Kadokawa raises publishing goals after Sony acquisition

summary

  • Sony's 10% investment in Kadokawa is valued at ¥50 billion and aims to expand operations.

  • Kadokawa increased the publication goal to 9,000 volumes annually under the direction of the CEO.

  • The collaboration between Kadokawa and Sony will affect the growth and global reach of the anime industry.

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Kadokawa It aims to expand its operations later Sony acquired about 10% of its shares (this number includes shares previously owned by Sony). The total investment is ¥50 billion (approximately $322 million) and was completed on January 7, 2025.

While the two groups have been working together on many projects, this deal brings 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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Takeshi Natsuno, CEO of Kadokawa, Recently told Nikkei that they are expanding their initial goal of publishing 7,000 volumes (of novels, manga and other types of books) to 9,000 volumes. per year.

The original target was set at 2023

The initial goal was already bold, as it was announced in 2023 along with the goal of increasing their anime production. Before that, in 2021, they announced a goal of producing 40 anime (TV shows, movies, and other formats) annually by 2023, and then presented an even more ambitious goal in 2023.

Not only do they want to deliver more content, but they want to deliver it for a wider audience. For many, Kadokawa is trying to expand beyond what the industry can handle, as many of the anime series they produce have been delayed due to “production conditions” and other quality issues.

Kadokawa wants to reach a wider audience

Kadokawa is investing in expanding to other countries and continents and translating their content into multiple languages. The recent announcement that the Crunchyroll manga is “coming back” could be seen as a sign that Sony is key to its strategy – with Kadokawa saying the deal includes a distribution partnership for its books.

We should remind you that Kadokawa is also the co-owner of Yen Press, so it is not completely dependent on Sony to publish titles in English. However, Crunchyroll is able to reach a wider audience in many other countries, so it could provide an “easy way” for Kadokawa to expand its publications to countries where people do not speak English and in which Crunchyroll already streams anime subtitled in local languages. .

However, we should also keep that in mind “Previous” Crunchyroll manga never had its titles translated into other languagesThis may have more to do with contract issues – even after Crunchyroll began expanding into other countries, as Crunchyroll was not contractually allowed to translate those manga into languages ​​other than English.

Source: Nikki via Animanomics

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