Kadokawa increases release target after Sony acquisition

Summary

  • Sony's 10 percent investment in Kadokawa is valued at 50 billion yen and is aimed at expanding business operations.

  • Under the CEO's leadership, Kadokawa increases its publishing target to 9,000 volumes per year.

  • The collaboration between Kadokawa and Sony will impact the anime industry's growth and global reach.

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Kadokawa is then striving to expand its business activities Sony acquired about 10% of its shares (this figure includes the shares that Sony previously owned). The total investment is 50 billion yen (approximately $322 million) and was completed on January 7, 2025.

While these two conglomerates have collaborated on many projects, this deal takes their collaboration to a whole new level and will potentially have a huge impact on the anime industry in the medium and long term.

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Kadokawa's CEO, Takeshi Natsuno, Recently, Nikkei announced that they are increasing their original goal of publishing 7,000 volumes (novels, manga and other types of books) to 9,000 volumes per year.

The original target was set in 2023

The original goal was already bold as it was announced back in 2023 along with the goal of increasing anime production. Previously, in 2021, they announced a goal of producing 40 animes (TV shows, films and other formats) annually by 2023, and then presented an even more ambitious goal for 2023.

Not only do you want to provide more content, you also want to make it available to a wider audience. For many, Kadokawa has attempted to expand more than the industry can handle, as many anime series they produced have experienced delays due to “production circumstances” and other quality issues.

Kadokawa wants to reach a wider audience

Kadokawa has invested in expanding to other countries and continents and has translated its content into multiple languages. The recent announcement that Crunchyroll Manga is “coming back” can be seen as a sign that Sony will play a key role in its strategy – Kadokawa has stated that the deal included a partnership regarding the distribution of its books.

We should remember that Kadokawa is also co-owner of Yen Press and therefore does not rely entirely on Sony to publish its titles in English. However, Crunchyroll is able to reach a wider audience in many other countries, so it could be an “easier option” for Kadokawa to expand its releases to countries where people don't speak English and where Crunchyroll already has subtitled anime streams in local languages.

However, we should also keep this in mind The “previous” Crunchyroll manga never had its titles translated into other languageseven after Crunchyroll began expanding into other countries – however, this may be more related to contractual issues, as Crunchyroll could not contractually be allowed to translate these manga into languages ​​other than English.

Source: Nikkei via Animenomics

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