[Feature: The Future of the Entertainment Business] Roundtable Discussion: Considering the Potential of Japanese Entertainment from the Front Lines

Today, we have gathered everyone who is active on the front lines of the entertainment business.

I have the impression that the stage of Japan's entertainment business has moved up one level in the past few years.

My specialty is the academic field of cultural anthropology, and from that perspective, I have been following the overseas expansion of anime using the method of fieldwork (on-site intensive reporting). It started with about two years of fieldwork on the North American expansion of the anime series "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" starting in 2007. At that time, it was often said that Japanese anime was "popular overseas but unable to translate that popularity into revenue."

I and others referred to one of the reasons for this as the "distribution hypothesis." For example, the internet had not yet been established as a legitimate distribution channel for anime works overseas. The image of cyberspace as a den of piracy was much stronger than it is now.

Also, this was a period when Spirited Away winning the Academy Award (for Best Animated Feature) was talked about as a symbolic example of the global popularity of Japanese anime. On the other hand, I think there were also arguments questioning how much the Japanese film business had been able to penetrate the North American theatrical distribution network.

However, in the last few years, it seems that these "distribution" bottlenecks are being resolved. In online streaming, platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and China's Bilibili have become established as legitimate distribution platforms for anime works aimed at overseas markets.

Furthermore, and I think "Godzilla Minus One" is a prime example of this, there have been moves by Toho to handle distribution directly in North America. In manga, services like Shueisha's "MANGA Plus" have emerged, which distribute their own works directly to overseas readers.

In this way, when viewed from the perspective of overseas "distribution," I believe it can be said that the stage of Japan's entertainment business has indeed moved up a level in the past few years.

Turning our eyes back to the domestic market, the recent "Sexy Tanaka-san" incident is symbolic in a sense, raising the issue of how we should face creators when conducting entertainment business.

What makes Japanese entertainment popular is solely the creativity of the creators. How to have them work comfortably while also making money is, in a sense, the eternal challenge of the entertainment business.

Today, with these issues in mind, I would like to discuss with all of you what is necessary for the Japanese entertainment business, which is entering a new stage, to make further leaps forward in the world.

First, I would like to ask you to briefly introduce yourselves, including your careers and the works you have been involved in.

After joining Kadokawa Shoten (now KADOKAWA) in 1998, I was assigned to the manga editorial department and have worked mainly in the manga business.

Manga editors are basically responsible for everything, from creating works from scratch to producing media mixes. When I joined the company, it was exactly the time when KADOKAWA began to engage in media mixes in earnest, and I participated in many works.

In the midst of this, there was a proposal to turn a work I was in charge of into a drama overseas, which became my first job involving overseas markets. At that time, it was still an era of "What kind of dramas are made overseas?" but I received a proposal from a famous producer at a Taiwanese production company who wanted to turn it into a Taiwanese drama.

From there, for a while, I worked mainly in East Asia from the standpoint of the original publisher, handling original work licensing for dramas, work development, and tasks involving overseas talent appearing in the works.

Entering the 2000s, talk began about KADOKAWA finally expanding into mainland China, and I became responsible for mainland China starting in 2008. As the first company, we established the joint venture Guangzhou Tianwen Kadokawa in Guangzhou, China, in 2010. Tianwen Kadokawa is a company that focuses on the publishing business, but it also conducts media mix businesses such as merchandising, and it is a company that possesses the same functions as the KADOKAWA main body.

Then, in 2018, we created the wholly-owned subsidiary KADOKAWA Qingyu (Shanghai). Since the publishing business was already successful with Tianwen Kadokawa, we are operating it as a company of producers focused on media mixes—taking it a step further by expanding into the world with original Chinese works, creating works from scratch, and handling media production.

Next, Mr. Abe, please.

During my student days, I was in a documentary production seminar. During my job hunt, I applied mainly to the video industry, such as television stations, but was unsuccessful. In 2001, I joined a company called Amuse and began working on web content production in the IT Strategy Office.

Even so, I still wanted to be involved in video work, so in 2005, I studied fundraising and the content industry at the Digital Hollywood University Graduate School in its second year of opening. While studying there, my desire to move into production grew even stronger.

