HBO Max and GKIDS have introduced an extension of their partnership (which is the explanation we have now the Ghibli catalog, since GKIDS distributes its movies), with a number of GKIDS-backed films becoming a member of HBO Max on September 1, 2025. The titles embrace three Makoto Shinkai movies (“Kids Who Chase Misplaced Voices,” “The Place Promised in our Early Days,” and the 4K model of “Your Identify”), Akiyuki Shinbo and Noboyuki Takeuchi’s “Fireworks,” Ayumu Watanabe’s “Fortune Favors Girl Nikuko,” Yôko Kuno and Nobuhiro Yamashita’s “Ghost Cat Anzu,” Keiichi Hara’s “Lonely Citadel within the Mirror,” and even Hideaki Anno’s experimental “Love & Pop.”
Later in 2025 and all through 2026, HBO Max may also add acclaimed hits from filmmakers like Masaaki Yuasa, Satoshi Kon, Mamoru Oshii, and Naoko Yamada. These embrace the 4K model of Oshii’s “Angel’s Egg,” Yamada’s “The Colours Inside” and “Liz and the Blue Hen,” Masaaki Yuasa’s “Lu Over the Wall” and “Thoughts Recreation,” Mamoru Hosoda’s “Wolf Kids,” “The Woman Who Leapt Via Time,” “The Boy and the Beast,” and “Summer time Wars,” Hideaki Anno’s “Shin Godzilla,” and Satoshi Kon’s “Good Blue” and “Millennium Actress.”
At the moment, HBO Max would not have a giant library of anime titles. When the service first launched, it had a bunch of fashionable anime reveals courtesy of a partnership with Crunchyroll, however that was earlier than Sony acquired the latter, and people titles had been slowly eliminated. The addition of the GKIDS library, nonetheless, makes HBO Max a extra curated expertise than what’s out there on different providers, offering a library of particularly acclaimed and status titles that showcase the medium at its greatest. Certainly, “Millennium Actress,” one of many 5 important anime films everybody ought to watch not less than as soon as, being a part of the deal is already thrilling sufficient earlier than you get to the opposite titles dropping within the close to future.
Total, that is enormous information for each anime followers and newcomers desperate to expertise the number of the medium. It is also additional proof of simply how essential anime has develop into to streaming usually.
