As reported by Yomiuri Shimbun on June 23, the Japanese government has begun preparations to establish a support organization that would serve as the central pillar for promoting the domestic content industry overseas. The government plans to invest a total of 34 trillion yen in both public and private sectors by the end of 2033, aiming to position the content industry as the core of its 17 strategic fields.
Japanese anime, manga and video games have significantly gained on popularity in recent years, and in the FY 2024, overseas sales of Japanese content reached 6.1 trillion yen. The government views the industry as key for Japan’s economic success, and its goal is to expand the overseas market size for domestic content to 20 trillion yen by 2033. Recently, different government bodies and related organizations, like the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), have been individually making moves towards achieving this move. For example, in October last year the METI rolled out a new set of policies for supporting domestic creators and the expansion of their IPs to the West.
However, according to Yomiuri Shimbun, METI and the Agency for Cultural Affairs have been criticized in Japan for their inefficiency, which is what led the government to consider creating a centralized organization for supporting Japanese content overseas.
Apparently, the new organization will be drawing on the model of Korea’s KOCCA (Korea Creative Content Agency), which serves as the central coordinating body that handles the country’s content industry, and has seen massive success in the global expansion of K-pop. It will aim to strengthen international market strategies, build distribution networks necessary for overseas expansions, invest in human resources and support the production of large-scale works.
While Japan has doubled its financial support for the content industry year-on-year, reaching approximately 58.9 billion yen, Yomiuri Shimbun argues that it still isn’t able to compare to investments of its competitors like South Korea and China. Back in 2023, South Korea invested about 76.2 billion yen into its content industry, while in 2024, China made a 128.3-billion-yen investment.
Moving forward, the Japanese government plans to announce a massive series of medium-to-long-term investments, especially for the private sector. The new strategy, set to be determined this summer, will include public and private investments estimated to reach around 24.5 trillion yen for the video game industry, 3.3 trillion yen for the anime industry, 1.6 trillion yen for the manga industry and 3 trillion yen for the music industry by fiscal year 2033. Similarly, the government expects the economic ripple effects related to Japan’s content industry to reach a total of 326 trillion yen by the end of the same year.