From there, I changed jobs to an advertising agency and was involved in producing animation using various methods. After that, in 2015, I moved to Genco, a company focused on planning and producing anime. There, I participated as an associate producer in the film "In This Corner of the World." That work was seen by many people not only in Japan but also overseas, and it won awards at film festivals both domestically and internationally, which is when I started to become conscious of the overseas market.

From there, seeking a place where I could take on new challenges, I moved to my current company, Arch. Recently, I was involved in the collaborative theatrical anime "The Journey," a miracle and battle story in the ancient Arabian Peninsula, produced by the Saudi Arabian company Manga Productions and Toei Animation.

Most recently, I participated in "Monster Strike the Movie: Masamune - The Red Blade of Mission," produced by MIXI and released on YouTube at the end of last year.

Finally, Mr. Yamada, please.

When I was job hunting, I intended to go into journalism and joined TV Asahi as a news recruit. However, after working as an AD for one year and a news director for two years, I felt a difference between the state of television news and what I was aiming for. At that time, I realized that a television station could actually work on movies and dramas as well.

I submitted a transfer request and worked as a film producer at TV Asahi for a little over two years, gaining opportunities to face creators and producers of roughly the same generation. One of the biggest jobs I did then was the film adaptation of the mountain climbing manga "Peak: The Rescuers," starring Shun Oguri.

After that, I was told to move to the drama department, and I continued as a drama producer for over 10 years. At that time, household viewership ratings were supreme, and the standard way to make a good drama to get ratings was to find a good original work. However, TV Asahi was a latecomer to dramas at the time, and we couldn't win competitions for hit manga to get the rights to the original works.

However, this actually worked out well for my career. This is because it meant we had no choice but to create original works. For original dramas, the writer and producer basically have to create a story from scratch. What is necessary then is to build relationships with excellent writers and have them write. I was able to engage in the extremely creative work of developing and creating projects from scratch together, deciding what kind of project would be good.

In terms of representative works, there is "BORDER," starring Shun Oguri. It is an original work by the Naoki Prize-winning author Kazuki Kaneshiro, and I think of this as my first successful experience.

The work that I felt I had most fully accomplished in the latter half of my drama career was the drama "dele." This was in a late-night drama slot, but I wanted to revolutionize the way television dramas were made. It was a project I put my heart and soul into, gathering creators who wouldn't normally come to the television drama industry and changing the production method itself.

This was my greatest success from my television drama days. For the first time in TV Asahi's history, a drama won the Galaxy Award for Excellence, and later, it won the Grand Prix at MIPCOM in Cannes, a market for dramas from around the world. That was my first experience realizing that Japanese dramas can firmly compete in the world.

So you achieved brilliant results in dramas.

However, Japanese dramas were too focused on the domestic market and were "Galapagos" in both a good and bad sense, and I had a feeling that I didn't want my career to end like this. At that time, people from Toho asked if I wanted to make movies, and I transferred.

At Toho, the first work I was able to release was "A Hundred Flowers," the directorial debut of my friend Genki Kawamura. From the beginning, we thought about how to win awards globally and used a core creative team to make it almost like a film club. Fortunately, it won the Silver Shell for Best Director at the San Sebastian International Film Festival, which deepened my confidence that our methodology was not wrong for competing in the world.

After that, I released the work "Monster." I had been developing it with screenwriter Yuji Sakamoto since my TV Asahi days. As a producer, I felt that this story could compete globally, so I made an offer to Director Hirokazu Kore-eda. He said he would like to direct it if it was this story, and it entered the competition at the Cannes Film Festival and even won the Best Screenplay award. The music was by Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Around the same time as the filming of "Monster," the "Godzilla Minus One" project was in motion. The choice fell on me, and I took on the difficult task of how to compete by surpassing "Shin Godzilla." It was delayed due to COVID-19, but when it was finally released, it rewrote the history of Japanese cinema. I never imagined it would be nominated for an Academy Award (for Best Visual Effects) (Note: It was later decided as the winner on March 10).

I think I am currently the only producer who has fought on the two poles of the global stage—entertainment and art—with "Godzilla Minus One" and "Monster" at the Academy Awards and Cannes. Therefore, I feel a sense of mission to share with all of Japan exactly how Japanese content can compete in the world from now on.

Thank you for the very inspiring talk.

