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The Japanese government is making a $210 billion bet to dominate the global comic, cartoon, gaming, and music industries
As South Korea and China push to expand, Japan doesn’t want anyone catch up to their dominance in manga, anime, and more
NewsbyChris Arrant, Editor-in-Chief
Published on Mon Jul 13 2026
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Manga and anime are a core part of pop culture, in the comics industry, the film & tv industry, and in general. But as manga and anime become global, the Japanese government is making a ginormous investment of $210 billion to keep it going — and growing — around the world. As this planned government funding is mapped out into roughly $9.8 billion for manga, $20 billion for anime, $151 billion for video games, and $18 billion for music
The Japanese government is taking steps to make a centralized state-owned agency focused on cultivating Japanese manga, anime, and music around the world, with a plan to grow those industries’ revenue globally by 225+% by 2033. The $210 billion dollars is earmarked to come from a mixture of public funds and private sector support, to be spent between now and 2033. The Japanese government has been making smaller efforts towards this with its Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the Agency for Cultural Affairs, but there are reports of criticism inside the government for inefficiencies in the current model that would be fixed by having one centralized organization.
This is spurred on by the successful model Korea has adopted to promote K-Pop and Webtoons under the auspices of the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA), which has received over half a billion in funding from its government. Similarly, China recently injected almost $800 billion into its own efforts for its pop culture exports. The United States has not done this level of development, but in recent years it did start a Congressional caucus for pop culture arts
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Chris Arrant: Chris Arrant is the Popverse’s Editor-in-Chief. He has written about pop culture for USA Today, Life, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher’s Weekly, Marvel, Newsarama, CBR, and more. He has acted as a judge for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, the Harvey Awards, and the Stan Lee Awards. (He/him)
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