International Journal of Cultural Policy

ISSN: 1028-6632 (Print) 1477-2833 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gcul20

Film policy in Japan – an isolated species on the

verge of extinction?

Nobuko Kawashima

To cite this article: Nobuko Kawashima (2016) Film policy in Japan – an isolated species
on the verge of extinction?, International Journal of Cultural Policy, 22:5, 787-804, DOI:
10.1080/10286632.2016.1223645

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10286632.2016.1223645

Published online: 17 Oct 2016.

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International Journal of Cultural Policy, 2016
Vol. 22, No. 5, 787–804, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10286632.2016.1223645

Film policy in Japan – an isolated species on the verge of

extinction?
Nobuko Kawashima*

Faculty of Economics, Doshisha University, Imadegawa Karasuma, Kyoto 602-8580, Japan

(Received 2 April 2016; accepted 4 July 2016)

This article examines changes of the place that film has occupied in the public
policy of the Japanese government, including not only cultural policy per se,
but also industrial and economic policy. After describing some of the distinctive
features of the Japanese film market, this paper discusses the inadequate basis
of the government’s cultural policy for film. Film in recent years has received
some attention as an industry with export potential, particularly with the rise of
‘Cool Japan’, the policy of promoting Japanese culture abroad as a tool for eco-
nomic and diplomatic aims. In the chequered history of economic growth strate-
gies and nation branding of recent years, the film industry has had some good
news but received no serious attention either as a sector with economic signifi-
cance or as a form of national culture.
Keywords: film policy; cultural policy; Japan; Cool Japan; nation branding

1. Introduction
Japan is one of the top countries in the world in terms of the volume of feature
films produced for theatrical release. A report by UNESCO (2013) shows that
India, the top country, produced 1203 films per year on average between 2005 and
2011, whilst Japan produced 414 per year in the same period (Table 1). According
to this report (UNESCO 2013, 11, 12), the top ten producers represent around 65%
of world production, with only seven countries producing more than 200 per year,
suggesting a certain degree of importance in Japan’s number 4 position within the
global picture of the film industry. Another notable feature of the Japanese film
market is the high share of domestic films relative to imported, foreign films
(Table 2). The same phenomenon is seen in the DVD/BD market (Table 3), where
Japanese content surpasses that of foreign imports. After decades of foreign domi-
nation of the Japanese film market since the 1970s, the domestic share expanded
and exceeded the foreign share in the mid-2000s (Table 4). The year 2014 saw an
exceptional hit in the Disney animated feature, Frozen, sweeping 12.3% of the total
box office on its own.1 Even so, domestic films represented 58.3% of the national
box office (see Table 4). In aesthetic terms, some contemporary Japanese filmmak-
ers, such as Hirokazu Kore-eda, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Naomi Kawase and Takeshi
Kitano, are internationally acclaimed, with works that have been well-received in
prestigious international film festivals. Interestingly the UNESCO report shows that

*Email: nkawashi@kta.att.ne.jp

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

788 N. Kawashima

Table 1. Top 15 countries with the highest number of feature films produced for theatrical
release and national film support (average for 2005–2011).
Country Average production National film support
1 India 1203 No
2 USA 757 Indirect
3 China 432 Yes
4 Japan 414 No
5 Russian Federation 292 Yes
6 France 239 Yes
7 United Kingdom 225 Yes
8 Germany 185 Yes
9 Spain 175 Yes
10 Republic of Korea 137 Yes
11 Italy 131 Yes
12 Argentina 108 Yes
13 Mexico 94 Yes
14 Brazil 89 Yes
15 Bangladesh 88 Yes
Source: Table 8, UNESCO (2013, 14), adapted by the author.

Table 2. Share of national films in the domestic market by gross box office, 2014 and
2015 (%).
North America India South Korea China Japan France UK
2014 95.0 91.5 50.1 54.5 58.3 44.4 26.0
2015 88.8 (US only) 85.0 52.2 61.6 55.4 35.5 44.5
Source: European Audiovisual Observatory (2015, 2016).

Table 3. Gross sales of Japanese and imported feature films including animation (2015),
(million yen).
Theaters DVD/BDa
Japanese 120,367 81,744b
Imported 96,752 37,328b
a
Includes sales to individual consumers and video rental businesses. Data relies on the reporting to
JVA (Japan Video Software Association) by its 30 members, which include major video makers related
to Japanese and Hollywood film and animation studios.
b
Whether those counted had theatrical release or not is unknown.
Source: Eiren (http://www.eiren.org/aboutus_e/index.html) and JVA report no. 175 (2016).

both Japan and India, unlike other countries in the table, provide no ‘National Film
Support’ – directly or indirectly – to film.
Most Japanese researchers and film industry professionals would intuitively agree
with this assessment, but the absence of a ‘national film support’ policy does not nec-
essarily mean there is no government film policy at all. The purpose of this paper is to
examine the extent to which film exists as an object of public policy that furthers the
cultural and economic aims of the government. The paper will argue that film has
received very little support in cultural policy per se, confirming the brief evaluation
 International Journal of Cultural Policy 789

Table 4. Japanese film market, 1955–2015.