Next, regarding involvement with overseas markets, I would like to ask about your past experiences and the awareness of issues you have felt from them. Mr. Yoshida, what is the situation with book publishing and distribution in China and the related regulations, and how are you involved in that? Also, how are media mixes conducted in China?

Paper publishing in China has very strict regulations, and there is also content screening for works. For the publishing of books and such, the national system restricts foreign capital from conducting business, so publishing within China must be done through a Chinese publisher.

Also, the governing departments differ depending on the medium, and the regulations and screening departments for digital and paper are different. Therefore, each publisher and distribution platform takes action after properly recognizing these things.

Overseas, the problem of piracy is also significant. While Japanese content has very high name recognition, there was an era when pirated versions were more prominent than official versions. Therefore, there has been a trend where markets around the world have been organized by publishers granting official rights to overseas licensees and creating and distributing proper official versions locally.

When choosing original works to publish or discovering Chinese authors, do you feel like you choose things that are not sensitive in terms of content?

Because there is content screening, we handle expressions carefully. This mainly concerns sexual or violent expressions, but this is not limited to China. For example, the United States also has regulations on expression, and Islamic regions and India are even stricter. It is necessary to respond according to the religious views, culture, and values of each region.

In the process of specifically creating works, are there cases where you proceed thinking it's okay at first, but it becomes unacceptable later?

If someone has little experience with Chinese projects, such things might happen. In our case, it has been 14 years since we expanded there, and I think we have accumulated know-how for proactive response. For example, in the case of original works, we examine internally whether there are any issues with the content from the plot stage, and I think everyone does the same for movies and anime.

What happens when crossing media? If regulations differ for each medium, such as publishing and the internet, I get the impression that media mixes might not be able to be done seamlessly.

That's true; since the screening departments are separate for each medium, timing can be difficult.

However, even in Japan, although we say "seamless," each department or company handles distribution and development tailored to that specific medium. By collaborating, it looks seamless from the outside, but each part needs to be carefully crafted. Similarly, overseas, it is necessary to respond to each one and have the producer set it up so that it appears seamless. I think that is one of the important jobs of a producer.

I see. Now, Mr. Abe. I also had the opportunity to participate in meetings, but how was the collaborative anime film "The Journey" between Saudi Arabia and Japan created? Especially in Islamic regions, there are strong norms, and you often have to be quite careful with character designs and clothing, right?

There were parts that were difficult to fully understand regarding what concerns they had and where, based only on translated text. For example, regarding colors, we finally understood after a detailed explanation that in Arabia, there is no image of the sun being red. Only then did our Japanese production staff understand.

Also, I learned while considering the colors of character costumes that we don't know if the colors we are perceiving are the same just from the words "blue" and "green," and that impressions can be very different. I learned that it is very important to create while understanding each other not just through words but as a culture.

Other topics included the extent to which a woman's skin should be covered and how much a turban could be disarranged in action scenes.

I have the impression that adjustments were made to characters that were quite different from conventional stereotypes.

I was taught that the standard look for an adult male is to have a beard.

Regarding hair color, when I proposed grayish hair for a certain character, it was pointed out that there are actually no people with that hair color in that region. We adjusted it by setting the character's origin as having come from the outside.

Finally, I would like to hear from Mr. Yamada. I'd like to ask you straight out: how can one win an overseas film award? (laughs)

I'd like to know too (laughs). There are many different kinds of awards, from the Academy Awards to the Golden Globes; there are countless awards, especially in the United States. In Europe, there are the three major film festivals: Cannes, Venice, and Berlin. There are also various other awards with different tendencies, such as the San Sebastian International Film Festival.

What I thought was completely different about global award races compared to Japan is that the concept is important. And, you need proper respect for film history. In other words, unless you can firmly present the concept of why this work is being created now within the continuous history of world cinema, what makes it different from other works, and what you want to express as thorough originality as a work, winning is difficult.

Creators need a broad perspective or education that goes beyond just making what they want to make. I think overseas filmmakers who break into the award races, including producers, naturally possess those aspects.

I used the word "Galapagos" earlier, but Japan has been self-contained within the Japanese market alone. Since we can often create hits that can somehow recoup (recover costs) with detailed, high-context stories that Japanese people enjoy and that suit Japanese sensibilities, I feel there is a significant disconnect there.

