Sony Reportedly in Talks to Buy Kadokawa

Danica Davidson November 19, 2024

Sony is allegedly interested in buying Kadokawa and is currently in talks. Neither company is willing to put out an official comment on the matter, but two unnamed sources talked to Reuters and apparently gave enough information for Reuters to feel comfortable covering it.

If things go well, deals might be made within the next few weeks.

Sony has a 2% stake in Kadokawa, as well as a stake in FromSoftware, which is controlled by Kadokawa. So Sony already does have a bit of influence over the other company.

Sony has been gradually picking up different companies in the anime world, and it owns Funimation, Crunchyroll (which has more than 15 million paid subscribers), Aniplex and Right Stuf, to name a few examples. Some people have expressed concerns about Sony turning into an anime monopoly. Sony’s market valuation is estimated at around $114 billion.

Kadokawa, which launched as a publishing company in 1945, has prospered immensely. Along with publishing books, it also offers games, figurines, and anime (of course). It owns the American news source Anime News Network, and publishers Yen Press and J-Novel Club, to name a few examples.

Along with having great success, Kadokawa has also weathered some scandals, like when people in the company were giving bribes in order to have Kadokawa highlighted by the Tokyo Olympics. It also suffered a data leak last summer.

Kenichiro Yoshida, the CEO of Sony, remarked in 2023, “Lovable characters and intellectual property (IP) can live for 30, 50 or 100 years. That’s something we want to make investment in for sustainable growth.”

Sony has made anime a major interest in its expansion. Earlier this year it declared that it would establish an academy for people to take anime, saying that the expansion would “[nurture] anime creators in global markets, mainly by Aniplex and Crunchyroll with collaboration from across the industry.”

Source: Reuters

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Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin, plus its sequel, Manga Art for Everyone, and the first-of-its-kind manga chalk book Chalk Art Manga, both illustrated by professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.