Japan aims to expand the overseas market size of anime, games and other creative industries to 20 trillion yen ($129 billion) by 2033, over four times the current level, the government said Tuesday, as it banks on the potential of Japan-linked cultural contents that are gaining popularity worldwide.
The target was included in the country's new Cool Japan Strategy, which also set a broader goal to rake in some 50 trillion yen annually by 2033 through what it calls Cool Japan-related industries, including exports of Japanese contents, agricultural products, fashion, makeup products as well as inbound tourism.
According to the government, overseas sales of Japan's content creation industry, centering on anime and games, have been on the rise, standing at 4.7 trillion yen in 2022.
Noting that the figure is comparable in size to the value of exports of Japan's steel industry and can also be seen as closing in on that of its semiconductor industry, the government said in the strategy that it will support the content creation businesses as a "basic industry" of the country.
The government plans to support efforts to discover new talent who can become creators, work to address unfair trade practices that suppress wages in the industry, and strengthen cooperation with overseas law enforcement authorities to counter piracy websites and fake products.
Japan's strategy to promote popular cultural contents under the theme of "Cool Japan" started years ago, but the government said in the latest policy that the time has come to "reboot Cool Japan" especially amid the growing popularity of Japanese anime and games, which is also helping attract foreign fans to the country.
The new Cool Japan Strategy has been compiled as part of the government's intellectual property strategy. Japan is stepping up efforts to tackle piracy of anime and manga, with the authors of such popular manga series as "One Piece" and "Jujutsu Kaisen" facing huge estimated losses from pirated copies.
The government also aims to increase the number of doctorate degree holders in a bid to develop human resources that can contribute to the creation of intellectual property.
It will also seek to address legal issues surrounding "AI voice actors," or utilization of generative artificial intelligence to create synthetic voices based on real people.