Even if you think about it in your head, it's something you won't understand unless you go outside, so my impression is that it's an area you just have to experience vividly for yourself.

In Japan, there is a tendency to value art for art's sake, or creators making what they want to make the way they want to make it, and film criticism seems to be avoided. Is it your impression that those things are integrated overseas?

My impression is that film criticism and film journalism are connected to the evaluation of award races and award-winning works. They function properly. Since the impression is that there is a bit of a distance between Japanese criticism and the production side, I think the Japanese film industry itself is at a crossroads.

"Godzilla Minus One" is exactly "Galapagos," or rather, a case where a genre film-like work from within Japan was nominated for an Academy Award. Does this mean it also fit into the context of film history over there?

I think the very important things are concept and universality. For "Godzilla Minus One," first, in terms of the concept for making this movie, I believe we were able to assemble a concept that had a perspective not limited to Japan.

Things like "creating a movie where you experience the closest and scariest Godzilla in history," or "making it a story set in an era of zero state where the government is completely useless and the people have no choice but to stand up on their own."

In terms of universality, the story of the anguish of the returning soldier Shikishima, the protagonist who fled back from a kamikaze mission as depicted in "Godzilla Minus One," became a story that moved the emotions of people all over the world, transcending race and language. I have the feeling that it reached people precisely because both were satisfied.

Were you conscious of that while making it?

I was conscious of it. I didn't think it would be a huge hit worldwide, but at least as a producer, I was making it with the desire to make it a story and a movie with that kind of strength.

Did you talk about those concepts and universality with the creators as well?

I think I was subtly saying that this character should be this way. Because somewhere in my head there is a hypothesis that such a universal story and historical perspective should appear in a way that appeals to many people, I guide the direction of the work by deepening it through suggestions for details.

I see. Another thing I found very interesting about "Godzilla Minus One" is that Toho handled the distribution in North America directly. Was that a policy of Toho as a company? I think it was an initiative that hadn't been seen much before.

I should probably state this clearly: no one predicted this, and no one was even thinking of trying it. It was truly a convergence of coincidences and miracles.

Regarding the North American expansion, since we had made the film and Legendary Godzilla has been doing so well in North America, we thought a Japanese-made Godzilla might have some potential, so we decided to hold a North American premiere just in case. It was so well-received that just as we thought, "Maybe there's a chance for a hit in North America," the Hollywood strike happened to drag on, and there was a total lack of new titles across the United States.

Because of that, we thought we might be able to distribute it ourselves. The environment for self-distribution was in place, including building a relationship with a company called Pixelogic, and things rolled along smoothly, with the number of theaters steadily increasing. Initially, we were told we could only run in a few hundred theaters for maybe a few weeks, but from there it kept growing, and before we knew it, over 2,000 theaters were filled.

It would sound cool if I could say, "Actually, this was all done strategically," but no one was strategizing. It was all coincidence and momentum. It felt like we just went with the momentum and ended up with this result (ranking No. 1 in all-time U.S. box office revenue for a Japanese live-action film).

The strike was one factor, but the fact that an environment was in place to send data digitally to every corner of the U.S. was also huge. If this had been a decade ago, without a local distribution company firmly rooted there, physical connections and face-to-face interactions with each theater would have been essential, and I don't think we could have acted with this much mobility all at once. The evolution of technology has made such things possible.

Is there a momentum to pursue direct overseas distribution for other works in the future?

I have no doubt that this result has opened some kind of door. Ultimately, everything changes when the mindset changes, right? So while this time it was a very good outcome resulting from a series of coincidences, the effect is enormous, and I think self-distribution for animated films is likely a possibility in the future.

Since we proved that self-distribution is possible for works with enough power that theaters in North America want them, I think a game change has occurred in that sense.

Next, I would like to hear from the three of you about how you engage with creators.

Mr. Yoshida, you mentioned earlier that you are also scouting for Chinese creators. How specifically do you go about that?

Generally, when Japanese IP (intellectual property) companies or companies known as publishers expand overseas, they often export things made in Japan or engage in licensing businesses.

In particular, for publishing houses expanding overseas, most were previously focused on rights businesses. Basically, overseas expansion for publishers was seen as an extension of the licensing business, and local bases were often thought of as branch offices of the rights department.

