Tag: Kadokawa

In response to previous market rumors that Sony intended to acquire Kadokawa Corporation, Kadokawa stated that it had received a preliminary letter of intent for the acquisition but had not yet made any decision. Kadokawa stated that it would promptly release information if necessary to the public. Currently, Sony holds approximately 2% of Kadokawa's shares and also holds a stake in FromSoftware, a game developer heavily invested in by Kadokawa. Market speculation suggests that Sony may acquire Kadokawa to expand its entertainment content business and indirectly gain the largest stake in FromSoftware, thereby increasing the development capabilities of its PlayStation game business. Given that Kadokawa owns entertainment content businesses such as Kadokawa Shoten, Kadokawa Gakugei Publishing, ASCII Media Works, Fujimi Shobo, Chuke Publishing, Kadokawa Magazine, and Enterbrain, as well as numerous content assets related to Kadokawa Games and FromSoftware, the game developer behind titles such as *Demon's Souls*, the *Dark Souls* series, *Bloodborne*, *Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice*, and *Elden Ring*, this may be a potential reason for Sony's reported acquisition of Kadokawa.

Reports indicate that Sony is in talks to acquire Kadokawa Corporation, with an agreement potentially signed as early as the coming weeks. Sony currently holds approximately 2% of Kadokawa's shares and also owns a stake in FromSoftware, a game developer heavily invested in by Kadokawa. Market speculation suggests that Sony may use the acquisition to expand its entertainment content business and indirectly gain the largest stake in FromSoftware, thereby enhancing the development capabilities of its PlayStation gaming business. Kadokawa Corporation was originally founded in November 1945 as Kadokawa Shoten by founder Genji Kadokawa, using his surname. It was later formally established as a company in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, in April 1954, and renamed Kadokawa Holdings Corporation in April 2003. In October 2013, it merged its subsidiaries. In October 2014, KADOKAWA merged with Nico Nico Douga's DWANGO (株式会社ドワンゴ), forming KADOKAWA DWANGO, which was later renamed KADOKAWA in 2019. Given that the Kadokawa Group owns entertainment content businesses such as Kadokawa Shoten, Kadokawa Gakugei Publishing, ASCII Media Works, Fujimi Shobo, Chukei Publishing, Kadokawa Magazine, and Enterbrain, as well as numerous Kadokawa Games content assets and FromSoftware, the game developer behind titles like *Demon's Souls*, the *Dark Souls* series, *Bloodborne*, *Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice*, and *Elden Ring*, this could be a potential reason for Sony's rumored acquisition of the Kadokawa Group.