Total
Number of local Number of foreign admissions Share of local films by
Year films released films released (1000s) gross box office(%)
1955 423 193 858,912 65.8
1960 547 216 1,014,364 78.3
1965 487 264 372,676 66.7
1970 423 236 254,799 59.4
1975 333 225 174,020 44.4
1980 320 209 164,422 55.0
1985 319 284 155,130 50.9
1990 239 465 148,000 41.4
1995 289 321 157,885 37.0
2000 282 362 135,390 31.8
2001 281 349 163,280 39.0
2002 293 347 160,767 27.1
2003 287 335 162,347 33.0
2004 310 339 170,092 37.5
2005 355 375 160,453 41.3
2006 417 404 164,585 53.2
2007 407 403 163,193 47.7
2008 418 388 160,491 59.5
2009 448 314 182,297 56.9
2010 409 308 174,358 53.6
2011 441 358 144,726 54.9
2012 554 429 155,159 65.7
2013 591 526 155,888 60.6
2014 615 569 161,116 58.3
2015 581 555 166,630 55.4
Source: Data compiled from the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (Eiren) website (http://
www.eiren.org/aboutus_e/index.html).

given in the table of the UNESCO report. However, the paper will also show that film
has recently emerged as an object of economic and industrial policies. This is particu-
larly evident in the rise of the government’s Cool Japan policy of promoting Japanese
pop culture abroad as a vehicle for nation-branding with the aim of increased eco-
nomic and diplomatic benefits. However, the campaign has gradually shifted its focus
from the media and entertainment industries and expanded its scope, in which film
may now be valued only insofar as it arouses the interest of overseas consumers in
buying Japanese products and visiting Japan. The paper will conclude that the govern-
ment’s interest in film for its cultural and artistic value is limited, and insubstantial for
economic and industrial purposes, too.
To advance such arguments, the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 of the
paper will give an introductory overview of the film economy in Japan as a basis
for understanding and discussing film policy. It will look at trends at the box office
and other quantitative indicators related to film production, distribution and con-
sumption in Japan. Section 3 will explore Japanese cultural and economic policies
that have relevance to the film industry. Section 4 of the paper will investigate the
Cool Japan policy and the changes in the role expected to be played by film in the
course of policy development, followed by conclusions.
It must be noted that animation is a big business and central to the film industry
in Japan. Indeed, many of the titles in the top 10 box office ranking are animation
790 N. Kawashima

(anime). In this paper, ‘film’ includes animation unless otherwise specified, and the
words animation and anime are used interchangeably.

2. State of the film economy in Japan

As previously stated, Japan is one of the top countries in the world in terms of vol-
ume of film production, with more than half of the domestic market captured by
local films. These figures may suggest a strong film economy and cinema culture,
but a closer look at the details and other indicators will reveal a less optimistic pic-
ture.
The first thing to note is that out of the total of more than 400 films released,
only 30–40 attain a box office-revenue regarded as substantial by industry standards
(i.e. 1000 million yen, USD 8.3 million).2 As in other countries, box office revenue
is heavily concentrated among a limited number of films. The remaining indepen-
dently made films are very low-budget, being produced for 20–40 million yen
(USD 167,000–333,000),3 or even less. They may be screened in the theatre only
once with no wider release. The majority of these, as I will elaborate later, receive
no public funding for production.
Literature is scant on how so many films manage to get produced and screened
in public despite the lack of public funding. The development of digital technolo-
gies has obviously lowered the costs of film production. Yoshio Kakeo, a specialist
in this area, points out other reasons, too.4 First, many works can rely heavily on
the home video (DVD rental) market, sometimes earning more than three or four
times their box office from DVD rentals and sales. This may be at odds with the
industry’s conventional wisdom on the international level, but in Japan, those films
without theatrical success can succeed in the video rental market. Second, dozens
of works with minimal budgets (about 5 million yen, USD 42,000) are soft porno-
graphic works for a reliable audience base. Third, independent film production on a
shoestring budget may be possible for internationally acclaimed directors who can
obtain funds from European film agencies by shooting in those countries. For
example, An, the most recent film from director Naomi Kawase, received funding
in France and Germany. Finally, the film industry in Japan is notorious for its use
of what many consider exploitative labour practices. That workers in the creative
industries work long hours for little money is well-known in many countries (Flew
2013, 39–53). This applies to Japan (Geidankyo 2015, JAnicA 2015),5 too, where
government policy supporting cultural workers specifically is very limited and there
are virtually no unions for workers to organize within. Animators in particular are
known to suffer under poor working conditions (Tables 5 and 6).
In contrast, the films that make up the majority of the box office have large
budgets, ranging from 500 million (USD 4.2 million) to 10–15 billion yen (USD
83–125 million). This is much lower than the budgets of Hollywood blockbuster
films, but these films post good returns on their investment and are safe in that
respect. These films are small in number and distributed by the three major distrib-
utors, Toho, Toei and Shochiku. Much like the Hollywood majors, these three com-
panies were traditional studios in the first half of the twentieth century, but today
are in the business of developing movie projects, finding investors, subcontracting
to the production companies and managing production, distribution and advertising.
A distinctive feature of these large-budget films is the financing method. Neither
the studios nor the production companies have exclusive control of all of the rights
 International Journal of Cultural Policy 791

Table 5. Annual earnings before tax, animation workers in Japan.

Earnings (thousand yen) Percentage of those surveyed (%)
Under 1000 8.2
1000–2000 19.0
2001–3000 22.6
3001–4000 18.2
4001–5000 11.7
Over 5000 12.3
No answer 7.9
Source: JAnica (2015, 44).

Table 6. Average working hours per month, Japanese animators.

