I feel the main barrier to Netflix actually bankrolling original anime series themselves is simply that there is no framework for it right now, not that they're unwilling or lack the funds. I am absolutely confident that if presented with a proposal for a 26 episode animated series from an established studio and staff which would cost say, 10 million dollars, they would be willing. The problem thought is that Netflix isn't really that familiar with the animation business (yet) so they need go-betweens to sell them on it. Netflix also requires the material to be available in English. This means there has to be a proposal from a third party in a position to arrange for all that. All the big players in the US anime business like FUNi, Sentai, Viz, etc are all looking to push their platforms so it doesn't make a ton of sense for them to partner with Netflix for something like this. Japanese companies like Aniplex and Bandai Visual look out for themselves and would probably not see this as an appealing route.
What we need is for a Japanese studio to take the step on their own initiative, get contacts together, put together a proposal and maybe even a pilot film, and go to Netflix directly. If they can successfully do that and get funded, other studios will follow.
Speaking of which, does anyone know how the two LWA shorts got dubbed into English for Netflix? Who dubbed it, who paid for it, and who approached who? Knowing that would be interesting too.
