Japan’s Dormant Anime IP Awakens on the Blockchain

Animoca Brands has announced a strategic initiative to tokenize Japan’s underutilized anime and manga intellectual property (IP) by launching a Web3 investment fund in partnership with Ibex Japan, the corporate innovation arm of Antler. The collaboration was revealed at the WebX conference in Tokyo and shared via Animoca’s social media channels. The fund aims to bring Japanese cultural assets onto blockchain platforms, creating new digital services and products rooted in the country’s vast but largely dormant IP portfolio.

Sandeep Casi, partner at Ibex Japan, emphasized the potential of this initiative, noting that between 90% and 99% of Japan’s IP is currently inactive. He highlighted Antler’s extensive global network, which spans 22 cities and includes $1.2 billion in assets under management and a pool of 250,000 entrepreneurs. This network, he argued, provides the necessary scale to launch the fund internationally.

Yat Siu, co-founder and chairman of Animoca, stated that the company already has a presence in Japan through its subsidiary ABKK and views this partnership as a strategic step to expand the reach of Japanese IP beyond its traditional entertainment sectors. He outlined the initiative’s broader ambitions, which include exploring applications in fintech, healthcare, and medtech. Siu cited the recent rebound in the NFT market as a favorable moment for the project, with data from NFT Price Floor showing the overall NFT market capitalization reaching $9.3 billion on August 13, a 40% increase from the previous month.

The fund will be co-led by Keyvan Peymani, a senior adviser at Animoca, and Sandeep Casi. They plan to announce specific IP licensing targets in the coming months. The initiative aligns with a broader trend in the Web3 space, where companies are increasingly seeking to tokenize real-world assets and cultural content to unlock new revenue streams and use cases.

This move by Animoca and Ibex Japan reflects a growing interest in leveraging blockchain technology to revitalize traditional creative industries. With Japan’s anime and manga sectors contributing significantly to its cultural exports, the tokenization of IP represents a novel approach to monetizing these assets in a decentralized, global market.

Source: [1] Animoca, Antler's Ibex Launch Fund to Tokenize Japan's IP (https://cointelegraph.com/news/animoca-antler-japan-web3-anime-manga-ip-fund) [2] Animoca & Ibex Unlock Japan's Anime IP for Blockchain Era (https://www.bitdegree.org/crypto/news/animoca-and-ibex-unlock-japans-anime-ip-for-blockchain-era) [3] Top Animoca Brands Portfolio Coins by Market Cap (https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories/animoca-brands)