Introduction
Manabu Ito, who assumed the post of Commissioner for Cultural Affairs in April at the Agency for Cultural Affairs in Kyoto, stated in an NHK interview that he is considering support measures to promote Japanese culture and content overseas. Commissioner Ito expressed the view that the world recognizes and desires the excellence of Japanese content culture, including anime, manga, and film, and made clear his intention to work on overseas outreach in cooperation with relevant ministries and agencies.
What is particularly noteworthy is that he referred to the current situation in which pirated copies of Japanese manga are being read overseas and stated that the Agency for Cultural Affairs would consider support measures to deliver Japanese manga to the world through legitimate channels, including translation support. He also mentioned numerical targets for self-generated revenue, such as admission fees at national museums and art museums, as well as the effects of the Agency for Cultural Affairs’ relocation to Kyoto. His remarks contain important implications for considering how future cultural administration should combine not only “protection,” but also “outreach,” “monetization,” and “regional identity.”
Content Culture Is No Longer Something That “Spreads Naturally”
Japanese anime, manga, and films already have many fans around the world. However, popularity and the existence of sufficiently developed legitimate distribution channels are two separate issues.
Even if Japanese manga is being read overseas, if it is being read through illegal piracy websites, legitimate profits are not returned to creators, publishers, translators, production companies, and others. Even if a work becomes more popular, if money does not flow back to the creative field, the foundation for producing the next work will weaken.
In this respect, Commissioner Ito’s reference to translation support is significant. When people discuss anti-piracy measures, the focus often tends to be on enforcement and takedown requests. However, that alone is not enough. Even if readers want to read legitimate versions, they may turn to illegal websites if there are language barriers, regional distribution restrictions, high prices, or difficulty in obtaining the works. In other words, anti-piracy measures are not merely a matter of legal enforcement; they are also a matter of distribution policy—how to deliver legitimate versions quickly, affordably, and accessibly.
Translation Support Is Both Cultural Policy and Industrial Policy
Translating manga and anime is not simply a matter of replacing Japanese words with foreign-language equivalents. It is specialized work that reconstructs the nuances of a work, the speech patterns of characters, the cultural background, and the sense of humor in a form that can be conveyed to overseas readers.
For this reason, poor translation quality can affect the evaluation of the work itself. Even a work that has great appeal in Japan may not be fully accepted overseas if the translated expressions sound unnatural. Conversely, with excellent translation and localization, the appeal of a work can spread across national borders.
This is where the significance of the Agency for Cultural Affairs considering translation support lies. This is not merely a measure to help publishers or content companies. It is the development of cultural infrastructure that enables stories, values, and aesthetics born in the Japanese language to reach readers around the world. At the same time, it is also industrial policy that returns profits to creators through the expansion of overseas markets.
“There Are Things That Cannot Be Measured in Money” and “Considering Revenue” Are Not Contradictory
In the interview, Commissioner Ito also referred to numerical targets for self-generated revenue, such as admission fees that national museums and art museums are expected to achieve. He stated that while not all cultural activities can be measured in monetary terms, it is also true that there is an aspect of providing excellent services and receiving compensation for them.
This statement should be received with care. The value of museums and art museums cannot be judged solely by short-term revenue. Their roles in preserving collections, conducting research, promoting education, and passing down regional culture do not necessarily lead directly to admission fee income. If profitability is overemphasized, there is a risk that research and preservation activities that are difficult to make financially viable will be neglected.
On the other hand, the idea that cultural institutions should provide attractive exhibitions and services, receive fair compensation for them, and reinvest that revenue in research and preservation is itself reasonable. The issue is not “earning revenue” itself, but whether systems can be designed so that revenue targets do not undermine the original mission of cultural institutions.
Cultural institutions have both a public nature and a business aspect. Rather than setting these two in opposition, the question is how to create mechanisms that connect revenue to the sustainability of culture.
The Significance of the Relocation to Kyoto for Cultural Administration
Regarding the fact that three years have passed since the Agency for Cultural Affairs relocated to Kyoto, Commissioner Ito stated that there are landscapes he could not see when he was in Tokyo, as well as ideas and insights that would not have crossed his mind when thinking about policy.
This is a symbolic statement. Cultural policy is not something that can be completed solely in the conference rooms of central government ministries. Culture is closely connected to local life and history, including cultural properties, traditional performing arts, regional festivals, crafts, tourism, education, and community development. The fact that the Agency for Cultural Affairs is located in Kyoto is not merely a change of address; it has the potential to change the sensibility of cultural administration.
Of course, cultural administration will not change dramatically simply because the agency has moved to Kyoto. However, there is significance in thinking about policy from a perspective different from Tokyo-centered concentration. The future challenge will be not only how to develop culture as an industry, but also how to reflect the depth of culture rooted in local communities in policy.
The Future Challenge Is Designing Systems for “Outreach” and “Return”
What can be seen from Commissioner Ito’s remarks is a growing desire to promote Japanese culture overseas. However, in order for outreach policy to succeed, it will not be enough simply to promote the message overseas that “Japanese content is amazing.”
What matters is the creation of mechanisms by which the recognition and revenue gained overseas are properly returned to creative fields, translators, publishers, production companies, cultural institutions, and local communities. Even if Japanese cultural content is consumed around the world, if the profits are concentrated among only some distributors or platforms, the sustainability of culture will not improve.
It is also important to protect the diversity of works when promoting overseas outreach. If only genres that are easy to sell overseas receive preferential treatment, the breadth of Japanese culture may be lost. Popular content, experimental works, and culture rooted in local communities each have different forms of value.
Conclusion
The remarks by Manabu Ito, Commissioner for Cultural Affairs, bring to light several issues that future cultural administration will face. These include translation support to deliver Japanese manga and anime overseas, responses to piracy, the balance between revenue and public mission at museums and art museums, and changes in policy sensibility brought about by the relocation to Kyoto.
Culture cannot be measured by money alone. However, in order to protect, nurture, and pass culture on to the next generation, mechanisms for funding and distribution are also indispensable. What will be required of the Agency for Cultural Affairs going forward is not merely to treat culture as something to be protected, but to deliver it to the world through legitimate channels and return its value to the fields of creation and preservation.
Japanese content culture is already attracting attention from around the world. For precisely that reason, the question now is not popularity itself, but how to design systems that transform that popularity into a sustainable cultural force. The focus from now on will be how concretely the new leadership of the Agency for Cultural Affairs can develop policies that take into account both the public nature of culture and its industrial potential.