: people are debating the idea of &amp;quot;box office smash&amp;quot; here.  I didn&amp;#x27;t use that phrase to emphasize direct earnings as a result of the film (which is &amp;quot;free&amp;quot; to watch if you pay for a subscription).  The article addresses this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Secondly, and relatedly, Netflix is counting on subscription revenue. To that end, producing a piece of content that 58% of its subscriber base viewed in a single month is by definition a triumph (and yes, worth ~$700 million).&lt;p&gt;The idea is that Netflix was able to coerce &lt;i&gt;more than half&lt;/i&gt; of its subscribers to watch this film.  That&amp;#x27;s crazy.  The result, as we see in the article, is a tidal-wave of Bird Box achieving near-meme status.  How does that feel to someone who does not have a Netflix subscription?  What big joke&amp;#x2F;story are they missing out on?  For only $14.99 a month, they can win social acceptance by being &amp;quot;in the know&amp;quot; of the current big thing.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Fire-Dragon-DoL</author><text>Code Geass, Death Note, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Shingeki no Kyojin, No Game No Life, Steins; Gate (these are top notch)
Boku no Hero Academia (Season 1 and 2), Sword Art Online (first 13 episodes, maybe 25, but after that is terrible), Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, Full Metal Panic (season 1, FUMOFFU, Season 2).
Psycho-Pass, Made in Abyss, Accel World, Ga-Rei Zero (these are just amazing, but not top)&lt;p&gt;Be careful with FUMOFFU, leads to death due to laughter&lt;p&gt;They cover a wide variety of range, not all of them might be of your taste. You also need to get used to some things that are Japanese culture in animes (their way of being fun, their way of being embarassed by stuff that is not in your culture and so on).&lt;p&gt;Insane plot (like REALLY incredible):
- Code Geass
- Death Note
- Steins; Gate
- Shingeki no Kyojin (not completed, season 4 coming soon)
- Made in Abyss (not completed, season 2 coming soon)&lt;p&gt;Epic (you feel hyped):
- Sword Art Online
- Full Metal Panic
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (this anime is amazing, but I recommend watching it only after you&amp;#x27;ve watched quite a few animes. Rewatching it leads to improvement. It&amp;#x27;s like when you try wine for the first time and it sucks, then it turns great)
- No Game No Life
- Boku No Hero Academia
- Accel World&lt;p&gt;Laugh:
- Full Metal Panic FUMOFFU (requires watching the season 1 first)&lt;p&gt;This list is purely based on my taste, but I watched over 200 animes (lot of bad stuff too, sadly), so for a beginner it&amp;#x27;s a good baseline.&lt;p&gt;Good plot (not like the insane ones, still good):
- Psycho-Pass (AMAZING soundtrack)
- Ga-Rei Zero
- Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood</text></comment>
<story><title>Netflix Flexes</title><url>https://stratechery.com/2019/netflix-flexes/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nojvek</author><text>Any good Anime you recommend ?&lt;p&gt;I loved Violet Evergreen. It was very well done as an animation. The others are “your lie in April”. That legit made me sob. I usually don’t get that emotional.  (Although not a Netflix original).</text></item><item><author>giancarlostoro</author><text>And some of them are pretty damn good depending on your interest. Theres a few decent mecha ones at least. I am sure they will eventually land the rights to a solid winner. I do like the end result too lots of subs in different languages and I feel like they dub it in different languages too. The best of both worlds for any type of anime fan.</text></item><item><author>gh02t</author><text>Netflix has also been pushing anime&amp;#x2F;anime-style originals. I think this is a pretty interesting strategy, anime is relatively cheap to produce and is niche but has a huge fanbase worldwide.</text></item><item><author>40acres</author><text>If you look closely enough you can see a clear trend regarding Netflix&amp;#x27;s content strategy. They will continue to make movies like Bird Box, B-style movies and &amp;quot;cult classics&amp;quot; that they can draw big numbers to via their reach and marketing.&lt;p&gt;Oscar contenders like Roma and Beast of No Nation (a bit early for it&amp;#x27;s time if you ask me).&lt;p&gt;Partnerships with foreign content makers to act as an international distributor (BBC produced, Golden Globe Winner, The Bodyguard for example).&lt;p&gt;Top quality original TV: The Crown for example, fueled by contracts with big name show-runners and writers to produce them (Shonda Rhymes).&lt;p&gt;And finally, high value syndication targets (Friends, Mad Men, The Office).&lt;p&gt;Netflix&amp;#x27;s content allocation seems pretty clear, the next few years will be optimization at the margins.</text></item><item><author>2bitencryption</author><text>My takeaway from Bird Box is that if Netflix wants to make any of their original content one of the most-watched media events of the year, they can do it, regardless of the quality of the content itself.&lt;p&gt;All it takes is for them to slip it in to people&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;custom, curated&amp;quot; lists at a higher frequency, and maybe do a little subtle social-media engineering on Reddit&amp;#x2F;Facebook, and bam: instant box office smash of a derivative film with a 66% on Rotten Tomatoes.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s a huge &amp;quot;flex&amp;quot;.  Big studios could pump hundreds of millions into a decent film and still have it flop.  Netflix can take a B-movie and make it a sensation with relative ease.  No wonder every game in town is trying to break into this model.  Why invest millions on a potential flop when you can engineer one with 75% accuracy whenever you wish?&lt;p&gt;(though maybe I&amp;#x27;m being just a bit too paranoid here. I have to admit some of the Bird Box magic stems from its intriguing concept. guerilla marketing doesn&amp;#x27;t work so well if what you&amp;#x27;re selling doesn&amp;#x27;t seem too interesting)&lt;p&gt;edit: people are debating the idea of &amp;quot;box office smash&amp;quot; here.  I didn&amp;#x27;t use that phrase to emphasize direct earnings as a result of the film (which is &amp;quot;free&amp;quot; to watch if you pay for a subscription).  The article addresses this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Secondly, and relatedly, Netflix is counting on subscription revenue. To that end, producing a piece of content that 58% of its subscriber base viewed in a single month is by definition a triumph (and yes, worth ~$700 million).&lt;p&gt;The idea is that Netflix was able to coerce &lt;i&gt;more than half&lt;/i&gt; of its subscribers to watch this film.  That&amp;#x27;s crazy.  The result, as we see in the article, is a tidal-wave of Bird Box achieving near-meme status.  How does that feel to someone who does not have a Netflix subscription?  What big joke&amp;#x2F;story are they missing out on?  For only $14.99 a month, they can win social acceptance by being &amp;quot;in the know&amp;quot; of the current big thing.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>throwaway415415</author><text>Gantz: O is CGI but oh my... It&amp;#x27;s amazing.</text></comment>