Kodansha and Digital Garage to Begin Full-Scale Expansion of Content Business in the U.S. Via Joint-Venture Kodansha Advanced Media Through Promoting Titles Including “Attack on Titan”

Tokyo, August 7, 2015 – Kodansha Ltd. and Digital Garage, Inc. (TSE JASDAQ: 4819) through their US-based joint venture, Kodansha Advanced Media LLC. (KAM) will begin a full-operation of their content business in the US market. As its first initiative, KAM will promote Kodansha’s popular titles including AKIRA Sailor Moon, and Attack on Titan through a gallery exhibition at DG717, Digital Garage’s incubation center. The exhibition includes a demonstration of a custom-made O2O application for smartphones. The exhibition dates are aligned with J-POP SUMMIT 2015, a Japanese pop culture festival held August 8-9 in San Francisco.

The popularity of Japanese content among the North American audience grew rapidly in the recent years. First launched in 2009, J-POP SUMMIT has become a major festival attracting 120,000 attendees in 2014 while anticipating an even larger crowd this year. In this favorable trend the two parties aim to pioneer the digital comic market and expand the overall Japanese manga industry in the US by combining Kodansha’s rich content holdings and DG’s expertise in digital marketing and business development in order to deliver Japanese content to the mass.

Along with the KAM’s full-scale launch, Kodansha will increase the number of title offerings for their US-Japan simultaneous release that began in 2013 from 20 to 30 by the end of 2015. It also plans to expand its English digital distribution catalog significantly by adding series, leading to a 5x increase in the volume count from 400 to 2,000 by the end of 2017. KAM will actively strengthens its ties with major digital publishing platforms in the US market such as Amazon.com, nook, and kobo and work closely with them to in order to expand the distribution channels.

KAM’s effort will not be limited to the sales of digital content and will go beyond the traditional method by reaching out to its fans through a diverse mix of events, technologies, services, and devices. As part of the promotional activities for the duration of J-POP SUMMIT, KAM will host a number of rich and multidimensional exhibitions supported by DG’s strong expertise in digital technologies including a manga gallery using iBeacon technology and an enormous Attack on Titan balloon head with a 360-degree spherical panorama camera.

About J-POP SUMMIT 2015
Date: August 8-9, 2015
Location: Fort Mason Center, San Francisco
Official Website: http://www.j-pop.com/category/japanese/

Kodansha Comics Official Website
http://kodanshacomics.com/

Press Contacts
Kodansha Public Relations Office
Phone: +81-3-5395-3410

Konatsu Shimizu
Public Relations Manager, Digital Garage
Email: dg4819.pr@garage.co.jp
Phone: +81-3-6367-1346