An original net animation (ONA), known in Japan as , is an

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

that is directly released onto the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

. ONAs may also have been aired on television if they were first directly released on the Internet. The name mirrors

original video animation , abbreviated as OVA and sometimes as OAV (original animation video), are Japanese animated films and series made specially for release in home video formats without prior showings on television or in theaters, though the first part of an OVA ...

, a term that has been used in the anime industry for straight-to-video animation since the early 1980s. The Internet is a relatively new outlet for animation distribution that has been made viable by the increasing number of

streaming media Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content i ...

websites in Japan. A growing number of trailers and preview episodes of new anime have been released as ONA. For example, the anime movie of ''

Megumi is a Japanese feminine given name. In Japanese, the word megumi means "blessing; grace." Possible writings While the word megumi means blessing and can be written using that kanji, it may also be spelled using other kanji, such as the kanji f ...

'' can be considered an ONA. ONAs have the tendency to be shorter than traditional anime titles, sometimes running only a few minutes. There are many examples of an original net animation, such as '' Hetalia: Axis Powers'', which only last a few minutes per episode. But while that was true for the beginning of the 2010s, this began to change in the second half of the decade as full series began to be licensed exclusively for streaming services like

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...

Amazon Prime Video Amazon Prime Video, also known simply as Prime Video, is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming and rental service of Amazon offered as a standalone service or as part of Amazon's Prime subscription. The service pr ...

and

Disney+ Disney+ is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned and operated by the Media and Entertainment Distribution division of The Walt Disney Company. The service primarily distributes films and television se ...

. The majority of the production of animation in Japan is made for television or for other audio-visual formats, which include ONAs that can be viewed on television, mobile devices or computers.

References

{{Animation industry in Japan Anime and manga terminology Web animation New media Internet-based works Multimedia

See also

References