Kadokawa Taiwan held a celebratory tea party today (November 8th) to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Kadokawa Group's entry into Taiwan in 1999, marking the establishment of its first overseas base. The event also announced three major development directions: "Reviving Classic IPs," "Developing New Businesses," and "Globalizing Taiwanese IPs." The event was attended by Kadokawa Japan President Takeshi Natsuno and Growth Director Kei Izumi, among others. Kadokawa also announced that its total circulation of publications in Taiwan has exceeded 60 million copies, and its novel website app and original novel platform KadoKado have accumulated over 150,000 members. BOOK☆WALKER Taiwan boasts over 750,000 members. From traditional publishing to its current diversified IP content management encompassing e-books, webcomics, content licensing, and adaptations, Kadokawa Taiwan has been actively promoting original Chinese IPs in recent years. Kadokawa Taiwan stated that it hopes to leverage the Kadokawa Group's global reach to bring more Taiwanese Chinese content to the global market. Kadokawa Japan President Takeshi Natsuno stated that Taiwan is one of the most important parts of Kadokawa Group's global operations. He expressed gratitude for the support of Taiwanese readers over the past 25 years and looks forward to seamlessly integrating more of Kadokawa Group's services into the Taiwanese market. Furthermore, through the "Global Media Mix" strategy, which connects IP content, Kadokawa will expand the diversification of original Taiwanese IP content, using this as a foundation for Kadokawa Taiwan's development over the next 25 years. Kadokawa Taiwan Chairman Taketo Iwasaki stated that the Taiwanese market has always warmly welcomed translated Japanese works, emphasizing the importance of launching locally produced original works in Taiwan. This is a key project that Kadokawa Taiwan must continue to promote. In the future, Kadokawa Taiwan will continue to implement the group's "Global Media Mix with Technology" strategy in Taiwan and hopes that companies or organizations interested in developing Taiwanese IP content will join together to form an IP Media Mix team. This event also announced three major development strategies: "Reviving Classic IPs", "Exploring New Businesses", and "Globalizing Taiwan IPs". Among them, the "KADOKAWA Masterpiece Comics (KMC)" series launched by Kadokawa in Japan this year will be introduced. With the theme of "Masterpieces that have been passed down for a century", the series carefully selects wonderful literary works and creates them by emerging comic artists. The works will be reproduced in a modern and entertaining visual style. The first volume, "Tales of Tono", is scheduled to be published in 2025. In addition, Kadokawa Taiwan announced that it will introduce the Japanese Kadokawa lottery service "Kujihiki-do" in the first quarter of 2025, and plans to launch the trial operation of the Japanese light novel subscription model "Kado Plus" in late November. "BOOK☆WALKER Serial Hall," launched by BOOK☆WALKER Taiwan, will debut with a brand-new interface, and is expected to launch several Taiwan-Japan co-production comics, totaling more than 2000 works and over 20000 chapters of comic content, while also supporting fast-track paid reading. Furthermore, Kadokawa Taiwan will also invest in the development of IP content adaptations into film and television dramas. "Her Lips, Her Kiss," a work on the KadoKado platform, is expected to become Taiwan's first GL novel adaptation into a film or television drama, produced and supervised by Kadokawa Taiwan, and co-produced with Interesting International Media and Creative Unfatigued Studio. In addition to its GL (Girls' Love) market strategy, Kadokawa Taiwan has already sold the film and television rights to four works, one reading drama, one musical, and one comic book. Among them, the grand prize winner of the "2022 KadoKado Million Novel Writing Award," *Out of Control AI - I Was Sentenced to Death in the Metaverse*, has secured adaptation opportunities for a long-running series and a reading drama. Kadokawa Taiwan also announced the sale of overseas rights to 11 works in 12 countries, including *Helena and the Big Bad Wolf* and *Shang Fou*, both of which have already been published as manga volumes in Japan. Through Kadokawa Group channels, original IP works published by Kadokawa Taiwan will be simultaneously introduced to Kadokawa's subsidiaries in South Korea, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the United States, and France. Furthermore, collaborations with copyright agents will be used to expand overseas licensing and publishing opportunities through various international book fairs. There are also plans to list 17 award-winning works promoted on the KadoKado platform on Kadokawa Japan's KakuYOMU platform, allowing readers in more regions to see original Taiwanese works.

