From the booming anime business to non-scripted format rollouts, co-productions, development deals, and manga adaptations, Japan is exerting its influence as a cultural powerhouse.
The Japanese government launched its revamped “New Cool Japan” strategy in 2024, aiming to increase international revenues from the country’s cultural exports to ¥50 trillion by 2033. At the time, it said cultural export revenues were valued at ¥4.7 trillion, a tenfold increase in a decade, dominated by gaming, with animation in second place, then manga, live-action, music, and live entertainment. Content is a primary growth engine; the mission statement for New Cool Japan lays out a goal of ¥20 trillion by 2033.
If the last few weeks are any indication, this revamped global outlook is clearly beginning to bear fruit for companies across the Japanese content ecosystem, from anime producers finding growing fandoms internationally and manga publishers licensing hit comics for live-action or webcomic adaptation to a wealth of opportunities for scripted formats, a growing tape-sales business, and an always busy entertainment remakes space.
That’s Entertainment
In the last few months alone, Banijay Entertainment, which makes Yoshimoto Kogyo’s Prime Video hit LOL in 11 markets, has secured the rights to remake the comedy powerhouse’s The Laughing Throne and You Laugh You Loseacross its 23-market footprint, and Fremantle landed production, development, and distribution rights to Special Delivery, co-developed by Blue Circle and TBS, outside Japan. Nippon TV is doubling down on its international unscripted format business, hiring ITV America alum Nick Ower to position the Nippon TV and Gyokuro Studio unscripted format slates with broadcasters, streamers, and producers across the Americas.
“Nippon TV has a proven track record of creating global hit formats, including Dragons’ Den/Shark Tank, Silent Library, Old Enough!, and Red Carpet Survival,” Kenichiro Akiyama, who leads Gyokuro Studio, told me at the end of last year for my Asia TV Forum edition. “This success led to a strategic decision to significantly expand the business globally, with a long-term goal of ¥100 billion in international sales by FY2033. Positioning the unscripted format business as the core of this expansion, Gyokuro Studio was launched in June 2025. Our core advantage is that we can maximize the strengths unique to a broadcaster, not just as a production company. This backing allows us to utilize broadcast slots as a strategic sandbox; we air innovative unscripted shows within our timetable, collect audience feedback, and then polish ideas again. This enables rapid, self-contained development before the global launch of the format.”
In this post for paid Substack subscribers and ScreenMDM Club members, we examine Japan’s growing soft power. This deep dive includes:
· Drawn in Japan: Recent Nielsen stats on anime viewership in the U.S., insights from Crunchyroll’s David Ball at StreamTV Europe, and significant globalization moves from leading anime producers.
· The IP Pipeline: From One Piece to hit manga comics, platforms and producers are building global franchises and hit live-action series from well-known domestic animated properties. ScreenMDM Extra hears from Koji Sakabe, a producer at NHK Enterprises, about how Hirayasumi became a hit across demos at NHK.
· Scroll Savvy: The emerging microdrama and webcomics opportunity.
· By the Script: Charting recent activity around Japanese scripted formats from Nippon TV and Fuji TV.
· The Acquisitions Opportunity: As the Western scripted market cools in the post-peak TV era and the romance genre booms, Asian producers have a tremendous opportunity to fill gaps on international SVOD platforms, Ampere Analysis’s Olivia Deane told delegates at Series Mania Forum.
· Collaborative Spirit: From regional joint ventures in Asia to genuine collaborations with key partners in Europe, scripted co-pros are picking up traction. We feature insights from the producers and commissioners of four projects featured in the BEAJ and Empire of Arkadia-backed Coming Next from Japan session at the Series Mania Forum, plus recap of a range of deals that reflect Japanese media companies’ increasingly global perspectives.
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