The 38th Tokyo International Film Festival and its industry trade fair, TIFFCOM, were held in an atmosphere that matched the weather, with clearer skies than last year, which was hit by a typhoon. From October 27th to November 5th, the festival packed venues in the Hibiya-Yurakucho area, and TIFFCOM brought its deal-making energy to Hamamatsucho, bringing 322 exhibitors to the Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Trade Center. This record reflects Tokyo’s evolving identity from a regional showcase to a pan-Asian co-production hub.
This year’s edition reveals that the industry is at a tipping point. Japanese producers are rich in intellectual property, with anime alone reaching $25.3 billion worldwide, but struggle with structural barriers that make international cooperation extremely difficult. Meanwhile, a new generation of female producers are taking center stage, sharing how they’ve navigated an industry that until recently had played a supporting role. And, perhaps most impressively, the entire event was filled with anticipation for Japan to be in the limelight as the country of honor at the Cannes Film Market in 2026. This coronation comes just as competitors from South Korea and China are catching up with Japanese content.
Introducing seven themes born from the festival and market.
TIFFCOM pivots from sales market to co-production hub
TIFFCOM 2025 attracted 322 exhibitors, up from 283 in 2024, and booths were nearly sold out by early July as CEO Yasushi Shiina emphasized the market’s transformation from a purely sales-driven event to a hub for co-production and fundraising. The market is increasingly recognized as a comprehensive platform that brings together film, television, animation and IP businesses, with the diversity of Japanese content and Tokyo’s cultural energy cited as major strengths. The Tokyo Gap Finance Market selected 23 projects, including multiple Japanese co-productions across South Korea (manga adaptation), Taiwan, and Spain, demonstrating an increase in international cooperation.
Japan’s IP adaptation frenzy reaches global studios – but faces regional competition
Sony Pictures International Productions’ Shebnem Askin revealed at TIFFCOM that the studio is actively exploring live-action remakes of Japanese animated features, with “many, many great meetings” with companies producing animated stories one of its key missions in the market. TIFFCOM changed the brand name of Tokyo Story Market to “Tokyo IP Market: Adaptation & Remake” and expanded from specialists in adaptation rights to production companies that hold remake rights, with six major companies participating, including Kadokawa, Kodansha, Square Enix, and Toei. Examples include China’s “Yolo” remake, which grossed about $480 million, and Netflix’s live-action “One Piece” series, which has seen explosive global demand.
Appetite is driven by concrete numbers. According to figures released by the Japan Animation Association during TIFFCOM, Japan’s anime industry is set to reach a record $25.3 billion in 2024, with overseas sales accounting for nearly 80% of the total market and growing at a double-digit pace every year. The sector has doubled in size over the past decade, making Japanese content a high-stakes battleground for studios around the world.
However, attendees of producer Tetsu Fujimura’s TIFFCOM keynote address, “The Future of Japanese Intellectual Property in Global Adaptation,” had a different, more positive impression. For all the problems in Japan’s entertainment industry, including a closed-minded mindset that slows its response to international opportunities, it still produces intellectual property with huge growth potential.
Fujimura, founder and CEO of consulting firm Philosophia, illustrated the thesis with a wealth of data and examples, as well as his own story of working with top Hollywood producers to bring Japanese IP to the world, from the 2017 live-action sci-fi “Ghost in the Shell” to the blockbuster Netflix “One Piece” series.
As Fujimura pointed out, Japanese anime has moved beyond niche interest internationally and into the global mainstream, driven by the record profits of the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba series. He also introduced a long list of Japanese IP currently in Hollywood’s content pipeline, from manga and novels to games and toys. His lesson: Japan’s intellectual property has become an important national industry, rivaling Japan’s famous car manufacturers in terms of profits. Toyota may be struggling against Tesla in the global EV sweepstakes, but Hello Kitty is conquering the world.
However, despite this dominance, Japan’s long-standing hegemony as a regional pop culture powerhouse appears to be under threat with the emergence of world-leading IP from South Korea and China, including games, anime, movies, and streaming shows.
‘Kokupo’ leads regional box office renaissance, restoring Japan’s cultural confidence
Director Lee Sang-il’s three-hour Kabuki period drama “National Treasure” has grossed $109 million since its June release, making it the third-highest grossing Japanese live-action film of all time. The film premiered at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and became a major cultural phenomenon, with government officials emphasizing how it had reignited public interest in traditional Kabuki theater.
