Actualités

TV Tokyo to Establish New Anime Department

TV Tokyo President and Co-CEO Masayuki Shimada has announced in a Thursday press conference that his company will establish a tentatively titled "Anime Department" in April to oversee its anime business, with an emphasis on overseas sales. The anime department will consolidate the existing anime units into three sections to handle operations, production, and business matters.

TV Tokyo manages the licensing and distribution of such popular works as the Pokémon, Naruto, Gintama, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Shugo Chara! anime series. It is also launching several new projects this April such as Mainichi Kāsan. By expanding the sales of anime with this new department, TV Tokyo aims to increase the percentage of revenues from sources besides broadcasting from the current 15% to 20%. In the end, the company hopes to raise the level to 30%. Keisuke Iwata, the executive in charge of TV Tokyo's AT-X animation channel and its current animation division, gave a lecture in January in which he discussed the global prospects to anime and the industry's "road to survival."

Source: Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web