Japan is set to revive its unique Cool Japan strategy with a renewed focus on promoting anime around the world.

The draft of the new strategy, which is expected to be finalized in June at the Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters headed by Prime Minister Kishida, outlines a policy to promote the overseas expansion of Cool Japan-related fields such as anime and games, positioning them as core industries of the country.

The renewal process comes after the international expansion of Japan's content industry, including anime and other forms of entertainment, which reached a record 4.7 trillion yen in 2022, equaling the size of the steel industry (5.1 trillion yen).

The Cool Japan Program, which began in 2013, was initially intended to promote various aspects of Japanese culture overseas. By the end of fiscal 2021, however, the Cool Japan Fund had accumulated a debt of 30.9 billion yen (~US$228.9 million), prompting the Ministry of Finance to consider abolishing it.

As a possible means of overcoming the above problems, the new project outlines a policy to “provide flexible and continuous support over several years” for the international expansion of young creators and artists.

In other words, the Cool Japan initiative will also focus on expanding businesses rather than just investing in them.

In addition, efforts will also be made to digitize Japanese cultural and academic materials, including anime and manga, in order to create new value. This will make these materials more accessible to a wider audience.

The Japanese government has injected over 106.6 billion yen (~US$1.4 billion) into the Cool Japan Fund in 2022.

Cool Japan is a program supported by the Japanese government and several companies to promote Japan to the world, based on the idea that Japan's international strength derives from anime, manga and other fields of Japanese culture.

Source: Yomiuri Shimbun