Working hours per month Percentage of those surveyed (%)
Under 160 11.1
160–240 23.2
241–260 14.8
261–300 21.8
301–350 9.8
Over 351 15.9
No answer 3.4
Source: JAnica (2015, 40).

to these movies because they almost always form partnerships with investors, each
of whom exploits different rights. Such partnerships are generally called ‘produc-
tion consortia’ or ‘production committees’ (seisaku iinkai)6 and are said to be
unique to Japan. This financing system has contributed to increased budgets for
movie projects as they induce non-film studios as investors and stakeholders and
distribute the financial risk inherent in film production (Kawashima 2014). A typi-
cal production consortium includes a major trading company, an advertising agency,
a television network, a video company, a publishing house, a merchandiser, a music
label and a film major. Each of these entities has a particular stake in the film pro-
ject in addition to the purely financial return obtained if the movie turns out to be a
hit. They are only loosely bound by contract, but do not form a formal company
like an LLC (Limited Liability Company), instead hiring a production company to
actually make the movie. This production company would only receive a lump sum
payment for the service.
The stakes in film investment are different among the member companies. For
example, Mitsui and Mitsubishi, two of the giant trading companies of Japan, have
invested in satellite and cable broadcasting and own channels dedicated to films,
and obviously want to be involved in premium content production. A publishing
house may be involved as the provider of the source material for movies. Movies
financed in this way, particularly animated features, tend to generate merchandising
opportunities for toys and other items that can sell very well, so the participation of
a merchandiser is also common. An advertising agency will take responsibility for
promotional activities. There are two essential players in a production consortium.
One of these is the major studios, as they have ample experience in the film
792 N. Kawashima

business and possess distribution channels to theatres nationwide. The second of

these are the television networks, as they often possess the rights to the source
material (i.e. TV dramas), the experience of making audio-visual products for popu-
lar entertainment and a means for free advertisement. Each of the four national
broadcasters (apart from the public broadcaster NHK) would invest in about 10
projects of this kind per year, accounting for the majority of the movies distributed
by the three majors. A project is often initiated by an advertising agency and a tele-
vision station working together. They then invite other relevant and suitable stake-
holders, whose presence would contribute to cross-fertilisation of content among
different media formats.
It is undeniable that the system of production consortia rescued the film industry
from its decline in the 1970s and 1980s by expanding the funding base and incor-
porating the style of ‘light’ popular entertainment learned from television. The
expansion of exploitation opportunities for film properties have helped create ‘event
movies’ like those of Hollywood blockbusters, thereby pushing the place of film
into the mainstream, consumerist media culture (Kawashima 2014). However, there
have been some problems caused by a reliance on this system. One obvious conse-
quence has been the dominance of adaptations of TV dramas at the box office, pos-
sibly undermining the ability of filmmakers to make films for the big screen in the
long run. Similarly, it is possible to foresee a weakening of the ability to develop
films within the studios, and a continued absence of this capacity within production
companies, as the properties always come from elsewhere, with the majors only
reacting (Saito 2010).
Consortium members are drawn from a very small pool of large, established
firms that specialize in their respective businesses, a fact that actually does not help
expand the finance base for films. The leading company in a consortium is only an
administrator who will consult members on important decisions. This is a problem
for export, as the local counterpart would demand all rights (i.e. to theatre release,
broadcasting, online distribution, etc.), but the members have different degrees of
interest in the export market. Also worrying is that projects are green-lit when com-
panies expected to become members are convinced of the economic potential
through the presence of a television network and the proven record of the source
material to be recycled in the project. The members have little experience with or
interest in judging the cultural or even economic value of the proposed film on the
basis of the story, skipping the most important part of film development. Over the
long term, and taken together, these tendencies might lead to filmmakers losing
their capability to make quality films.
So far I have discussed the distinctiveness of the film industry in Japan with a
focus on the production and distribution sides. In terms of consumption as well,
Japan displays a somewhat unusual pattern. Hollywood blockbusters are nowadays
not always very popular in Japan. Certainly, a large share of the foreign films in
the Japanese market (about 40%) is taken up by Hollywood movies, but when we
consider that Japan has neither import quotas nor any particular antagonism
towards American culture, the penetration rate is relatively low. The year 2015 was
exceptionally successful for Hollywood in Japan with the release of Jurassic World,
Big Hero 6 (released in Japan in December 2014), Cinderella, Minions and Mis-
sion: Impossible. However, with the exception of Disney animated films and fan-
tasies (such as Maleficent and the Harry Potter series), in most years Hollywood
blockbusters tend to be seen only sporadically among the top 10 box office hits.
 International Journal of Cultural Policy 793

Titles in series such as Spiderman, the Avengers and Transformers sell to a certain
extent, but they struggle to break into the top 10 in the Japanese market, despite
their ability to easily reach such a position in other markets (see Table 7). The rela-
tive lack of success for these films is not accidental but by now a firmly established
tendency: Japan as a market is less and less important for Hollywood majors whilst
China now occupies a dominant position in the international territory for them
(Table 8).
We can only speculate why. One reason may well be that the Japanese popula-
tion is aging, and the teenagers that Hollywood blockbusters typically target are
shrinking in number. There is no single official data source on audience composi-
tion that we can draw on, but it is thought that about 40% of the film audience is

Table 7. Top 10 films by gross box office, worldwide, Japan and China compared (2014).
Worldwide Japan China
1 Transformers Frozen Transformers
2 Guardians of the Galaxy The eternal zeroa Breakup Buddiesa
3 Maleficent Stand by Me The Monkey King
Doraemonb
4 X-Men Maleficent Interstellar
5 Captain America Rurouni Kenshin X-Men
6 The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Therae Romae II Captain America
7 Dawn of the Planet of the Rurouni Kenshin Dawn of the Planet of the
Apes Apes
8 The Hobbit Lupin III vs Conanb Dad, Where are we goinga
9 The Hunger Games Detective Conanb Breakup Gurua
10 Frozen Doraemonb Continenta
Notes: Subtitles of the films in series are omitted.
a
Local films.
b
Animation movies produced in Japan.
Source: European Audiovisual Observatory, 2015.

