Looking at the release schedule for each season, it’s easy to think Japanese animation is in a golden age. It’s an illusion. Behind the attractive designs and vast content, executives are worried because revenues don’t meet expectations. Takeshi Natsuno, the director of KADOKAWA, decided to publicly voice his complaints. For the head of this media empire, the anime industry is rapidly losing profitability. What’s striking about his stance is that instead of evaluating internal errors at his own company, he pointed to independent studios, claiming the market is saturated with small producers dividing the income of major groups.

Less executive posts, more artists at the tables

Natsuno argued that focusing solely on improving animators’ salaries is a short-sighted perspective that won’t solve the core issues. From his viewpoint, the main obstacle is the small independent studios. The executive claimed these organizations spend too many resources on maintaining administrative positions, secretaries, and presidents with high salaries, instead of investing directly in creators who can advance projects. His proposal involves centralizing the anime market through large corporate mergers that absorb these small teams. He mentioned examples from the video game sector like Square Enix or Sega Sammy, stating that unifying office management allows creative staff to focus entirely on the final product.

Of course, his comments met immediate resistance on the same discussion panel. A Japanese government minister defended the value of small teams based on her own experience in independent developers. She explained that the richness and freshness of Japanese entertainment stem precisely from the diversity of ideas that emerge when a young group experiments without the limitations of a large conglomerate. Additionally, Natsuno’s argument weakens when reviewing KADOKAWA’s financial reality. In its latest report for the fiscal year ending March 2026, its animation division recorded an 82.7 percent collapse in net profits due to overproduction of repetitive projects that failed to become major commercial successes.

Investors seek immediate change in leadership

Corporate consequences didn’t take long to appear. Just weeks after suggesting the restructuring of independent studios, the majority investor group of the company decided to initiate a process to remove him from his position. They created a platform to expose the failures in Natsuno’s management and formally demanded that shareholders vote against his re-election at the upcoming meeting scheduled for June. Investors are dissatisfied with inaccurate forecasts and millions lost on animated series, showing that his continuation at the helm of the company is extremely unstable. With competition advancing and companies like Sony expanding their territory, pressure on the company is immense.

Considering that centralizing the industry could stabilize finances but risk the originality of independent stories, do you think large monopolies are right to want to absorb small studios, or do you prefer the landscape to remain decentralized to maintain plot variety?