The expansion of anime overseas has started to make progress.

■The expansion of anime overseas has started to make progress.       

I held a symposium with a forum for anime business partners.

We discussed the overseas expansion of anime and anime songs.

The overseas expansion of content is one pillar of the government’s intellectual-property plans.

In the past five years, 500 new operators have begun participating in the overseas expansion of video content, and the overseas sales of corporations supported by the government has increased by almost 200 billion yen.

In particular, the overseas sales of anime have increased 2.4 times during the four years between 2012 and 2015.

However, the scale of the global media-content market in 2014 was 555.2 billion dollars, while the sales of Japanese content were at US$14.1 billion, stopping at 2.5% of the entire overseas market.

There is still room for growth; however, there are issues such as capital support for the risks of overseas expansion; collaboration with different types of businesses; ensuring rights can be processed smoothly; nurturing talented personnel; and dealing with piracy.

What view can we have of this “strong” content, namely manga, anime, and anime songs?

How can initiatives like the CiP Pop & Tech Special Zone be useful?

Attack on Titan has sold over 66 million volumes (!), and although four years passed between seasons 1 and 2 of the anime, merchandise and tie-ups of the series have continued to be popular. It has been reported that have been given to over 5,000 products.

Some have believed that the overseas market for manga will not grow particularly large, as paper is “too expensive”.

The frontal attack here would be when anime and videos are created based on the original manga, and this drives various products to be sold as a result, wouldn’t it?

A transmission service for anime songs run by syndicates has been introduced.

In the music market - where live performances are doing well, packages are declining, and transmission is showing a slight upward tendency - anime songs make up 10% of total sales, or 28.5 billion out of 290 billion yen.

As anime songs are linked to the anime, they make listeners easily think of images from the anime and create a strong sense of empathy. They are content that fits well into the era of social media.

According to investigations by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, although fans of Japanese content extend across a broad variety of categories, including a group of manic fans, overseas works are popular among children, and Japanese anime is not capturing the market.

Is this because strong works like Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon and Pokémon no longer exist?

It has also become clear that anime overseas is mostly being watched through online transmission rather than on TV or DVD. To aim content at children, one has to fill the TV space.

The idea of establishing a “World Otaku Research Institute” in autumn was also discussed. Organizers of events being held around the world and researchers in universities and research institutions could be brought together to form a network, and the headquarters could be in Tokyo.

I would like to assist the overseas expansion of media content by researching trends in global users and markets.