The great promise of streaming video services in Japan was supposed to be a paradigm shift for programming options. The deluge of variety shows, dramas and anime on broadcast that would inspire some to incessantly declare that “TV in Japan is awful” was expected to be replaced by whatever Netflix and other platforms like it could crank out.
Over the course of 2022, viewers here and abroad did indeed turn to streaming platforms for Japanese entertainment, agreeing that the best stuff was, well, variety shows, dramas and anime.
Maybe the real revolution was in embracing the status quo?