The Japanese government learned something from
the case of the Cool Japan Fund and its 383 billion yen in
losses: that good intentions without structure don't work. Now he is preparing
a new move: create a central organization dedicated to driving the international
growth of the country's content industries, including anime, manga, video
games and music. The goal is to nearly triple export revenues by fiscal year
2033.
The goal is to raise the total value of content
exports to 20 trillion yen by 2033, from 6.1 trillion yen in fiscal
2024. To finance that jump, the government plans to boost a combined investment
of public and private funds of 34 trillion yen over the same
period.
Video games carry the largest share of that
projection with approximately 24.5 trillion yen in projected
investment. It is followed by music with 3 billion, anime with 3.3 billion and
manga with 1.6 billion. The goals by sector include bringing external revenue
from video games from 3.4 billion yen to 12 billion yen, with similar increases
projected for anime and manga.
The new organization would function as a
coordination hub for overseas business development, international promotion,
and strengthening the global presence of Japanese companies and creators. A
more detailed long-term investment strategy is planned for later in the summer.
This is not the first time that the Japanese
government has relied on the soft power of its creative industries as an
economic engine. The Cool Japan Fund, launched in 2013 with a similar mission,
accumulated large deficits and was put under review with a view to its possible
abolition. The difference that the government proposes with this new
organization is a more practical approach: direct support to companies and
creators to navigate international markets, instead of investment in projects
that did not always reach those who produced them.
The announcement has already sparked discussion
among industry observers about the implications of greater government
involvement in creative fields, including questions about how that involvement
might influence the direction of content or creative freedoms as industries
scale internationally.