Table 8. Share of Hollywood movies in the international territory (outside North America)
by Country.
Total gross International gross Share in (A), Share in (A),
Title (million USD) (A) (million USD) Japan (%) Chinab (%)
Transformers Age of 1104 859 3.0 37.2
Extinction (2014)
The Amazing Spider- 709 506 6.0 18.7
Man 2 (2014)
Avengers Age of 1405 946 2.8 25.4
Ultron (2015)
Titanic (1997)a 2316 1528 13.2 2.9
a
Although a movie of a different kind, this is shown for reference as one of the highest grossing films
of all time.
b
There is some doubt that Chinese data is inaccurately under-stated by fraudulent reporting practices
and revenue leakage from China to the US (see, e.g., Keohane’s blog in FT Alphaville, posted on 29
March 2016, http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/03/29/2157795/dodgy-chinese-cinema-data-now-with-more-
mike-tyson/#respond).
Source: Box Office Mojo (website: An online-based database for films that contain information on box
office records. Widely used by industry professionals and researchers).
794 N. Kawashima

over 50 years old, while young people (15–24 years old) comprise only 10–15%
(Mainichi News, 27 June 2014, quoted in the GEM website).7 One may suggest
that the Japanese youngsters of today have been brought up with a wide range of
locally-made creative content across many types of media, including manga (comic
books or graphic novels), anime (animated films and television shows) and video
games with qualities similar to Hollywood sci-fi and action adventures. The manga
and anime of Japan are obviously less spectacular and gorgeous than film, but the
content of many of these works has a great deal in common with Hollywood block-
busters: apocalyptic, massive destruction of cities and robots or alien invaders try-
ing to conquer the earth. Manga and anime in fact predate Hollywood blockbusters
and are arguably more nuanced in storyline and creative in visual expressions
(Napier 2011, 236). This is not the place to compare the qualities of Japanese and
American popular culture, but it can at least be said that Japanese youth seem fairly
satisfied with local media culture and do not seek Hollywood to the same extent as
their counterparts in emerging markets might.
What is happening alongside the lack of success for Hollywood in the Japanese
film market is a shrinkage of foreign imports. Screenings of European and other
world films have decreased over the years, particularly outside the major cities of
Japan, where art-house cinemas have closed down. Some of the distributors of non-
Hollywood movies have gone bankrupt in recent years. As shown in Table 9,
Japan, the third largest economy in the world, does not even appear as one of the
top ten importers of European films. American and other international films
distributed by the mini-majors of Hollywood are also finding it more and more
difficult to be introduced to Japanese audiences.
The same applies to Japanese independent films. The Japanese public is vaguely
aware that contemporary Japanese filmmakers such as Kawase and Aoyama are
highly valued at international festivals, as the mass media, which are generally
indifferent to film and cultural matters, will suddenly report widely on Japanese
films and directors when they win awards abroad. These independent films are
known also because of the famous actors featured. The films are definitely low-
budget, but young actors who are very popular in television are willing to accept

Table 9. Top 10 countries by number of European films on theatrical release, average

2010–2014 (in units).
Country Number
In Europe as a Whole 4843
Outside of Europe, Total 508
1 US 198
2 Canada 119
3 South Korea 114
4 Brazil 105
5 Mexico 96
6 Australia 85
7 Argentine 74
8 New Zealand 68
9 Colombia 65
10 Chile 34
Source: European Audiovisual Observatory (2016, 8).
 International Journal of Cultural Policy 795

offers for low fees, as the works will add to their prestige. Nevertheless, these inde-
pendent films, with the exceptions of Kore-eda’s Soshite Chichi ni Naru (Like
Father, Like Son, 2013) and Okuribito (Departures, dir. Yojiro Takita, 2008), have
had only limited screenings and box office revenue in Japan.
Going back to the quantitative issues, Kakeo (2012) argues that the low number
of admissions in Japan is the most serious problem for the industry. Japan ranks
the tenth in the world by total admissions, whilst the total box office jumps to the
fourth (European Audiovisual Observatory 2016), suggesting relatively high ticket
prices. This is confirmed in Table 10, which compares average ticket prices in the
most advanced nations.8 The problem is not the high price per se, but the lack of a
cinema-going habit among the Japanese public that results from these high prices.
In summary, we find that despite the apparent strength of the Japanese film
industry in terms of the number of productions and the large share of box office
enjoyed by domestic films, the pie has not been enlarged and is taken mostly by
films produced by production consortia that are good at creating event movies for
mass consumption. The Japanese public, however, are not keen movie-goers when
compared to other nations which produce large numbers of domestic films. There is
some evidence that accessibility to a diverse range of films is decreasing.