This success reflected a renewed desire for prestige studio filmmaking reminiscent of Japan’s Golden Age filmmakers, a theme that resonated throughout the festival. At a standing-room-only TIFF Lounge event, 91-year-old legendary film director Yoji Yamada spoke with director Lee about crafts and the future of Japanese cinema. Other TIFF Lounge sessions paired director Hirokazu Kore-eda with Oscar winner Chloé Zhao, Akio Fujimoto with Thailand’s Pen-Ek Rattananaruan, and director Sho Miyake with Cambodian director Rishi Pang, reinforcing Tokyo’s position as a hub for dialogue among Asian filmmakers.
The festival’s opening ceremony featured an appearance by American author Paul Schrader, whose 1985 film Mishima finally premiered in Japan this week after being canceled for 40 years due to its controversial content. Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of Mishima’s birth, this screening demonstrated the festival’s growing confidence in bridging film history and contemporary cultural diplomacy.
Unlike last year’s TIFF, which brought stars Paul Mescal, Fred Hechinger, Connie Nielsen and Denzel Washington to Tokyo for the headline screening of “Gladiator II,” this year’s TIFF lacked the Hollywood glamor, but director Chloé Zhao took to the stage to perform her closing drama “Hamnet,” and “Elvis” producer Skylar Weiss gave two masterclasses. The festival will feature Chinese superstar Fan Bingbing (competition film Mother Bhoomi), French actor Juliette Binoche (screening her directorial debut Ying Eye in Motion), and Hong Kong film director Pi. The red carpet presence was complemented by established international stars such as Taa Chan and festival ambassador Kumi Takiuchi, as well as Japanese talent such as Sayuri Yoshinaga (who received the Lifetime Achievement Award), Takumi Saito, and Misato Morita.
Japanese female producers advance to the highest level in the industry
Japanese women, long relegated to supporting roles, are now active as producers at the top of the industry both domestically and internationally. Plouffe took the stage at the talk event “From Tokyo to the World – Japanese Female Producers Go to the World”, which is part of TIFF’s Women’s Empowerment section.
Riko Miyagawa, who won an Emmy Award for her role in the hit streaming series “Shogun,” Eiko Mizuno, the producer of “Renoir,” which was submitted in competition at Cannes, and Chieko Murata, whose accomplishments include the box office sensation “Kokuho,” each took different routes to the top, but all have carved out careers that would have been nearly impossible a generation ago.
Mr. Miyagawa enjoyed success by finding opportunities in Hollywood, Mr. Mizuno Gray started an independent production company, and Mr. Murata enjoyed success by climbing the corporate ladder at the Japanese subsidiary of a Hollywood studio. Along the way, they have paved the way for the next generation of female producers by showing how limitless the opportunities are for female producers with extraordinary talent and ambition.
Rising production costs will push the focus on co-production in Asia
Asian producers are seeing rising costs in their domestic markets. The seminar at TIFFCOM probably spent as much time discussing salaries and production caps in high-cost markets as it did funding. The soaring production costs are said to be due to the soaring prices of human resources due to lavish spending by major streamers in recent years. There is a sense that local producers are leaning towards co-productions with producers from other countries, not only to ease the financial burden, but also to move away from over-reliance on commissions and acquisitions from streamers.
Japan’s production committee model emerges as a barrier to co-production
Separately, Japanese producers are very excited and would like to collaborate with international partners, but language and culture remain major obstacles. For example, Japan’s common production committee style of filmmaking has been criticized and compared poorly to South Korea, which has a less bureaucratic and more adventurous style of filmmaking, usually led by a single company. Similarly, producers complained that they had to spend more money to hire bilingual staff and cast when co-producing in Japan. Similarly, while Japanese media startups and companies may express a desire to expand overseas, their content remains locally focused and clearly does not put much thought or effort into translating Japanese content for easy consumption by international audiences. For example, in one platform presentation, none of the content demoed was localized to English, and the video clips shown were not stripped of the extensive Japanese text overlay that is characteristic of Japanese television, even though the platform is aimed at international producers.
2026 Cannes Honors Country Signals Belated Global Ambitions
With Japan’s selection as an honorary country for the 2026 Cannes Film Market, the country will co-host the market’s opening night gala, drawing more than 1,200 attendees and featuring a flagship program focused on animation, genre films and co-production opportunities. Japan produces about 1,200 films a year, generating $1.31 billion in box office revenue, but officials plan to use the platform to shed light on Japan’s production committee funding model for overseas producers, with the goal of enabling more meaningful international co-productions.
Despite the language barrier, Japan in general still looms large in the imagination of Asian filmmakers. The uniqueness of Japan’s culture, customs and lifestyle continues to be a source of inspiration for directors in the region. The number of international filmmakers, actors and producers showing films with ties to Japan is evidence of the continuing fascination with Japan.
