Saudi Arabian media company MBC Group has expanded an existing partnership with several Japanese anime studios and production companies to grow the anime catalog of its streaming platform Shahid.
Details:
- Toei Animation’s One Piece: Film Red topped the Saudi box office last month, and now MBC has picked up regional rights to another batch of episodes of the One Piece tv series for the Shahid streaming platform.
- MBC also closed a deal with TV Tokyo for Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War. All 52 episodes of the new series will drop on Shahid day-and-date with the show’s Japan and U.S. releases. Shahid has rights across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
- Aniplex is also sending 200 hours of content to Shahid including titles such as Sword Art Online, Fate/Stay Night, and Gurren Lagann.
- Tareq Al-Ibrahim, director of content for SVOD at Shahid, said: “Anime is extremely popular in the Middle East region – particularly in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – so needless to say, we are incredibly excited to be making new additions to our ever-expanding anime catalog on Shahid, bringing new and hit titles that audiences will love exploring.”
- The new deals reinforce MBC Group’s expanding anime catalog, which is already home to high-profile series and films including Hunter x Hunter, Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Belle, as well as The Journey, a Japan-Saudi co-production between Toei Animation and Manga Productions. According to MBC, all the content will be available on Shahid before the year’s end.
