Overseas Sales of Japanese Content Tripled in Ten Years to ¥5.8 Trillion, and the Cool Japan Fund Will Not Request Funding for FY2027

On 21 August 2026 the Cool Japan Fund issued a document headed "Regarding certain press reports." It reads: "While this organisation intends not to make a fiscal investment and loan request for FY2027, it continues to support existing investees and carry out investment management with the funds it currently holds, and is performing its necessary duties appropriately." The same document also states plainly that "there is no fact, at the present time, that the government has decided to abolish this organisation."

The trigger was the annual accounts. At the end of March 2026 the cumulative result stood at ¥54.0 billion in the red[1], below the revised plan's target for the same date of ¥42.6 billion in the red. The net result for FY2025 was a loss of ¥15.7 billion. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry held the first session of its Review Committee on the Cool Japan Fund on 29 July 2026, and will report within the year.

Up to this point it reads as an ordinary story: a public-private fund that lost money is being wound up.

Turn to the industry the fund was built to support, however, and an entirely different set of figures appears. The opening of the Entertainment and Creative Industries Strategy, compiled by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in June 2025, reads: "Overseas sales of content originating in Japan have grown roughly threefold over the past ten years, reaching about ¥5.8 trillion in 2023[2], exceeding the export value of the semiconductor and steel industries and standing second only to the automotive industry."

The ten years of that growth almost entirely overlap the fund's twelve. The government named this a core industry in June 2024 and set an overseas sales target of ¥20 trillion for 2033. From ¥5.8 trillion to ¥20 trillion.

The industry grew, the target was raised, and the organisation that supplies the capital stopped asking for it. The threefold growth runs to 2023, the designation as a core industry with a ¥20 trillion target came in June 2024, and the decision to stop requesting funds came in August 2026. They are not moving in the same direction.

Why the fund was built is set out in the material the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry submitted to the review committee. The starting point is the interim report of the Cool Japan Strategy, June 2012, which recorded that "one bottleneck for Cool Japan is a shortage in the supply of risk money from financial institutions to small and medium-sized enterprises." The Japan Revitalization Strategy of June 2013 then wrote that Cool Japan would be advanced strategically "by supplying risk money," the law establishing the fund was promulgated that same month, and the fund was set up in November.

The fund, in other words, was a treatment prescribed for a diagnosis of insufficient capital. Business risk is high and private investment does not gather; returns cannot be recovered on the timeline private investors expect; outcomes turn on local tastes overseas and are hard to foresee. The material lists these three as the problems.

Whether the treatment worked is verified on the government side each year. Looking at the results as of the end of March 2025, the number of companies that expanded overseas through the fund's investment was 7,827, against a plan for the same date of 5,037[3]. Partnerships with private companies stood at 122, against a plan of 99. The multiple showing how much private investment and lending was induced against what the fund actually put in was 2.7 times, against a plan of 2.3. Every one of them is above plan. In the fund's own tally the multiple stands at 2.5 times as of the end of March 2026, above the next milestone of 1.8.

The cumulative result, too, was verified as achieved in that report. The result at the end of March 2025 was ¥38.3 billion in the red, against a plan for the same date of ¥43.2 billion in the red. The reason given in the report runs: "After formulating the revised plan in 2022, the fund carried out fundamental management improvements. The net profit for FY2024 was approximately ¥1.5 billion, achieving a single-year profit, and while advancing portfolio optimisation it has obtained results in line with the original expectation, thereby achieving the planned figure." Under future policy, the report states that the fund "will continue to consider new investment projects and to monitor existing ones."

That report is dated 18 December 2025. Six months later, on 24 June 2026, the accounts were released and the consolidation review began.

An indicator being met and a result being produced are not the same thing. At the first session of the review committee, members made remarks such as these: "The KPI achievement status is shown, but was the policy purpose of developing overseas demand achieved?" and "It would help to have something where the results are easier to see, showing whether Japanese companies are actually better off." The indicator of counting companies is itself being questioned, in the government's own review setting.

Open up the figure of ¥54.0 billion. The breakdown appears in the document the fund itself submitted to the Fiscal Investment and Loan Program subcommittee.

"Of the cumulative result of −¥54.0 billion for FY2025, about half is the necessary operating cost of running the fund (−¥26.2 billion). The remainder is −¥2.0 billion in cumulative investment results from exits and the like, and −¥25.8 billion in unrealised losses booked in advance on positions still held." The ¥26.2 billion in necessary costs consists of ¥11.1 billion in personnel, ¥6.3 billion in taxes and public dues, ¥2.6 billion in research, and ¥2.5 billion in rent, utilities and similar items.

Looking only at what has been realised through buying and selling, 34 completed exits took ¥59.9 billion of investment and returned ¥54.4 billion, a shortfall of ¥5.5 billion. Adding ¥3.5 billion in distributions received from investments in other funds brings the realised investment result to ¥2.0 billion in the red. The remaining ¥25.8 billion is loss recognised in advance, under accounting rules, on positions the fund still holds. This is not merely a bookkeeping entry. In the same document the fund describes what it wrote down that year as "investees that entered private liquidation, investees whose business is depressed and whose hurdle to near-term financial recovery is high, and listed investees whose share price fell further owing to external factors." Businesses that ran aground are part of it.

