According to Netflix's 2020 year in review, the streaming service's anime viewership has grown over 100 percent in the last year, and Pokémon: Mewtwo Strikes Back - Evolution was one of the most viewed anime of the year. Despite Netflix's delayed scheduling model for US anime releases, which effectively excludes those series from the online weekly discussions that seasonal release schedules from Japan enjoy, clearly, the power of Pokémon persists -- and in the form of a direct-to-streaming CG movie remake, no less. Let's get into why this might have happened.
In terms of anime, in the last few years, Netflix has been active about securing streaming rights to popular older series, broadening the appeal of the platform for old and new anime watchers alike. It also has been gaining exclusive streaming rights to new series and original productions, essentially forcing avid seasonal anime watchers to throw another sub into the mix (if they haven't already) to enjoy the full scope of anime offerings for the year.
With these strategic moves, along with producing its own anime-inspired content, Netflix has attracted a wide audience for this kind of media, so when a release like Mewtwo Strikes Back comes out, it's no surprise it pulled in numbers. But to be recognized as one of the top-viewed anime on Netflix? That boils down to just how strong Pokémon is on its own, even after all these years, and how it has continued to maintain its global brand awareness. In fact, Pokémon has gone from strength to strength.
2019 brought us the release of Detective Pikachu, the second-highest-grossing video game film ever (right behind 2016's Warcraft). To the surprise of some, it actually didn't tank critically, either, and a sequel has already confirmed to be in the works. 2019 also saw the release of the video games, Sword and Shield, which continued to sell well into 2020 as the Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra expansions were released in June and October, respectively. Currently, the titles sit collectively as the fifth best-selling Switch games, with over 19 million copies sold. Sword and Shield also received a short ONA anime series called Twilight Wings that released on YouTube throughout the year, expanding on characters from the game.
While not as popular as it was during its release in 2016, Pokémon Go! still maintains a very solid player base, recently implementing stay-at-home features due to COVID-19. Despite it's player-base being a fraction of what it was in 2016, player spending has actually gone up since 2017, with the game's revenue exceeding $1 billion in 2020. To compare, it grossed $832 million at the peak of its popularity in 2016.
Even over two decades after its inception and initial boom in popularity, Pokémon is still going strong and Netflix is capitalizing on it. But it doesn't end with the movie remake. The newest anime iteration, Pokémon Journeys: The Series, is a Netflix-exclusive, making it the first Pokémon anime to not air on conventional broadcast TV in the US. With exclusive streaming rights to the latest Pokémon seasons in the US, the success of Mewtwo Strikes Back, and Netflix anime viewership on the rise, it would not come as a surprise if Pokémon viewership continues to soar on the platform this year and the next.