Japanese Content, the Japanese Way: Sony Music Japan President Atsuhiro Iwakami on Bringing Domestic Entertainment to a Global Audience

Since joining the company in 1997, Atsuhiro Iwakami has worked continuously in anime and game production, going on to serve as president of Aniplex before being appointed President and Representative Director of Sony Music Entertainment (Japan). He has built works together with artists time and again across numerous titles including Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba and Sword Art Online. Speaking from his position as head of a group that handles the full range of domestic entertainment — music, anime, live-action, concerts, and packaged media — he shared his thoughts on what it will take for Japanese content to score hits abroad.

In April, you moved from serving as president of Aniplex to become president of Sony Music Entertainment (Japan). This looks like a personnel move made with even greater expectations for synergy between anime and music. Could you start by telling us about the history of that collaboration?

Aniplex’s predecessor, SPE Visual Works, entered the anime business in 1997, which was the year I joined the company. Even back then, one of Sony Music Group (Japan)’s aims was to prioritize music within anime and to link anime and music together. The company later changed its name to Aniplex in 2003 and has continued under that name to this day.

The TV anime Rurouni Kenshin — spearheaded by our first president, Ryuzo Shirakawa — and its theme song “Sobakasu” by JUDY AND MARY, are a perfect symbol of that achievement. That was the starting point, and ever since I joined, I’ve watched the history of Aniplex and Sony Music Group (Japan) unfold as it went on to produce hit after hit.

I’ve also worked with artists on creating works and producing music across a range of titles, including Kimetsu no Yaiba, Bakemonogatari, and Sword Art Online. That has built up real experience, along with a history of music and anime working in tandem, so I’d like to keep going in that same direction.

I became president of Aniplex in 2016, and since 2019 I’ve also served as an executive officer of Sony Music Entertainment (Japan), exchanging information regularly with many of our other executives including Sony Music Labels president (Manabu) Tsujino, Sony Music Solutions president (Hidehiko) Otani, and others. Each has achieved rapid growth over the past few years, which I find reassuring, and it’s deepened my sense of trust in the group as a whole.

Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) isn’t just a record company, and is active across management, merchandising, live events, and more. Could you share your vision for the group as a whole?

Even within the music business there are many different companies and functions. Aniplex covers the visual and character domain, we’re also active in live-action production, and Sony Creative Products handles the PEANUTS licensing business. Sony Music Solutions handles everything from manufacturing and distribution of packaged goods to running live events, fan clubs, and Zepp venues. Since this is a group that handles domestic entertainment business across the board, I see my role as overseeing that whole picture and connecting it together.

These kinds of connections extend across Sony Group as well. As part of the same Sony Music family, we work daily with Sony Music Entertainment in the US, and the Japan operation of The Orchard (US) was launched as an in-house venture of Sony Music Entertainment (Japan), in partnership with The Orchard (US) itself.

In bringing Kimetsu no Yaiba to the world, we worked with Aniplex and decided that Sony Pictures Entertainment and Crunchyroll would handle worldwide distribution. So beyond simply sharing information within the group, we’re now seeing concrete business collaboration at the level of individual titles. Going forward, I want to keep thinking about the optimal approach for each individual IP and piece of content.

At the same time, the ways that works and songs reach users and fans are really diversifying. The ways of distribution are changing too, and I don’t think we can keep operating simply as a record company in the traditional sense, so our business is only going to diversify further from here.

Amid all that, we have the accumulated history, experience and the trust built up since our days as CBS Sony Records. At the same time, I think our strength also lies in having the adaptability and flexibility to respond to today’s diversity.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has set a goal of growing the overseas market for content to 20 trillion yen by 2033, and industry associations are discussing how much impact music can make toward that. What do you see as the challenges the industry as a whole need to solve?

Broadly speaking, I think there are two sides to our role: creating good content and working out how to bring that content to the world. Making good content is something we need to work harder at. On the other hand, spreading it around the world through live shows, social media, online marketing, and so on is something that can be achieved efficiently through public-private cooperation and collaboration within the industry.