Following the one-year anniversary of the launch of its officially licensed novel serialization platform "KadoKado 角角者" in Taiwan, Kadokawa Taiwan announced today (December 22nd) that it will integrate the resources and experience of the Kadokawa Group to promote the content collected by "KadoKado 角角者" to overseas Chinese-language markets, thereby expanding the visibility of original Taiwanese novels. ▲ Kadokawa Taiwan Chairman Taketo Iwasaki (left) and Kadokawa Taiwan Digital Business Group COO Chia-Tsung Chen (right) Kadokawa Taiwan stated that "KadoKado 角角者" is a content platform service independently developed by the Taiwan team. Since its official launch last October, it has accumulated over 40 million page views, with over 300,000 active users per month and an average user dwell time of 7 minutes. Currently, it has over 4500 works listed, with a total of over 114,793 chapters, and 2998 creators publishing works on the platform. The highest cumulative number of views for a single work exceeded 1,574,135, and the highest cumulative number of followers for a single work reached 3508. At the same time, a single author accumulated more than 5 original works. Taketo Iwasaki, Chairman of Kadokawa Taiwan, explained that Taiwan has a wealth of content creation talent, but often lacks a suitable and systematic large-scale platform for publication. Therefore, he hopes to use the "KadoKado" platform to allow more Taiwanese creative content to be seen by more people, and to integrate the resources under the Kadokawa Group. Through the "Media Mix" market strategy, it connects light novels, comics, animation, games, and figurines, allowing creative content to form a larger positive cycle and generate greater market benefits. ▲Promoting a Positive Cycle of Creative Content Development Through the "Media Mix" Market Strategy▲ Generating greater monetization benefits through a positive cycle of content development, thereby driving further growth. Taketo Iwasaki, who has extensive experience in the Chinese market, believes that while the Chinese content market is indeed enormous, it also faces many uncertainties. Although Kadokawa Group continues its development strategy in the Chinese market and has established deep partnerships with local businesses, it still believes that cultivating the Taiwanese creative market is crucial to further promoting the development of Chinese-language content. This includes the market's acceptance of diverse content and Taiwan's ability to quickly connect with different market demands. Therefore, Taiwan will be a key development region for Kadokawa Group to bring original content to the global market. Furthermore, Chen Chia-tsung, COO of Kadokawa Taiwan's Digital Business Group, explained that Taiwanese consumers currently have a high acceptance of paid content and a mature online consumption model, which is more conducive to the development of digital content. Therefore, in addition to integrating resources within the Kadokawa Group, they are also collaborating with LINE WEBTOON, LINE TV, HanCao Creative, and Dokific to promote the visibility of original Taiwanese content. In the future, they will also explore diverse content usage and payment models to attract a wider consumer base. Taketo Iwasaki stated that "KadoKado" is just one approach to increasing the visibility of original Taiwanese content; they hope to further promote Taiwanese creative content to the global market by integrating more resources.

Kadokawa Corporation of Japan has announced the acquisition of Anime News Network, a major North American anime news website, to strengthen its presence in the English-language content market. The acquisition is being conducted by a new company established by Kadokawa World Entertainment, a US-based holding company of the Kadokawa Group. The acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of this year, but the transaction amount has not been disclosed. Founded in 1998, Anime News Network not only provides comprehensive anime news and Japanese ACG content, but also covers anime culture trends in North America and Japan, offers online forums for discussion, and even publishes anime magazines. Through the acquisition, Kadokawa expects to strengthen its presence in the English-language content market, expand its Book Walker e-book business, and integrate resources from YEN PRESS (a publisher of manga and light novels in North America) and J-Novel Club (which offers English-language light novel e-books).

Four publishers—Shueisha, Shogakukan, Kodansha, and Kadokawa—have jointly filed a lawsuit against Cloudflare, demanding 460 million yen (approximately US$401 million or NT$111.38 million) in damages for providing stable and fast access to pirated manga content worldwide through Cloudflare's CDN services. The publishers stated that about nine out of ten pirated manga websites rely on Cloudflare's services for faster content access and more stable connections. Therefore, they are demanding that Cloudflare terminate its cooperation with websites involved in manga piracy and remove the cached pirated manga content from its CDN servers worldwide. Although Cloudflare stated that it had taken necessary measures, it did not specify the details. Furthermore, it was discovered that pirate comic websites were still using Cloudflare services to distribute pirated content globally. Therefore, the four publishers decided to sue Cloudflare, arguing that Cloudflare had failed to fulfill its responsibility to prevent the spread of content violating copyright laws. Even when copyright holders protested, Cloudflare maintained that it was merely a service provider and did not actively help improve the situation. In a joint statement, the four publishers argued that large-scale CDN service providers like Cloudflare should verify the identities of service applicants and avoid becoming "accomplices" in the spread of illegal content. However, it was clear that even with false identities, it was possible to successfully apply for and use Cloudflare services, making it easy for pirate comic websites to continue using Cloudflare services to improve content access efficiency simply by changing accounts. However, this is not the first time that Shueisha, Shogakukan, Kodansha, and Kadokawa have sued Cloudflare. In 2018, they filed an application for preliminary injunction with the Tokyo District Court against pirated manga websites for using Cloudflare services, and reached a settlement in June 2019. However, in recent years, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the situation of browsing content through pirated manga websites has become more prominent, which has led to increased economic losses for the four publishers due to pirated content. Therefore, they decided to sue Cloudflare.