The Kadokawa Corporation announced that it has acquired the US-based publisher of light novels and manga, J-Novel Club. The Kadokawa publishing house is aiming to strengthen its e-book division and drive further expansion of its light novel business in the Anglo-Saxon market through this acquisition.
Strengthening the collaboration of J-Novel Club with its online manga and light novel service BookWalker Global and GeeXPlus, a subsidiary of the BookWalker agency. The company plans to implement the “Digital First” strategy, releasing more new titles digitally first while complementing and contributing to Yen Press, another US-based publisher, which Kadokawa also owns along with Hachette Book Group.
It should be noted that Kadokawa reorganized its corporate structure last October. The company replaced its previous six departments with thirteen different groups, each of which has a "CEO" who bears the title of their respective group. Kadokawa noted that the restructuring would allow the company to achieve a flatter and more horizontal corporate structure.
Earlier this year, Kadokawa formed an equity alliance with CyberAgent, Inc. and Sony to strengthen its games and animation businesses. The company's goals are to strengthen the Global Media Mix Strategy to expand Kadokawa's intellectual properties around the world and to cooperate with CyberAgent and Sony for "the mutual exploitation of each other's business, experience and other strengths."
Source: Kadokawa
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