Kadokawa Corporation

Sony’s going gung-ho with its anime business, as the company sees it as a potential pillar moving forwards. It recently acquired Crunchyroll, but it already owns Funimation and Aniplex. It’s not surprising, then, to see media conglomerate Kadokawa Corporation partner with the Japanese giant for “mutual exploitation of each other’s business, expertise, and other strengths”. CyberAgent, a Japanese advertising firm, has also entered into the arrangement to aid with smartphone games.

A financial results presentation, as translated by Gematsu, reveals that Kadokawa aims to leverage the partnership to “enhance IP development and rollout in the game domain”, “enhance rollout in the animation domain”, and “effectively use platforms and involve cooperative initiatives”. Sony’s role in the relationship is to help with “global expansion power of animation and consumer games”. As a result, it’s been awarded 1.93 per cent ownership in the firm.

Kadokawa does have Elden Ring maker FromSoftware under its umbrella, although the majority of its operations relate to the publishing of books, manga, magazines, and films. It’s an interesting move, though, and one that probably makes sense with Sony outright owning many of the major anime distribution platforms at this point.

[source ssl4.eir-parts.net, via gematsu.com, twitter.com]