As global interest in J-content soars, three Japanese companies took to the stage at APOS in Bali with missions to demonstrate the ability to innovate, evolve and change with the times.

Their challenge stems from the country’s status as the world’s #3 economy and its unique language. For many years these factors have allowed Japan’s entertainment players to remain commercially conservative and primarily address a large domestic audience.

Factors now changing the status quo include a declining population (a negative) and the rising overseas interest in anime and Japanese content following the success of historical epic “Shogun” and futuristic fantasy “Alice in Borderlands”.

Diversification and internationalisation are the axes for Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS). Katsuaki Setoguchi, TBS' global business division's executive officer and TBS Holding board director, said the group has “strategically” expanded into consumer goods and experiences, typified by its construction of an entertainment city in Tokyo’s Akasaka district.

Through its part ownership of Japanese streamer U-Next, TBS is also now in business with Warner Bros Discovery. 

Since last year, U Next has been the Japanese host to WBD’s HBO Max service. The U-Next-WBD deal also covers international distribution of TBS shows, including upcoming webtoon adaptation “Love Is for the Dogs”, TV Tokyo’s dark comedy “Please Die My Beloved” and TBS’s legal drama “Ignite”.

TBS is also an investor in The Seven, a company that has grown out of visual effects and is now involved in high-end scripted content for the global market. Credits include “Alice in Borderland”, currently in production on season three.

U-Next's Toshi Honda said the streaming platform had reached 4.7 million paying subscribers, swelled by the early 2023 acquisition and integration of the Paravi platform and the late 2024 deal with HBO Max.

U-Next’s diversification strategy has seen it broaden into production of factual content around sports broadcasts and theatrical film investment. Its first feature movie, “A Pale View of Hills”, premiered last month at the Cannes film festival.

The third company on stage, Blue Rights, was founded in 2024 and positions itself as an independent player in the highly polarised anime sector dominated on one hand by large publishing houses and producers and on the other populated by small workshops with no financial leverage that struggle with slow, expensive production by an aging workforce.

The anime sector as a whole is struggling with a flat domestic market, but now sees huge opportunity in overseas export markets. Some 70% of anime sector revenues now come from overseas markets, according to industry reports.

While Makoto Kimura, Blue Rights’ founder, is an executive producer on Mappa and Shueisha’s upcoming “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc”, he says that the company’s main focus is owning and developing its own IP.

“We aim to hold 100% of rights, unlike other companies which are factories for rights owners,” he said. “We established Blue Rights because of the international expansion of the anime market.” – By Patrick Frater