Newspapers: Japanese Government to Abolish Cool Japan Fund – News

Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun, and other newspapers reported on Thursday that Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has decided to effectively abolish the Cool Japan Fund, the public-private company that the government uses to fund projects as part of its “Cool Japan” initiative. According to these newspapers, METI is submitting a budget request for the 2027 fiscal year without money earmarked for the fund.

The government and various companies supported the “Cool Japan” initiative to promote modern Japanese culture such as anime and manga abroad. According to the initiative’s premise, Japan’s strength in business and international affairs lies in anime, manga, films, fashion, and other fields of Japanese arts and entertainment content.

The Cool Japan Fund was a major pillar of the second administration of the late Prime Minister Shinzō Abe. However, the fund accumulated 54 billion yen (about US$340 million) in losses since its 2013 launch. The financial news source Nikkei reported in 2017 that most of the fund’s investments that year underperformed. A subcommittee meeting of Japan’s Ministry of Finance discussed restructuring or abolishing the fund in 2022, particularly if it was not profitable by the 2025 fiscal year.

METI had convened an expert panel in late July to streamline the fund, but without a budget in the next fiscal year, the fund would not be able to make any new investments.

The Cool Japan initiative launched an emergency fund to help keep businesses afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

The fund invested US$30 million into Sentai Holdings, LLC (the parent company of Sentai Filmworks, HIDIVE, and Anime Network) in 2019, and offered another US$3.6 million to Sentai Holdings in 2020.

The fund invested in 2014 in Anime Consortium Japan, a joint venture that eventually managed the Daisuki streaming service before it shut down in 2017.

The fund planned in 2015 to invest up to 450 million yen (about US$3.7 million) in Kadokawa‘s projects to develop content creators for anime and manga outside Japan, with a particular focus in allowing Kadokawa Contents Academy Co. to expand its schools in other markets. Kadokawa Contents Academy Co. aimed to produce at least 2,000 graduates among its collective schools by 2020.

Sources: Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun

Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.