Major Japanese portal Bunshun Online recently interviewed Hideto Fujino, fund manager, author, media personality and CEO of investment company Rheos Capital Works, on possible investment strategies for 2026. Aside from defense and AI-related investment, the CEO emphasized that Japanese anime and IPs have the strongest growth potential, especially in the overseas market.
In the interview, Fujino looked back on his recent trip to Brazil and Argentina, commenting on the enthusiasm he felt among overseas fans of Japanese pop culture. “They know every single detail about Dragon Ball, Naruto and Jujutsu Kaisen. They crave for Japanese anime,” he said. Fujino emphasized that this is still an untapped market for Japan, and that domestic entertainment and IPs still have a lot of growth potential globally.
With major anime studios like MAPPA forming partnerships with global streaming services like Netflix, and foreign investors acquiring significant stakes in domestic game companies, it seems like overseas businesses are actively eyeing the Japanese content industry in recent years. And according to Fujino, more foreign investments and acquisitions could be a good thing. “If an IP itself is kept exclusive only to Japan, we won’t have the means to sell it globally. We need to join forces with people who are willing to leverage our IPs and do business with them overseas,” he commented, arguing that Japan’s content industry should actively accept these foreign investments in order to kick it off in the global market.
Furthermore, the CEO argued that Japan needs to undergo “a shift in mindset” and embrace not just foreign capital, but also foreign talent, which could elevate its potential to sell its content overseas.
Fujino also emphasized that the strength of content like anime lies precisely in its Japanese roots, and that, Japan has the potential to create a multi-trillion-yen business by competing in the field and utilizing its strength. “Just as the Silicon Valley tradition exists thanks to American people, anime content is possible because of its Japanese cultural background and foundation,” he explained.
On the other hand, it’s important to note that, while this may sound like a lucrative opportunity from a business standpoint, international anime and manga fans are (though for a good reason) a bit wary of foreign investments, especially the more aggressive kind. For example, a Hong-Kong based international activist investor recently acquired a significant number of shares in manga and game publisher Kadokawa, leading to concern among fans of the company’s IPs. The investor is known for making some “controversial” proposals, infamously urging Nintendo to “immediately enter the mobile market” in 2014.
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Overseas anime market growth continues to outpace domestic market, gap in revenue expected to grow, industry research shows
I would rather have no new anime ever be made again than have the medium be censored, neutered, corrupted and genericized to appeal to the lowest-common-denominator “global audience” in the way video games are infested with talentless activists making games for a non-existent “modern audience.”
Anime is already too popular as is in the wrong corners of the world. The worst thing you can wish someone regarding an artistic subculture is “may it become mainstream.”
get over yourself
“Waaaah, just accept the ruination of your hobby by the lowest of the low!”
No.
How about you shit yourself?
I think it’s time for you to log off and find something else to do than getting upset over anime worldwide popularity. You’re saying nothing but buzzwords that made you upset and that’s not you for the health.
Shut the hell up with your “switch in mentality” nonsense. Nobody wants westernized anime. Anime is already plenty popular globally.
sounds about as up-to-date and intelligent as any fund manager
Go back to your shonen slop you tourist.
Self serving mindset with undertones of still trying to compromise the Japanese industry with Western influence. No one wants anime like that, look what happened to Lazarus. They are hoping they can starve of money in some way beyond even payment processors targeting it, so they have no choice in the end.
Sorry but fund manager should remain in his field and not offer advice on how to create a good anime.
For anime to make a lot of money, it just needs to be good. For whatever reason, anime should not change just because the production team want more audiences to watch it. People should stop using Hollywood playbook for creating media. We don’t need multiple layer of media for the modern audience. We need companies that prioritise making good anime TV series and good anime movies. Make them have good story, good visuals, good message. Make the audience wow, happy, sad, scared, etc. Anime need to wow the audience again rather than just blindly follow the Hollywood.
Whatever private equity says to do, do the opposite
Spoken exactly like a money grubbing idiot who knows nothing about the medium
sasuga
hell nah
I disagree.The main appeal of anime, manga, and Japanese games lies precisely in their uncompromising Japanese cultural roots. Trying to “appeal to a global audience” almost always leads to censorship and self-censorship: scenes cut, characters altered, and themes softened to avoid offending Western sensitivities or foreign investors.We’ve already seen this with Netflix localizations, Western manga editions, and pressure on studios like MAPPA.Fujino says foreign capital is needed to sell overseas, but anime exploded worldwide precisely because it stayed authentically Japanese — not because it was “optimized” for foreign markets.Welcoming too many foreign investors and talent risks diluting exactly what makes it unique. Better to export the original product without interference, instead of censoring it to please everyone.
Westernized anime? Hell no, i would stop watching immediately. Keep Japan and their peroducts pure.
finally someone in Japan gets it. most anime could benefit greatly from western influence. it’s so poorly written, so much endless exposition. “I wear a green shirt therefore my powelevel is only middle rank” And let’s also not overstate the hardcore pedophillic nature of most anime, it’s been a degenerate influence globally, responsible for the emergence of a wide array of anti-human fetishes. it’s fandoms are cringe, rude uncomfortable and tasteless (50% of anime is just the bad writing of a nerd coping with their own high school bullying)
This is exactly the same mentality that has ruined the Video Games industry for Japan and has lead to absolute failure in the long term. Sure foreign investments are great, but they must adapt to the Japanese market, not the other way around. Whenever this happens, Japan loses it’s cultural individuality to try and fit into multiple markets and become something it’s not. Naruto, Dragon Ball and various examples were not because Japanese creators were making it for a Global Audience, but they made it for their own audience that eventually became so popular it went Global.
I can warn if this does happen for Manga, Anime will no longer be popular, and everyone will either watch what little of the actual Japanese content is left, or watch older Anime and read older Manga and LN. Much like what the Video Games industry is experiencing now and is barely surviving.