Abstract
This chapter aims to provide the overview of Japan’s anime policy. Japanese animation, popularly known as “anime,” is distributed not only in Japan but throughout the world. The industry has drastically expanded over the last half century. What role has public policy played in this development? The government had started to implement industrial promotion initiatives since only around the year 2000 in response to a Japanese economic recession, the advancement and spread of IT, and the increase in anime's global popularity. Since then, the government has been primarily focusing on the economic value of anime rather than its cultural value. The initiatives intended to eliminate the inherent problems of the industry which had consisted of the weak financial base of production companies, the lack of animators, and more. Despite these, the policy's achievements have been limited and also Japanese policy has been needing a clear vision. A significant improvement in social recognition of anime may be the most profound effect of the policy so far. This chapter consists of information on the current state and characteristics of the industry, the difficulties the industry faces, anime's history, and specific initiatives which the government implemented.
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Notes
- 1.
All figures presented in this chapter are for Japan unless otherwise noted in the title of the figure.
- 2.
1USD was converted to 110 JPY in this chapter.
- 3.
The data in the anime industry report provided by the Association of Japanese Animations are the aggregated numbers for production companies that belong to the association. The association was founded in May 2002 with the aims of protecting and developing animation culture, in which Japan takes pride, and assisting its spread around the world as an industry. It is the largest industrial body of the Japanese anime industry with 36 regular members and 42 associate members (as of 2018) and it conducts activities in cooperation with the government as well.
- 4.
An official in charge of anime policy from the ACA was interviewed for this research. Details of the interview are as follows: Date: Tuesday, November 6th, 2018. Place: ACA (Tokyo). Interviewee: Mr. Tetsuya Ino, Deputy Director to the Counselor, Arts and Culture Division, ACA. Most of this section is based on six materials provided in the interview (“Media arts global deployment project,” “Promotion of media arts,” “Nurturing young animators, etc.,” “Anime Tamago 2018,” “Project to support development of media arts creators in fiscal 2017,” and “Japan Media Arts Festival at Annecy 2018”).
- 5.
An animation film director was interviewed to research the anime industry. Details of the interview are as follows: Date: Thursday, October 11th, 2018. Method of interview: phone. Interviewee: Animation film director Gisaburo Sugii.
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Koizumi, M. (2021). Anime’s Economic Value: the Government’s Response to a Changing Environment. In: Sugaya, M. (eds) Perspectives on the Japanese Media and Content Policies. Advances in Information and Communication Research, vol 2. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4704-1_8
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