In a move that feels reminiscent of Netflix’s decision to throw money at South Korean TV shows last year just ahead of the Writers Guild Of America strike, Amazon has come up with its own way to avoid talking to American labor unions—whether that was the official goal or not. According to Deadline, Amazon has signed a “first-of-its-kind” deal with Japanese TV network Nippon TV to get the streaming rights to hit drama Acma: Game .
Circumventing American unions aside, there is another reason that specifically dealing with Nippon TV might be important to Prime Video: The company has funded almost every film made by legendary anime house Studio Ghibli, and while it already has an exclusive streaming deal with Max here in the U.S., this could end up being a pretty meaningful foot in the door for Amazon in terms of Japanese film and television even beyond Acma: Game.