Kadokawa raises publishing target after Sony acquisition

Kadokawa aims to expand its operations after Sony acquired approximately 10% of its shares (this number includes shares previously held by Sony). The total investment is ¥50 billion (around $322 million) and was completed on January 7, 2025.

While the two conglomerates have collaborated on many projects, this deal takes their collaboration to a whole new level and will potentially have a huge impact on the anime industry in the medium to long term.

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CEO of Kadokawa, Takeshi Natsuno, recently told Nikkei that they are increasing their original goal of publishing 7,000 volumes (novels, manga, and other types of books) to 9,000 volumes. per year.

The original goal was set in 2023

The original goal was already bold as it was already announced in 2023 along with their goal to increase anime production. Previously, in 2021, they announced a goal of producing 40 anime (TV shows, movies, and other formats) per year by 2023, and then unveiled an even more ambitious goal in 2023.

Not only do they want to deliver more content, but they also want to deliver it to a wider audience. To many, Kadokawa is trying to expand more than the industry can handle, as many of the anime series they produce have suffered delays due to “production circumstances” and other quality issues.

Kadokawa wants to reach a wider audience

Kadokawa is investing in expanding to other countries and continents and translating their content into several languages. The recent announcement that Crunchyroll Manga is “coming back” could be seen as a sign that Sony will be key to its strategy – Kadokawa said the deal included a partnership on the distribution of her books.

It should be noted that Kadokawa also co-owns Yen Press, so it's not entirely dependent on Sony to publish its English titles. However, Crunchyroll is able to reach a wider audience in many other countries, so it could provide an “easier way” for Kadokawa to expand its publications to non-English-speaking countries where Crunchyroll already streams anime with local language subtitles. .

However, we should also keep this in mind “previous” Crunchyroll Manga never translated their titles into other languageseven after Crunchyroll began expanding to other countries – however, this could be more related to contractual issues, as Crunchyroll was not contractually allowed to translate these manga into languages ​​other than English.

Source: Nikkei via Animenomics