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Even though the Summer 2024 anime season is still in full swing, many fans are already setting their sights on the shows coming out in September and October this year. However, it looks like some folks have gotten a jumpstart on their upcoming viewing as a whole host of anime episodes have leaked online over the past week. From the Ranma ½ remake to DAN DA DAN to Terminator Zero, as many as 12 episodes of shows have been spotted out in the wild ahead of their official debut – and the common factor seems to be Netflix.

The remake of Ranma ½ saw the first 12 episodes of its upcoming season dropped online, while DAN DA DAN has the first six episodes available on piracy websites. There is also a complete copy of the Gekijoban Mononoke: Karakasa anime film floating out there. Not even the upcoming Terminator Zero anime series was safe as the whole first season has been leaked as well.

Most of these shows seem to have the same source – all of them save for Gekijoban Mononoke: Karakasa have been picked up by Netflix for international markets and are in the same low-resolution format with blurred-out watermarks throughout. The only real outlier seems to be Re: Zero -Starting Life in Another World’s season three debut episode, which had the Japan Expo, where its first episode was shown in July, watermark throughout. Netflix hasn’t commented on the anime leaks, but it certainly seems like they are the common denominator here.

Of course, we’re not going to post links to the leaks themselves here – not only do leaks like this hurt the anime industry internationally but the episodes are not in great quality from what we’ve seen. The animators didn’t work themselves half to death for far too little money for you to watch these shows in this state. Instead, we’re just wondering what the heck happened to cause such a big batch of shows to land online at the same time.

If Netflix is the source of the leak, which seems likely based on the evidence we have so far, is this going to hurt its standing with the anime industry? Anime was one of the few growth areas for Netflix in 2023, so we expect them to want to grow their offering over the next several years. Hopefully, this doesn’t throw a spanner in that plan.

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