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Misa from “Death Note,” Saitama from “One-Punch Man,” and Code:002 from “Darling in the Franxx” walk into a convention center. It’s the set-up to what could be a pretty good joke. Like the rabbi, priest, and monk, these are religious figures in their own right—anime heroes, favorite deities of a subcultural movement known as cosplay.

By many metrics—not simply the more-than 100,000 attendees to Anime Expo in Downtown Los Angeles this month—cosplay, and its guiding form of media, anime, have been undergoing a resurgence in the past few years. Consumed in the 1990s and early 2000s mainly by Japanese teens, and their worldwide counterparts known colloquially as weebs, anime is now a significant programming genre for streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, not to mention the anime-only services Crunchyroll, Viewster, and Funimation.

Crunchyroll, which has been around since 2006, and is a subsidiary of Warner Bros., announced...

Since launching in Japan in 2015, Netflix has focused on providing high-quality and original content from both international and local sources.

“That original content has been strong motivation for new members,” says Taito Okiura, the director of anime at the streaming service. “Our global content library is also the hook for new members to join Netflix. This year, Netflix will spend approximately $8 billion making that library even bigger.”

That sizable war chest is a warning to Japan’s film industry, whose studios and exhibitors alike are now tasked with dealing with streaming video services or risk being left behind.

Going forward, anime will be a key strategy for Netflix as it seeks to boost its fortunes. In January, the company announced an agreement with studios Production I.G. and Bones for the co-production of anime titles to be streamed in 190 different countries.

Rui Kuroki, the producer of Production I.G.’s sci-fi series “B: The Beginning,...