Entertainment and Creative Industries Strategy 2026

In fiscal 2025, METI held the Entertainment and Creative Industries Policy Study Group and, based on discussions with leading figures from various fields, startups, creators, and others, specified goals and strategies for policy formulation and implementation. The Entertainment and Creative Industries Strategy 2026 is the central strategy for concretely advancing the content sector among the 17 strategic fields in the Public-Private Investment Roadmap decided by the Japan Growth Strategy Headquarters in July this year.

In the entertainment and content sectors, the strategy aims to create in Japan, deliver to the world, maximize profits through 360-degree IP development, and return value to creators. The sectors covered are games, anime, manga, music, and live action. 360-degree IP development refers to a system that develops IP across multiple forms, from manga to anime, games, live action, music, and merchandise.

The public and private sectors will share the goals and strategy and accelerate efforts toward 20 trillion yen in overseas sales. Structural reforms and growth investment will encourage the private sector to achieve threefold sales and threefold investment.

The strategy aims to return value to creators by maximizing profits from IP. It also aims to become a government that keeps learning by reducing or abolishing measures with limited effectiveness and continuously reviewing policies based on effectiveness reviews.

The strategy identifies underinvestment in production, low recovery rates for overseas sales caused by dependence on large overseas platforms, and losses from piracy caused by rights infringement as market failures. The scale of visual media production is approximately 10% of that in the United States, which provides 600 billion yen in annual fiscal support; the recovery rate of overseas sales in the visual media and publishing sectors is approximately 10% to 20%, and losses from piracy are estimated at 10 trillion yen per year.

To correct these problems, the strategy will pursue five major structural reforms: developing and securing creators, securing funds through the use of financing, balancing the use of AI with rights protection, obtaining fair compensation based on results, and strategically utilizing IP.

Alongside structural reforms, the strategy will support large-scale, long-term, strategic growth investment in talent development, production, distribution network expansion, overseas expansion, and anti-piracy measures. Under a support system that centralizes budget execution, it will provide collaborative-area services and incentives, including anti-piracy measures, support for IP licensing transactions, and financing infrastructure.

The creative sector covers art, design, fashion, traditional crafts, and spectator sports. Viewing the transition from a deflationary economy to an inflationary economy and the expansion of inbound demand as opportunities, the strategy will build narratives that convey the value of history, cultural background, techniques, and other attributes to affluent consumers abroad. It will promote transformation from a price taker based on price competition into a price maker operating at an order of magnitude higher by setting prices based on high added value.

Going forward, METI will cooperate with relevant ministries, industry, and other stakeholders to formulate and implement policies based on this strategy, while continuously reviewing policy effectiveness and reflecting the results in improvements.