A few days after it stood by as the anime industry was humiliatingly singled out for a ban, the Japanese government is now announcing a plan to quadruple anime and game exports.
Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, historically notorious for interfering with any industry it thinks it can run better than the private sector, has decreed that as part of its “Cool Japan” strategy the nation’s content industries will increase their exports fourfold by 2020.
The very cool sounding “Cool Japan Public-Private Advisory Council” is looking to oversee an increase in “cultural” exports (singling out content industries such as anime and games, as well as fashion and food) of between 2 to 4 times, to as much as 200 billion dollars from the current 50 billion. It expects anime, games and so forth to account for some 35 billion dollars of this total.
It estimates the total size of the global market for such “cultural” goods will double in the same period, to 11 trillion dollars.
The scheme would see affected industries forced to endure “public-private partnerships” (i.e. businesses doing what civil servants tell them to, or else) in pursuit of growth, a strategy which has been the cornerstone of Japanese industrial policy in the post-war period, with mixed results – most notably, the ministry’s predecessor actually tried to stop Sony from producing electronics and Honda from producing cars.
Successful animation, comic and gaming industries are of course not known for state involvement – quite the contrary in fact.
Having Japan’s incompetent yet depressingly numerous civil servants and politicians try to take over the anime and game industries may in fact be the last thing they need, particularly with the state’s main interest in these industries so far being nothing but a series of efforts to ban and censor them, or bully them into “voluntary restraints.”
Coming just after the publishing industry was subjected to humiliating treatment at the hands of Tokyo’s government, it does seem likely that the ministry will find the industry less than welcoming at this stage – and what better way to start the plan off than by the cancellation of the Tokyo International Anime Fair?
NOW I SEE IT !!!!
First the ban the l♥♥i and Porn, to give anime and manga a better image in Joe Publics eyes
and then the take over the industry
and THAN the can export more and rake in the big cash
because contend industries are known for there high return on investment, like you make a movie for 50 million and it grosses with everything included for over 250 million, thats a five times increase.
Other industries couldnt even dream about such numbers
This is all a craftly executed masterplan of the Japanese Elite to make more money.
I tell you ITS TRUE !
Sorry have to go into hiding now, but first someone knocking on my door. brb
There’s only so much culture people can buy, expecting us to buy four times as much on an presumably similar salary as today is wishful thinking, if they want a bigger share of the money they would have to make sure the quality of their products increase first, and using scare tactics will only have the opposite effect.
Is it just me or are they non-verbally admitting that they made a mistake?
This is not a good thing. The goverment handling anime is the last thing we need.
they better make sure they “quadruple” their sales before saying any of these bullshit.