Within that context, since KADOKAWA began expanding into mainland China in 2008, we have believed that developing original IP locally in China is what is truly important. Even at our overseas bases worldwide, while translating and publishing Japanese works is the main focus, we leverage the businesses of local creators and local joint venture partners to conduct the most appropriate business for that region. I think this is quite different from other companies.

In some cases, we conduct businesses overseas that the KADOKAWA headquarters does not. In particular, Kadokawa Qingyu (Shanghai) often conducts businesses not done at headquarters, and conversely, providing feedback to headquarters has become an important role.

It's not just manga and novels; for example, we create games from scratch with Chinese game companies, produce musicals originating in China, and make dramas and movies. We are expanding Chinese-produced content from China to the world. The creators don't have to be Chinese; they can be Japanese or from any region or nationality. We want to spread the creativity born in Shanghai to the world.

KADOKAWA has the catchphrase "Global Media Mix with Technology." For example, content created by companies in New York or Malaysia expands to various places around the world. I believe that if content born in various places overseas moves back and forth and spreads globally, rather than just a one-way street from Japan to overseas, talent and the number of works should increase even more.

As an example, Kadokawa Qingyu (Shanghai) produces domestic Chinese works. In 2022, based on the Japanese light novel "A Herbivorous Dragon of 5,000 Years Old," we produced a work that combined a manga adaptation and an anime in China. This was KADOKAWA's first attempt at a Chinese-produced anime, but we achieved not only streaming but also TV broadcasting in China. We also expanded it from China to the rest of the world, broadcasting a Japanese dubbed version in Japan and having Crunchyroll stream it in Western regions.

How do you find talent such as Chinese authors and manga artists?

When we established Guangzhou Tianwen Kadokawa, I said, "Let's create local originals!" but the response was, "No, to begin with, there are no editors who can guide manga artists." So we started by creating an editorial department and training editors.

At that time, there were almost no editors in China who worked closely with creators in the Japanese style. So we hired young local university graduates, taught them Japanese manga editing methods from scratch, created a manga editorial department, and published manga magazines for the Chinese market from there. The approach at the time was, in a sense, a "boots-on-the-ground" style—finding and nurturing artists, and refining the works as we built them.

Have you ever felt that the mindset of Chinese creators is different from that of Japanese creators?

It's not limited to China, but if that industry doesn't exist in that region to begin with, there are naturally differences. Creators grow in Japan not only because they love storytelling, but because it becomes a proper job and they can earn money. There are cases where movies, anime, or manga simply haven't been established as an industry in a particular region.

Is it that Chinese creators are less accustomed to working with editors?

That is also true. Even if you try to implement the Japanese style of manga editing outside of Japan, there are regions where it might not work that well. Some companies, for example in South Korea or Taiwan, use a similar studio format, but I don't think it's that common globally.

I see. Mr. Abe, your company is also working on webtoons, right?

Yes. Arch is nimble in taking on challenges with new things like webtoons.

Currently, anime production costs are rising due to various factors, and I think it is becoming particularly difficult to get original projects off the ground.

Therefore, while developing original IP, I think there is an idea that it might be good to first release it to the world as a webtoon. Anime adaptations based on webtoon works are also increasing.

Does it feel like webtoons are currently being experimented with in various ways, rather than following a traditional manga-making process?

I think various companies are trying different things. There are editorial production companies that originally made "horizontal-reading manga" (traditional formats like tankobon, where pages are turned horizontally using a dedicated viewer), and there are many like us coming from the anime industry.

Webtoons have a very high number of panels and are based on full color with weekly updates. In Japanese horizontal manga, traditionally a single artist often handles all processes, sometimes with assistants. In contrast, webtoons are characterized by a division of labor from the start, with the process broken down into fine steps.

I believe those aspects have a high affinity with anime, so we are entering the field and learning through trial and error.

The world of live-action film where Mr. Yamada is currently based is, in a sense, very traditional, and it seems that the way one engages with directors is particularly important. On the other hand, many new initiatives were taken with "Godzilla Minus One."