Having said that, our global expansion is making steady progress, but I believe we can produce even bigger hits. The springboard doesn’t necessarily have to be anime, and I’d like the group as a whole to keep exploring ways to spread content built on Japan’s history and culture out into the world, in a distinctly Japanese way.

Once a song becomes a hit on streaming both internationally and domestically, what’s the challenge in turning that into a solid fan base?

This may be an era where it’s difficult to get people to become fans and grow to love an entire body of work. In the past with anime, if you thought a particular work was interesting, you’d go back and watch everything else that director had made. With music, if a song became a hit and you liked it, you’d start checking that artist out. Lately, though, I feel like more of these cases end as a single point of contact rather than expanding further. So I think we’re now in an era where it’s more important than ever to fill that gap through marketing.

I think what’s behind this is a change in the amount of time and information available. Back in our student days, we really had time on our hands. If you liked a book, you’d check out other works by that author, if you liked a song, you’d listen to it endlessly, or you’d watch the same movie over and over. Today, the sheer volume of entertainment being supplied is enormous, and so is the amount of information coming in through smartphones. I think it’s harder now to sustain that kind of engagement across the board, not just in anime or music.

When people in Japan used to talk about “going global,” I think many pictured North America. Now we’re seeing works catch on in Asia, or become hits in South America or Europe. How do you think about regional strategy?

There’s no single region that matters most. With East Asia, I think we share quite similar sensibilities, so there’s a way things can spread through shared cultural values. Conversely, with the West, where they look at us from a different culture and find us interesting, it’s a bit different again. Either way, it’s not a matter of prioritizing one region over another and comes down to what fits a given artist, song, or work.

There’s strategy involved, of course, but there are also hits that go entirely beyond strategy, like city pop enjoying popularity in the West. I hope we keep seeing a diverse range of hits emerge, including ones shaped by how users themselves choose to receive the music.

MUSIC AWARDS JAPAN was launched to bring Japanese music to the world, and this year marked its second edition. What are your hopes for it going forward?

It was another wonderful ceremony this year, and I think its significance will only grow the longer it continues. Both last year and this year, the opening movie really captured the spirit of crossing boundaries. Even from where I sit in the anime and visual-content business, there was a lot to learn.

I attended the 98th Academy Awards because Kokuho was nominated for Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and the Oscars’ opening film had that same kind of feel — various films crossing boundaries and connecting through parody. Seeing that kind of thing makes you feel just how strong each industry is.

On the other hand, Japan’s domestic sales make up a large share of the business, and the country remains the world’s second-largest music market. Do you sense any difference in temperature among staff when it comes to attitudes toward global expansion?

I don’t think this is unique to us internally and may just be true of Japan in general. A population of a little over 120 million is a remarkably convenient size — you can make content for your own country, have it become a hit within your own country, and that alone can work as a business and serve as a goal for artists. That’s been history up to now. So there are plenty of people who start out motivated by wanting to succeed domestically, rather than by wanting to go global.

Being an island nation, protected by the firewall of the Japanese language, Japanese people make content for other Japanese people. Out of that, a distinct individuality emerges, and audiences overseas end up enjoying it too. Manga and anime have spread through that kind of context, so I wouldn’t dismiss it outright.

At the same time, as the population continues to decline, more people are becoming conscious of going global. We have success stories like YOASOBI and King Gnu, and just the other day I saw Masayoshi Takanaka perform live in London. I was surprised to see the audience of young men and women gathered together, singing along and dancing to instrumental tracks. Seeing that makes me think there’s something there that people can aspire to. By building up more of these success stories, I think the overall mindset will start to shift. This is something that has accumulated as culture over decades, so just because someone suddenly says, “You should expand overseas,” change like that doesn’t happen instantly. I think it comes through building things up, step by step.

–This interview by Naoko Takashima first appeared on Billboard Japan