3. Government policies for film

With an understanding of the film economy of Japan, we now move to discuss the
place of film within cultural policy and economic policy of the central government.
Cultural policy in Japan is relatively small in scale in comparison to that of other
advanced countries, with limited public subsidies for the arts and culture. Until the
early 1990s, the post-WWII governments had been largely indifferent to cultural
matters, letting the arts and culture operate within the market economy. In advanced
nations outside Japan, arts and culture of a non-profit nature may well be publicly
supported, on the theoretical basis that they have positive externalities. In Japan,
cultural activities have long been considered instead as personal hobbies of those
involved in creation or in consumption, with little significance to society at large
(Kawashima 2015).
What has been the priority in the government and national preoccupation in
post-WWII Japan is economic development. The liberal democracy instigated in
Japan by the American occupation after World War II has contributed to the creation
of an American ally in East Asia and a strong, capitalist economy. With the excep-
tion of only a few years, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has dominated, and
the aims of public policy were centred first and foremost around economic growth.
Policy-makers sought to raise the standard of living for citizens by increasing

Table 10. Average prices of cinema tickets in select countries (2015).

Country Price (USD)
Japan 10.8
France 7.2
South Korea 6.3
US 8.4
UK 11.0
Source: European Audiovisual Observatory (2016).
796 N. Kawashima

national wealth and building the infrastructure necessary for transportation, energy
production and transmission and communications. Welfare state measures such as
education, housing and healthcare were given attention insomuch as they would
serve to ensure the quality of the labour force necessary for economic development.
The need to develop a modern cultural policy aiming to nurture excellence in con-
temporary activities in the arts and their dissemination to the nation received public
attention only in the late 1980s when the country acquired confidence and satisfac-
tion with its economic achievement. Also to be noted is that a strong ‘cultural pol-
icy’ from Japan before the early 1990s would have reminded those Asian countries
colonized or occupied by Japan during the pre- and inter-war years of the cultural
imperialism imposed on them (Otmazgin 2012). Japan chose to adopt a basically
laissez-faire attitude towards culture and made cultural policy development a low
priority.
To give a basic description of today’s cultural policy per se, the Agency for
Cultural Affairs (ACA), a ministerial department in the Ministry for Education and
Science, was created at the national level in the 1960s with the major mission of
preserving national heritage. The preservation, conservation and protection of cul-
tural, historical and natural heritage of various kinds, both tangible and intangible,
remains the most important goal of the ACA, comprising just less than half of its
budget, but the area of responsibility has expanded to include support for the arts
and culture in the 1980s. The early 1990s saw the enactment of the Basic Law for
the Promotion of the Arts and Culture and the establishment of the Fund for the
same purpose. The returns on its assets (about 66.1 billion yen, USD 551 million)
are spent as grants to various artistic projects. The ACA’s budget has seen constant
increases since the 1990s, a surprise considering the difficulty of the Japanese econ-
omy during the last twenty years and the fiscal restraint exercised by the Ministry
of Finance. Nonetheless, the total budget is still about 100 billion yen (USD 833
million), occupying only 0.11% of total public spending. This is well below that of
European nations (e.g. 1.06% for France) and South Korea (0.81%) in 2010 (ACA,
n.d.). Local authorities’ spending as a whole surpasses that of the ACA (366 billion
yen in 2009, USD 3.05 billion ACA, n.d.), but the majority of local spending goes
to cultural facility development and maintenance, leaving very little for the funding
of artistic and cultural activities.
Considering that even non-commercial art forms and culture that are usually
subsidized outside Japan receive limited support in national and local cultural pol-
icy, it should come as no surprise that film has remained outside the domain of cul-
tural policy. Changes in political parties in recent years (from the LDP to the
Democratic Party of Japan in 2009 and back to the LDP in 2012) have had no
influence as cultural policy is not a political issue. Cultural policy for film, if any,
was that of censorship during the inter-war years and restrictions on foreign film
imports largely for the purpose of foreign exchange control (Insun 2015, 3, 4).
Both measures lasted only for a while and the post-WWII cultural policy has not
intervened in film until recently.
The insignificance of film policy within the framework of cultural policy may
be contrasted to the theatre and dance sectors, which have been recognised as art
forms ‘appropriate’ for public intervention since the 1990s. Theatre (i.e. plays) and
dance had a long history of neglect in cultural policy compared to music, but these
two sectors articulated their ‘publicness’ during the cultural policy debate of the
1990s and the early 2000s with some notable figures influencing politicians and
 International Journal of Cultural Policy 797