I think there are many things that directors or so-called "auteurs" want to create, but those things alone don't necessarily become a business. Therefore, without a strong original work and the prerequisite that it is selling well, it is quite difficult to make an original film in the Japanese film industry; most projects simply don't get approved.

That is the starting point of a very difficult world. But when considering what kind of concept would be a hit, the production side needs to properly analyze genre groups with high hit potential, at least in terms of "program pictures," from a historical perspective. It is necessary to successfully fuse what an auteur director wants to do with a genre that has a certain level of commercial potential.

Whether or not you can do that determines if you can clear the hurdle of making it domestically. But beyond that, in terms of how to break into the world, there are two main axes. One is the direction of pursuing the possibility of recouping costs by securing commercial viability through nominations in the awards circuit, even if the work is more art-oriented. The other is the mainstream entertainment direction of creating a live-action work based on a powerful IP unique to Japan, using Japanese resources with global-level strength. It's one or the other, and while Godzilla miraculously achieved the latter, it is normally an "impossible game."

This is because the scale of production costs differs by 10 to 20 times. What is called a high budget for a Japanese entertainment work is 1/10th or 1/20th of a Hollywood budget, so there is simply no way to win at that point. We have to work backward from the idea of Japanese works becoming global hits, gain the confidence to spend more on production, and gradually close that gap.

On the other hand, for the art-oriented side, we know there is potential because works by directors like Hirokazu Kore-eda and Ryusuke Hamaguchi can win awards at globally prestigious venues like the Cannes Film Festival or the Venice Film Festival, even with relatively low budgets.

This is about how to connect authorship with the current awards circuit—for example, considering what subjects are suitable for Venice, or identifying subjects that haven't been covered based on past trends at Cannes. Of course, the prerequisite must be a pressing question from the author about what kind of story is needed in the modern world.

It requires a significant amount of education, information, and a sense of discernment, and I think producers and directors need to consider this from a broad perspective.

Do you have those discussions directly with the directors? Was there any pushback, such as "I'm not making movies for awards"?

Yes. That is difficult, but we have extensive discussions in the sense of pursuing the quality of the work. Even with Director Kore-eda, I never spoke in terms of "winning an award." It wasn't about that; we repeatedly discussed how "Monster" could delve deeper into its themes, and how we could deepen the story as a multi-perspective narrative that differed from Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon."

Also, especially in Europe, various film festivals, including the big three, always have a director who manages them, and that director's influence is significant in the final selection. Therefore, ideally, your authorship needs to be recognized by that director to some extent. Being able to communicate with those directors unofficially results in a kind of creative lobbying, and in fact, auteur directors around the world engage in such communication to a greater or lesser degree. Japan is still unfamiliar with this, and my hypothesis is that this actually leads to a major difference.

Does that kind of lobbying become the producer's job?

It's the producer, or the head of a distribution company, or someone who can communicate. It doesn't matter who does it, but you need to become a resident of that "global film village." Otherwise, you won't be recognized.

We have heard many things, and regarding the Japanese entertainment business with its various possibilities and challenges, it seems that universities also need to further develop systems for research, education, and human resource development. With this awareness, we have actually been offering various courses related to entertainment within Keio University.

To conclude this roundtable, I would like to ask for your opinions on what you expect from universities, and Keio University in particular, so that the Japanese entertainment business can make further leaps globally, from the perspective of those actually involved in the entertainment business on the front lines.

As you say, there is a shortage of talent in Japan, so I hope more people will go abroad. When working with people from various regions, talented people from overseas really stand out. Many employees at our various overseas bases can speak the local language and Japanese plus English, and they have a mindset of being able to interact with various people without fear.

I want Japanese students to do their best as well. I believe the market for the content industry in the future needs to target the entire world from the start, rather than just looking at the Japanese market. Since we are in an era where we can broadcast to the world from Japan, I hope to see more young Japanese people who can create things that anyone in any country would find interesting, while interacting with various people without fear.

So language and communication are the keys?

Of course, it's better to have language skills, but I actually think that's not necessarily all. Unless the people who are truly at the core of production in Japan go out, the true message of what they want to create and what they want to do won't be conveyed.

At KADOKAWA, editors and producers from the Japanese front lines are getting involved in the work of overseas bases, and foreign employees are joining Japanese editorial departments, working hard so they can one day be active globally. We are steadily increasing these exchanges.