The same document carries the fund's own note: "In private funds, the necessary management costs are generally secured separately from the investment result, through management fees of around 2%." Running costs that a private fund would receive apart from its investment performance are folded into performance here. Twelve years of salaries and taxes, added to the investment result, is the figure being reported as a ¥54.0 billion deficit.

Why the review began is set out in the document the fund issued on the day the accounts were released: "We understand that, in accordance with the government's policy that 'should the cumulative result fall below the government target, the Cool Japan Fund and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry shall examine a concrete path premised on merger with another institution or on abolition,' a review committee has been established for that purpose and a response is being considered."

The condition, in other words, was set in advance: fall below the target, and consolidation or abolition becomes the premise of the review. The policy-purpose indicators and the leverage multiple both remain above plan as of the most recent reading, the end of March 2026. What moved was the single cumulative-result measure, and that one measure is connected to whether the organisation exists.

Set the industry figures alongside this again. The ¥5.8 trillion is what Japanese content earned overseas, and on how much of it comes back, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry writes that the share returned to companies in Japan is "just under 60%." The same document names a way to raise that share: shifting from licensing, which returns a few percent of market price, to taking risk directly. "Japanese content companies are shifting toward building their own bases overseas, taking on risk, and themselves running film distribution, live events and merchandise sales, to secure larger revenues."

The 2012 diagnosis was that risk money was short. The 2025 strategy says to take more risk. The capital required has not fallen.

The action plan toward ¥20 trillion lists 46 actions across games, animation, music, publishing and sport: building overseas sales channels, countering piracy, developing people, assembling data, making production more efficient. And in the common actions for overseas expansion, the body that supplies the capital is named outright. After "expanding and reviewing the existing JLOX+ programme" comes: "The Cool Japan Fund shall actively consider support in the content field in light of this report."

As of June 2025, the government intended to use the fund again. A year later the fund suspended new support decisions and stated that it will not request funds for FY2027. The body the action plan named by name is standing down partway through that plan.

The committee also discussed how the fund itself should be handled. "If minimising cumulative losses becomes the sole mission, the situation may worsen, for instance through hesitation to cut losses." Aim only at making losses smaller, and decisions get postponed while the losses grow. The point that the measure chosen governs the behaviour produced comes up here too.

An evaluation in which coming in under a deficit target counts as achievement sees only the gap from plan. An indicator that counts companies does not see whether those companies were better off. A figure that folds running costs into the investment result cannot separate whether costs should be cut or investment judgement should be repaired. In all three, the method of measurement came first and the question being asked came second. Building indicators is covered further in Designing Outcome Indicators（このサイトの記事） and An Introduction to EBPM（このサイトの記事）.

The committee reports within the year. What it will examine is the fund's twelve years, but the answer that is needed lies beyond them. The problem named in 2012 remains unsolved, and the organisation the 2025 plan wrote down as its answer is now standing down.

Reference Books

EBPM エビデンスに基づく政策形成の導入と実践 (EBPM: Introducing and Practising Evidence-Based Policy Making)（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます） (Fumio Ohtake, Yu Uchiyama, Yohei Kobayashi) — Covers what to measure for policy to move, drawing on both Anglo-American cases and Japanese practice. Background for reading this article's point, that the cumulative-result measure and the policy-purpose measures move separately, as a question of evaluation design.

エビデンスに基づく自治体政策入門――ロジックモデルの作り方・活かし方 (An Introduction to Evidence-Based Local Government Policy: Building and Using Logic Models)（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます） (Toru Sato) — Works through building a chain from a programme's purpose to its indicators. A practical companion for asking what an indicator that counts companies does not see.

References

Report to the Fiscal System Council Subcommittee on Fiscal Investment and Loan Program — Cool Japan Fund Inc. (2026). Cool Japan Fund Inc.

Regarding certain press reports — Cool Japan Fund Inc. (2026). Cool Japan Fund Inc.

Financial results for the fiscal year ended March 2026 — Cool Japan Fund Inc. (2026). Cool Japan Fund Inc.

Verification Report under the Guidelines for the Operation of Public-Private Funds (17th) — Steering Committee of the Ministerial Council on the Promotion of Public-Private Funds (2025). Cabinet Secretariat

Entertainment and Creative Industries Strategy: A Five-Year Action Plan toward ¥20 Trillion in Overseas Sales for the Content Industry — Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (2025). Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry

Establishment History and Outline of the Cool Japan Fund (Review Committee, 1st session, Material 3) — Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (2026). Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry

Summary of Proceedings, 1st Review Committee on the Cool Japan Fund — Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (2026). Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry

New Cool Japan Strategy — Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters (2024). Cabinet Secretariat