senior executives in local authorities. Film lagged behind in this respect as the sec-
tor professionals failed to assert the public value of film. Film screenings were also
seen only as a commercial enterprise, and not-for-profit film societies failed to
argue that screens should be installed in the cultural facilities then being developed
around the country (Kawashima 2008). The film sector therefore remains almost
completely commercial or voluntary, from production, distribution, consumption to
human resources development.
This state of affairs is symbolized by the absence of any public agency support-
ing the sector such as the CNC in France or the BFI in Britain. One minor (but sur-
prisingly dramatic) change since 2004 has been the new ‘Plan for Japanese Film’ of
the ACA (see Gerow 2015). Funds have been earmarked for film and ‘media arts’
(meaning non-commercial, artistic animation and computer graphics) to support the
production of films, exhibitions in Asian countries and in international festivals,
emerging filmmakers for the production of short films, and creators of media arts.
The ACA now presents awards to distinguished film industry workers and media
artists (ACA 2014). An online database for location services and another for Japa-
nese films have also been set up by the ACA. It must be remembered, however, that
the total budget of the ACA was only 109 billion yen (USD 866 million) in 2015,
of which less than two per cent is for film and the media arts. Support for produc-
tion is therefore given only to a handful of projects per year, with each receiving
10–20 million yen (USD 8.3–16.7 million) at most. There are also grants of that
scale in other ministries and agencies such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its
quasi-governmental body for international cultural exchange, but the monetary value
remains negligible.
The policy context in which film is located has been changing over the last ten
to fifteen years as the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)’s relevance
to cultural policy looms larger. The focus of METI (or its predecessor, the Ministry
of International Trade and Industry) until the 1990s was manufacturing industries
such as steel, automobiles and electronics. However, the transition of the economy
from one based on manufacturing to one based on services and intellectual proper-
ties, such as that seen in many parts of the world, has necessitated an adjustment in
METI’s industrial policy. METI thus established a new department dedicated to the
media and entertainment industries including film, music, computer games and pub-
lishing in 2001. It has never been in the business of cultural support but has a stake
in helping economic and business sides of these industries. METI’s policy has since
been in liaison with the government-wide strategic policy of the IP-Strategy Head-
quarters set up in the Cabinet Office in 2003.
The early 2000s have thus witnessed a number of research projects commis-
sioned and council meetings set up by METI for tackling the structural problems
that hinder industry development (e.g. METI 2005). These projects identified sev-
eral issues causing inefficiency in the film business such as vertical integration,
insufficiency of finance for film production and the abuse of the dominant position
by the majors and television stations over production companies (i.e. subcontrac-
tors). A lack of capable producers with expertise in film development, finance and
accounting, international distribution and marketing has also been a key issue iden-
tified by METI. Some of the issues have since been addressed in policy. The rela-
tionship between contractors is now more tightly regulated by law so as not to
overly disadvantage the subcontractor. The problem of vertical integration is no
longer so acute, as the tie between theatre chains and distributors has become
798 N. Kawashima

weaker since the American major Warner opened multiplexes in Japan in 1993 and
disturbed the conventional configuration of the majors and their affiliates. METI
has also implemented a policy of human resource development, including a training
programme that enables one or two young people per year to study the business of
film production at prestigious graduate schools in the US.
It is not clear, however, that METI continues to maintain the same high expec-
tations of the digital media content industries as it once did. The Ministry initially
assumed that there was growth potential in these industries and that they could con-
tribute to the economic transition. However, the size of the industries has remained
the same, or even become smaller, particularly in music and publishing (like else-
where in the world). In the meantime, the government as a whole has become
aware that Japanese contemporary culture represented by anime, manga and fashion
has captured substantial fan bases abroad and that to enhance this could be advan-
tageous for wider purposes of Japan, if not for direct export values. Emulating the
Cool Britannia campaign of the Blair government, the government has launched a
policy campaign called Cool Japan, involving many departments and ministries, the
private sector, the national media and creative professionals. It is in this new policy
direction of nation branding that film may now be situated.

4. Cool Japan
The political scientist Joseph Nye has initiated a discourse around ‘soft power’,
arguing that culture, as opposed to military and economic power, can be a means
by which a country exercises influence in the international arena (Nye 2004). At
around the same time, Douglas McGray, an American journalist, applauded Japa-
nese popular culture as ‘cool’ and argued that Japan should capitalize on this asset
to rescue the economy from the decline experienced since the 1990s (McGray
2002). These two arguments and the terms ‘soft power’ and ‘Gross National Cool’
(jokingly proposed by McGray to measure the cultural strength of a country) soon
became well-known among intellectuals and bureaucrats, whilst the international
popularity of Japanese anime, manga, computer games, fashion and food has seen
increasingly greater media coverage.
Supported by these theories and evidence, a series of councils and committees
has been formed by the government to plan strategies, involving key players in the
industries, academics and critics, leading to a large volume of reports, proposals
and plans (e.g. Cool Japan Advisory Council 2011, Cool Japan Movement Promo-
tion Council 2014). The craze for Cool Japan may be partly interpreted as an effort
by the Japanese government and people to regain the national confidence and pride
that was diminished by the economic stagnation and deflation of the last two dec-
ades. Despite the apparent, reported popularity of Japanese culture abroad, however,
it has turned out that the actual export value, with the exceptions of video games
and animation, is still very limited.9 The popularity of specific content has been
sporadic and ad hoc, leaving Japan as a whole unable to systematically extract
profits and develop revenue streams across different media forms in multiple
countries.
At the heart of the craze have been anime and manga, which were indeed popular
in the US market for some time, but the popularity of these forms was initiated and
sustained by the efforts of enthusiastic fans who transported video tapes from Japan
to the US, dubbed them themselves and spread the copies among afficionados
 International Journal of Cultural Policy 799