Since they've come to the entertainment world, I want them to enjoy doing everything. Entertainment is quite a tough job, isn't it? There are painful moments, and it takes up a lot of time and emotional energy. We need people who are committed to creativity, have passion, and can continue to communicate and solve problems even when faced with difficulties. Otherwise, I think it's difficult to create something that surprises people.

I understand that Arch, where Mr. Abe is, is a company founded with exactly that kind of frontier-spirit vision. Mr. Abe, what kind of talent do you think is needed?

In anime, there are also four major international film festivals, and I sincerely hope to see an increase in the number of Japanese people going to the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, which is the leader among them. I also think it would be very encouraging to have Keio alumni there.

I often encounter Keio graduates in various places like event venues, screening rooms, and film festival venues. That really provides emotional support. I want everyone to project a new vision to the world from now on, so I would definitely like people who find it interesting to try new things in the midst of this game change to come into this industry.

I look forward to many people coming who say they became interested after taking a course at Keio that served as a catalyst.

Mr. Yamada, what do you think the expected role of the university is?

For my next 10 years, my only expectation is there, and I want to say it here: please let me create a graduate school.

As Mr. Yoshida mentioned earlier, the era of being self-sufficient domestically has completely ended. To make it a growth industry, it has become clear that no entertainment can survive unless we expand the market to the world and increase the denominator. We have reached an era where Japan alone is not enough to survive, and whether we like it or not, we must create entertainment that generates sales in places with a large denominator globally.

I also received a consultation from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry about the future of the entertainment industry. I told them, "If your job is to newly create and organize Japanese industry, from now on, why don't you specialize in supporting how to create works that can compete globally?" Because otherwise, it will not become an industry that carries the future.

To that end, I believe Keio should create a graduate school where people can learn at a global level what entertainment that can compete in the world is. This should not be film studies or a film department, but should be created in a way that fuses business school-style commerciality with creative learning.

I also originally came from a news background and received no specialized film education at university. Even so, through OJT after entering the workforce, I was able to win an award at Cannes and get nominated for an Academy Award. So what I can say to all Keio students is that you can make it even after becoming a working professional. Starting from graduate school is more than enough.

For that purpose, I think high-quality business schools serve as a good reference. I believe we should bring the thorough case method developed by Harvard into the entertainment business.

For example, it would be a form of learning where the process of David Fincher creating "The Social Network" based on the real person Mark Zuckerberg, making it a commercial hit, and getting it nominated for an Oscar is turned into a complete case method. Film is a comprehensive art, so it includes every element: project development, story-making, fundraising, art direction, architecture, costume design, music, and contracts.

You take a single film as a thorough case method and completely simulate things that left wonderful results in the past but remain as tacit knowledge within university academia. By doing that, you will surely find a vein of gold through simulated experience and understand, "Oh, this is how you fight."

From there, just as Harvard has produced many business leaders through the case method, I believe many content creators who can compete globally will be produced. Please let me create something like that.

At film schools such as USC (University of Southern California), it seems that an ecosystem of people, money, and knowledge circulates inside and outside the university, such as successful directors in the film industry donating money to the university to enhance film research and education, and the film talent trained there being supplied to Hollywood. Conversely, in Japan, I feel there is a disconnect between entertainment and universities.

There has been nothing but a disconnect. If we were to create a graduate school, the instructors there should first be people who have won global awards, created hits, or left global results. Once we can start going out little by little, graduates should be able to use that network to go on internships at influential distribution companies with power in Hollywood or Cannes, allowing academia to connect with the outside world.

It should be an extremely practical graduate school. I think Keio might be good at creating a place where entertainment is treated as a business, while deeply understanding the essence of creation and learning through fusion.

I think there would be many people from overseas who would want to come. There are truly many voices wanting to learn about Japanese content development and media mix.

Recently, at an on-campus event called the "Hiyoshi Film Festival" which screens notable films from the Chinese-speaking world, we had the director and producer of the Chinese animated film "Chang'an" speak. I was surprised at the reception after the event when they asked very detailed questions about the business of Japanese anime media mix and character merchandising. The need to learn about the Japanese entertainment business may exist overseas, including in Asia, more than we realize.

Thank you very much for the passionate discussion today.