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    Die japanische Regierung erwägt die Abschaffung des „Cool Japan“-Programms.

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    2. Low-Temperature-6962 on

      TRANSLATION

      It was learned on the 12th that the Overseas Demand Expansion Support Organization (Cool Japan Fund), a public-private investment fund that aims to promote Japanese culture overseas and primarily invests in domestic companies, is expected to become a target for consolidation or abolition. The government is reportedly considering shutting it down. This is because the performance of startup companies in which it has invested has been poor, making a further expansion of its accumulated losses unavoidable. The fund, which was strongly backed by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, has received a large amount of public money, and it appears that a review will be needed to determine whether its investment decisions and risk management were appropriate.

      The Cool Japan Fund, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, was established in 2013 to promote Japanese culture—such as food and anime—overseas. The government sought to provide “risk money,” investment capital that private investors might hesitate to supply due to the possibility of losses, in order to attract private-sector funding. However, profitability failed to materialize from the outset, and accumulated losses had reached 38.3 billion yen by the end of fiscal 2024.

      For fiscal 2025, the fund had set a goal of keeping accumulated losses below 42.6 billion yen. However, Spiber, a startup based in Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture, which develops biomaterials and had received approximately 14 billion yen in investment from the fund, decided to enter a private debt restructuring process after falling into negative net worth.

    3. senseiman on

      The program made no sense really. The businesses that were actually „cool“ didn’t need government funded investment since they were already making things people wanted to buy anyway.

    7. genman on

      They need an investment fund for small, independent animators and creators. Sort of like subsidizes for film production in Korea. I don’t think they need to target Western or oversees audiences, just investing in domestic production seems wise.

      Nobody thinks what the government directly promotes is cool, anyway.

    8. zoomiewoop on

      As others have said, Cool Japan succeeded in the sense that Japan is perceived as super cool compared to 13 years ago. Tourism has grown by leaps and bounds. Anime is huge. Everybody wants to come to Japan.

      But now there’s an anti-tourist anti-foreigner backlash, so could that also be a reason for wanting to end Cool Japan? The public won’t support spending public money on promoting Japanese culture to attract more foreigners.

    9. Yabakunaiyoooo on

      lol they should maybe plan things before they do things. They got everything they wanted out of “Cool Japan”, a whole generation of nerds (self included) madly in love with their country.

    10. Eggmodo on

      Can we be for real. Japan might be one of the few countries in the whole world that doesn’t need to spend any money on tourism marketing, unless it is to encourage people to go to rural areas.

    11. creminology on

      Haven’t paid attention but I remember when it launched Cool Japan was very narrow in what it supported.

      As in film festivals showing Japanese films were refused funding unless they had sushi (!) events, etc. It was very much top down as to what was considered “cool”.

      Plus there was a whole bunch of seeming corruption about who was getting the money, with it going to companies with no track record but government connections set up to milk it.

      Anyone recall? Could have been teething problems…

    13. Ryudok on

      I say if it is not making small companies grow this is a waste of our tax money, an example on how it can be abused:

      A multimillion company I worked for got funds from a related subsidy fund to publish our game overseas and market it. We probably got like 20 million yen, and the paperwork was filed by people who were ex congressmen who were hired for such purposes.

      That company was mainly doing copy cat gacha games, ended up firing almost all their staff recently due to the failures over the years while their higher ups spent company money in things like drugs and Ferraris. They also loved going to kyabakura even when they were overseas.

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