(Leonard 2005, see also Lee 2009 for fan ‘scanlation’ activities). It took some time
for Japanese publishers and anime producers to market their products in the US
properly as they have had very little experience in international marketing and were
ill-connected to the US media and their intermediaries. There was some commercial
success for a while for both manga and anime with a peak in the mid-2000s, but due
to problems in distribution deals, it has declined since the late 2000s.
Thus, the number of anime titles broadcast in the US (excluding repeats) was
estimated to be around 30 per year between 2003 and 2006, but the number was
only six in 2013 (Kaifu 2014, 174, see Daliot-Bul 2014 for an insightful
examination of this decline). There were joint or mixed productions between
Japanese and American media that appeared to have a Japanese-like coolness
(Allison 2008, 109 citing the Hollywood films Kill Bill and The Matrix, Brienza
2014) but did not contribute to the Japanese economy. The anime works of the
Studio Ghibli are highly valued internationally for their meticulous touch and imag-
inative stories, and have been distributed by Pixar in North America. Nevertheless,
even its Academy Award-winning film Spirited Away (2001) was released to only
26 screens in its first week (expanded to 129 in a month) in the US. As far as the
US market is concerned, the success of the Pokémon anime series was exceptional,
but others remain in the realm of the ‘otaku’10 niche community (Kaifu 2010,
Mihara 2014).
In East and Southeast Asia, the television drama, music, film, anime, manga
and fashion of Japan are widely favoured by urban youth (Otmazgin 2013). How-
ever, their popularity depends mostly on unofficial distribution, with the producers
and other companies holding copyright, with a few exceptions, lacking enthusiasm
for international marketing. The domestic market of Japan has been sufficiently
large, allowing these industries to remain inward-looking, at least for the time
being. The diversity of language, culture and media availability within the region
has also deterred Japanese producers from becoming serious about export. As
mentioned, the consortia system for film financing is a hurdle to quick business
decision-making for export. The campaign to drive Japan towards an IP-based
economy has provided support for the industry’s efforts to combat piracy in the
Asian region, but at the same time the issue of copyright has had the effect of
making producers over-cautious and nervous about overseas markets. Most coun-
tries in the region are still in the process of emergence, and the export of Japanese
media products ends up being not-profitable considering the transaction costs
involved.
In the meantime, Korean popular culture, and television drama series in particu-
lar, has overtaken Japan in East Asia in places such as Taiwan and Hong Kong
(e.g. Cho 2011). Korean culture has successfully penetrated emerging economies in
Southeast Asia like Thailand and Vietnam (Lee 2010), whilst Japan has remained
absent there (JETRO 2014, 2015). There are a number of policy and economic fac-
tors for the strength of Korean popular culture. One is that they have promoted
products at very low prices or even provided them for free. This was welcomed by
the television stations newly opened in the region, which were hungry for good
quality content from abroad. Given the unaffordable prices of Hollywood and Japa-
nese products, the stations tried to fill the gap with Korean entertainment (Lee
2010). Korean singers and actors are extensively trained in foreign languages by
the entertainment companies that employ them, something their Japanese counter-
parts rarely attempt. The Korean government’s strategy and backing has also been
800 N. Kawashima

of crucial importance (JETRO 2011). The Korean creative industries’ sharp focus
on overseas expansion is partly out of necessity, given that the domestic market is
relatively small, and partly due to a well-defined strategy of using cultural exports
for nation branding and the sale of manufactured products. It is said that brands
such as LG have taken the strategy of cultural marketing by association with Kor-
ean popular culture (Lee 2010, 288, 289). The Japanese government may conduct
research and lay out action plans, but has never committed resources in the way
that Korea has.
I have so far suggested that even the bland, economic impact of the Cool Japan
policy has been questionable. On a more critical front, academic commentators
have cast doubt on its diplomatic effects in Asia, the rhetoric of nation-branding
itself with its ethnocentric implication (e.g. Daliot-Bul 2009, see also Nakano
2008), and the complexities in transnational media reception (Lukacs 2010). Critics
also argue that the superficial policy of Cool Japan does not advance mutual under-
standing in the region unless it seriously engages with the issue of cultural diversity
within Japan (Iwabuchi 2015) or with other broader, global issues (Lam 2007, 359,
Heng 2014). What is seen as problematic from the perspective of the present paper
is that the Cool Japan policy has broadened in a manner in which the initial focus
upon the media content industries has become blurred. The next focus was on the
‘creative industries’, in which a variety of artisan crafts, hand-made in traditional
ways, were highlighted. These products have special qualities and refined designs
and may be able to command high prices when marketed well to savvy, wealthy
consumers around the world. Apparently, popular culture, including film, is being
over-shadowed.
The focus of Cool Japan has once more shifted, from artisan crafts to services
in Japan such as traditional inns and courier services, with their reputation for
allegedly good customer service. Shifting and expanding the scope of Cool Japan
seems non-stop: at the time of writing food and drink are receiving the spotlight.
The cross-ministerial structure of the policy has allowed different ministries to
argue for more resources in areas of their own concern. The Ministry of Agricul-
ture, Forestry and Fisheries has also stepped in, as Japanese food, represented pri-
marily by sushi but including haute cuisine as well as stall food like noodle soup,
is becoming hugely popular overseas. Many of these restaurants and eateries, how-
ever, serve food prepared by chefs with no background in Japanese cuisine using
non-Japanese ingredients. This has led the government to believe that Japan is
missing out on economic opportunities.
In sum, Cool Japan was begun as a government policy to promote Japanese
popular culture, including film, abroad, but it now includes crafts, services and food
identified as distinctive to Japanese culture. Some time ago, media products were
expected to earn abroad on their own, but this vision soon turned out to be unreal-
istic. Instead, it is assumed that they can work as a good vehicle to earnings in
other industries. It is hoped that the overseas consumers will tend to enhance their
preference for Japanese goods and services. As the popular culture of Japan spreads
overseas, the scenario goes, foreign consumers will become more likely to want to
actually visit Japan and spend money there (METI 2014).11
In this vastly transformed scenario, Japanese films are given only a small role
to play as ambassadors of Japanese culture in a broader sense. Much as in its fail-
ure to assert itself in the cultural policy domain, film has also been unsuccessful in
the area of economic policy, where it is relegated to a minor position in the Cool
 International Journal of Cultural Policy 801

Japan craze because the industry, I would argue, remains largely self-contained and
indifferent to what goes on in the world and changes in the government’s policy.
Animation may have relatively high potential for export, but with the exception of
Studio Ghibli, production companies work as subcontractors living hand to mouth.
Under pressure to deliver finished products every week for broadcasting, they
remain at the mercy of television stations or work for production consortia on fea-
tured animation on a fee basis, without the power to cultivate independent revenue
sources. The film majors, too, are reliant on television stations and lack the capacity
to develop their own business strategies.
Thus, film policy for economic purposes may still exist, but it is now conceptu-
alized and justified largely as a vehicle for the development of other manufacturing
and service industries, whilst the economic values of cinematic works in their own
right are seen of little importance.

