Japan Plans to Distribute Manga Overseas Via New Platform

The Yomiuri Shimbun

16:27 JST, November 26, 2025

The government plans to establish a domestically funded platform to distribute Japanese manga overseas by creating a consortium of industry, government and academic entities.

There is still no globally dominant service to distribute Japanese manga. By having Japanese companies take the initiative, the government aims to further tap into overseas demand for Japanese manga, which is popular in many countries.

The government will ask publishing companies, internet distribution service providers, manga-related business associations, universities and academic institutions to take part in the consortium.

The government aims to create a unified distribution service platform that manga publishers in Japan will participate in.

By offering a wide variety of manga, from world renowned titles to niche works and those drawn by new artists, the government seeks to encourage overseas demand and raise Japan’s market share in the field.

According to the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry, overseas sales in 2022 of Japanese publications, which manga accounted for a significant portion, totaled about ¥320 billion.

But the total amount of licensing revenue that Japanese publishing companies and manga artists earned was only about ¥25.6 billion. The ministry said that most of the revenue drained overseas.

The planned new platform is expected to create a system that can increase domestic revenue.

In addition, Japanese manga works are not sufficiently distributed overseas. Manga is often read overseas through pirate websites that can be easily accessed.

The total amount of damages or losses from this situation is estimated to be about ¥2 trillion over the four-year period from 2020 to 2023.

Promoting a distribution service of legitimate works can contribute to stamping out illegal works.

The consortium will also use artificial intelligence translation systems and foster human resources capable of high-level translation, which are essential for the distribution of multilingual manga.

To strengthen the relationship between the public and private sectors, the government will help hold events overseas such as manga exhibitions and trade shows.

The platform plan makes use of the Japan Creator Support Fund. The government will earmark ¥17.5 billion in additional contribution to the fund in the draft of its fiscal 2025 extra budget.

The government regards the industry of anime, manga and other pop culture as part of Japan’s key industry and has set a goal to increase overseas sales of such works from about ¥5.8 trillion in 2023 to ¥20 trillion by 2033.