Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) is preparing to provide 11.5 billion yen (~ USD 71.1 million) in subsidies to 15 major entertainment companies to accelerate their overseas expansion, while encouraging them to use AI translations.
Out of these fifteen companies, a total of nine are from the anime and manga sector, including Crunchyroll, Bandai Namco, Shueisha, Kodansha, Square Enix and NTT Solmare group. These are some of the biggest publishers with the most popular IPs in the industry.
The subsidy program will cover half of the investment costs required for translating the works of these companies into foreign languages, along with overseas advertising and also their participation in international events and fairs.
A primary objective of encouraging the companies to use generative AI is to produce official translations at a much faster pace.
The Japanese government estimated that pirate websites inflicted losses of 5.7 trillion yen (~ USD 35.2 billion) on domestic Japanese companies in 2025.
These unauthorized sites attracted global users by providing translated versions of popular manga and anime before official versions were available in the market. The government is now banking on AI-driven translation as a major means to counter piracy by delivering official versions to the end users quicker.
The newly announced subsidy program also aims to increase the combined subscriber base of the services provided by participant companies from 100 million to 300 million.
METI has specifically earmarked Crunchyroll and Shueisha’s Shonen Jump+ application for this expansion.
Crunchyroll’s subscriber base has been consistently growing over the past few years and currently stands at 21 million, whereas, in case of the Shonen Jump+ app, there is a belief that it has significant potential when it comes to overseas expansion.
The latter hosts hit series that are both completed and ongoing, which includes Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, One Piece, and Kagurabachi. While popular manga series currently receive simultaneous English translations, it remains to be seen how this new subsidy will affect their operations.
This is not the first time that Japan has flirted with machine translation. In fact, the industry has already integrated into their systems.
Both the Japanese government and major publishers in the manga industry had invested heavily in Orange Inc. a company which developed AI manga translation technology. They subsequently launched the emaqi platform for North American audiences, with the goal of translating approximately 500 manga volumes per month.
Meanwhile, Shueisha, Shogakukan, Kadokawa and others invested in Mantra, yet another AI translation platform, which is already being employed to translate works on the Manga Plus app.
Going forward, the Japanese government is also aiming to set up a new organisation which will be responsible for promoting domestic content overseas. This organisation is inspired by Korea’s KOCCA (Korea Creative Content Agency) which is in charge of the country’s content industry, and was responsible for the global boom of K-Pop and other genres.
The initiative is part of a strategy to triple overseas sales to ¥20 trillion by 2033. In 2024, Japanese entertainment exports generated ¥6.13 trillion, exceeding the ¥6.08 trillion recorded for semiconductor exports.
Source: Yomiuri Shimbun
