ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on one major factor that has led to a strength in the industry, namely, the ‘production consortium’ system for film production. The production consortium system may in effect work for the production of entertainment content across the industries of film, anime, manga, music, and games. Financing production is of prime importance for films in particular, as the size of the budget effectively determines the genre and the target market. The escalating cost of film production and the demand for risk distribution started to require more investors. Public funding for film may well be for cultural reasons of the protection and enhancement of national cinema but also to promote an industrial sector whose strategic importance is acknowledged by the state. With the participation of television networks in the consortia, several dozen films are produced in Japan, taking a large share of the domestic market.
