On December 19, 2024, the Sony Group announced that it had acquired additional shares in Kadokawa Corporation, boosting its ownership from approximately 2% to 10%. This development cements Sony’s position as Kadokawa’s largest shareholder. Sony Group invested approximately 50 billion yen (around $320 million) to acquire additional shares.
For those who’ve been following this saga, this move is hardly surprising, considering Sony’s growing interest in consolidating its control over Japan’s entertainment industries, including anime, gaming, and manga.
The idea of Sony and Kadokawa deepening their partnership isn’t new. Rumors of Sony’s interest in Kadokawa go back several years. Initially, Sony was rumored to only want Kadokawa’s anime and gaming divisions, which include their majority stake in FromSoftware—the developers behind Elden Ring and Dark Souls.
However, Kadokawa, a publicly traded company vulnerable to hostile takeovers, has long maintained that it prefers a full acquisition to piecemeal deals.
This insistence, coupled with Kadokawa’s troubled history, has kept negotiations from progressing smoothly. For context, Kadokawa has faced challenges such as:
- A bribery scandal involving its former chairman during the Tokyo Olympics.
- A cybersecurity breach earlier this year that disrupted operations.
- Criticism over labor practices flagged by Japan’s Fair Trade Commission.
All these factors have likely made Kadokawa more open to Sony’s growing involvement, especially as foreign giants like Tencent and Microsoft have shown interest in acquiring Kadokawa’s assets.
Why Does Sony Want Kadokawa?
This deal fits neatly into Sony’s broader strategy of creating a vertically integrated entertainment ecosystem. Kadokawa is a major player in Japan’s media landscape, with over 100,000 titles across anime, manga, and light novels, including iconic series like Re:Zero, Konosuba, Sword Art Online, and Overlord.
Sony’s control over Kadokawa allows it to further enhance platforms like Crunchyroll, the anime streaming service it acquired in 2021 for nearly $1.2 billion.
With Kadokawa’s intellectual properties under its wing, Sony can make many of these titles exclusive to Crunchyroll, reinforcing its dominance in the anime streaming market against competitors like Netflix and Amazon.
Kadokawa’s gaming potential is another reason Sony is interested. FromSoftware’s global success with Elden Ring and Dark Souls aligns with Sony’s PlayStation-first strategy.
More anime IPs could be adapted into games, expanding Sony’s portfolio. Imagine a Konosuba RPG or an Overlord action-adventure game integrated into the PlayStation ecosystem.
While this partnership seems like a win-win for Sony and Kadokawa on the surface, it raises significant concerns about monopolization.
Sony already owns Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Aniplex, giving it outsized influence over the anime industry. Adding Kadokawa to the mix strengthens this grip, but it could also stifle competition, limit creative diversity, and alienate fans who use other platforms.