5. Conclusion
This paper has described some of the distinctive features of the Japanese film
industry related to production, distribution to consumption. The paper has discussed
the peripheral place of film in the government’s cultural and economic policies and
the fate of film in the rise of Cool Japan. It has been noted that the economic pol-
icy for film has given some benefits to the industry, but later in the chequered his-
tory of nation branding the standing of the film industry has moved from the centre
to backstage and been re-positioned as a tool to lure overseas consumers to visit
Japan.
‘Galápagosized’ (or its localized pronunciation in the Japanese language) is a
word that has been recently invented and is widely used in Japan, referring to
things that, like the species living in the Galápagos Islands, have been highly
developed but are endemic only in Japan, cut off from what goes on in the rest of
the world. The feature phone handsets of Japan, which had features only available
to Japan-made mobile phones and were technically incompatible and uncompetitive
in the global market, are a typical example. Film and other media products may
well be following the same route. As has been described, the domestic market used
to be comfortably large for them, but it is shrinking and aging, and may not be sus-
tainable in the near future. For better or worse, Japan does not participate in the
inter-regional competition between countries to attract foreign productions in the
global economy of film production. There are very few signs of increased co-pro-
ductions between Japan and other countries, as the spread of the production consor-
tium system is a major deterrent to international work. Both of these contribute to
the Galápagosized nature of the Japanese film industry.
Film policy researchers will need to keep a critical eye on the effects that the
globalization of the film business brings for media culture, but as far as Japan is
concerned, it seems the industry and policy for film remains exceedingly insular
against global trends in film economy. The sustainability of the current state is in
doubt unless the industry itself stands up and strategically defines its own future.

Acknowledgements
I thank John Hill and two anomymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier versions
of this paper.
802 N. Kawashima

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes
1. Calculated by the author using data released by the Motion Picture Producers Associa-
tion of Japan. http://www.eiren.org/statistics_e/index.html (in Japanese, accessed 4 June
2016).
2. Eiren (Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan) releases box office revenues of
only those films that earned more than 1000 million yen that year, in addition to the
gross box office.
3. Throughout the paper, US Dollar equivalents are provided to help the reader. The for-
eign exchange rate fluctuates, and for the purpose of the paper, it is set to be one USD
to 120 yen and the figures for USD are rounded for convenience.
4. Interview conducted by the author in Tokyo, 22 January 2016. Kakeo was the editor-
in-chief of a popular periodical on film criticism and trends (Kinema Junpo) and is
now a professor at Josai Kokusai University. He has written a number of books on the
film industry, including a study of its globalisation strategy (or the lack thereof) (Kakeo
2012) and has been invited as a commentator, speaker and moderator at seminars held
during major international film festivals.
5. According to a survey conducted by Geidankyo (2015), staff working in the film
industry (camera crew, sound engineers and other technicians for television, DVD/BD,
animation and feature films for theatrical release) are typically men over age 50. The
majority of those surveyed earn 3–6 million yen per year. The research conducted by
JAnicA (2015), however, shows different results for workers in animated films. Anime
staff are typically in their 20s and 30s, live alone, and earn on average 3.3 million yen
per year. This is below the national average of about 4 million yen for workers in pri-
vate businesses in 2013. Animation workers work on average 260 h per month, 94
more than the national average. Most film industry workers are freelancers or contract
workers. Since they are unorganised, they are at a disadvantage when bargaining over
wages and working conditions with their employers. In recent years, the harsh working
conditions of animation workers have been widely reported in the national media as a
social issue.
6. The term ‘production committee’ as an English translation seems to appear more often,
but ‘production consortium’ more appropriately expresses what the entity entails and
will be used throughout this paper.
7. http://column.gempartners.com/?p=9585. (In Japanese, accessed 13 March 2016). In
the UK, young people between 15 and 24 years old would be about 30% of the film
audience (BFI 2015, 4). However, in the US wider age groups are represented, in
which the largest group aged 25–39 comprising only 21%. The age groups 18–24 and
12–17 are also active, representing 10 and 8% (MPAA 2015).
8. Cinema tickets are more or equally expensive in countries such as Saudi Arabia,
Switzerland and Nordic countries.
9. Available statistics show that only 5% of the total revenue for Japanese popular cultural
industries was earned from export in 2011, whereas for the US the ratio was 18% in
2008 (IP Strategy Headquarters 2014).
10. Otaku refers to those people, usually young males, who are obsessed with subculture
and enthusiastically follow their chosen hobbies or franchises. In Japan it is believed
that they are typically introverted and lack social skills.
11. Japan annually received only six to eight million foreign visitors until 2012, but this
number has doubled by 2014. The total number of ‘international tourist arrivals’ is still
17 million per year, 27th in the world, but this is one of the few sectors of the econ-
omy whose rapid expansion can realistically be seen soon.
 International Journal of Cultural Policy 803

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