The 38th Tokyo International Film Festival and its industry market TIFFCOM unfolded under clearer skies than last year’s typhoon-soaked edition, and the mood matched the weather. From Oct. 27 to Nov. 5, the festival filled venues across the Hibiya-Yurakucho district while TIFFCOM brought deal-making energy to Hamamatsucho, where 322 exhibiting companies descended on the Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Trade Center – a record that reflects Tokyo’s evolving identity from regional showcase to pan-Asian co-production hub.

This year’s edition revealed an industry at an inflection point. Japanese producers are flush with IP gold – anime alone hit $25.3 billion globally – yet grappling with structural barriers that make international collaboration maddeningly difficult. Meanwhile, a new generation of female producers took center stage to share how they’ve navigated an industry that, until recently, kept them firmly in supporting roles. And perhaps most tellingly, the entire event was tinged with anticipation of Japan’s 2026 spotlight as the Cannes Film Market’s Country of Honor, a coronation that arrives just as Korean and Chinese competitors are nipping at Japanese content’s heels.

Here are seven themes that emerged from the festival and market.

TIFFCOM Pivots From Sales Market to Co-Production Hub

TIFFCOM 2025 hosted 322 exhibiting companies, up from 283 in 2024, with booths nearly sold out by early July as CEO Shiina Yasushi emphasized the market’s transformation from a purely sales-driven event into a co-production and financing hub. The market is increasingly recognized as a comprehensive platform bringing together film, television, animation and IP business under one roof, with diversity of Japanese content and Tokyo’s cultural energy cited as major strengths. The Tokyo Gap-Financing Market selected 23 projects including multiple Japan co-productions spanning Korea (manga adaptation), Taiwan, and Spain, marking increased international collaboration.

Japanese IP Adaptation Frenzy Reaches Global Studios – But Faces Regional Competition

Sony Pictures International Productions’ Shebnem Askin revealed at TIFFCOM that the studio is actively seeking live-action remakes of Japanese anime properties, taking “so many great meetings” with companies producing anime stories as one of her key missions at the market. TIFFCOM rebranded its Tokyo Story Market as Tokyo IP Market: Adaptation & Remake, expanding from adaptation rights specialists to include production companies holding remake rights, with six major participants including Kadokawa, Kodansha, Square Enix, and Toei. Examples cited include China’s “Yolo” remake grossing approximately $480 million and Netflix’s live-action “One Piece” series demonstrating explosive global demand.

The appetite is driven by hard numbers. Japan’s anime industry reached a record $25.3 billion in 2024, with overseas sales accounting for nearly 80% of the total market and growing at double-digit rates annually, according to figures released by the Association of Japanese Animations during TIFFCOM. The sector has doubled in size over the past decade, making Japanese content a high-stakes battleground for global studios.

But attendees at The Future of Japanese Intellectual Property in Global Adaptations, a TIFFCOM keynote presentation by producer Fujimura Tetsu, came away with a different, more positive impression: For all the problems of the Japanese entertainment industry, beginning with an insular mindset that makes it slow to respond to international opportunities, it still generates IP with enormous growth potential.

Founder and CEO of consulting firm Filosofia, Fujimura illustrated this thesis with not only a wealth of data and examples, but also his own story of joining hands with top Hollywood producers to bring Japanese IP to the world, from the 2017 live-action sci-fi “Ghost in the Shell” to the hit Netflix “One Piece” series.

As Fujimura noted, Japanese anime has moved beyond a niche interest internationally to the global mainstream, led by the record-setting earnings of the “Demon Slayer” franchise. He also presented a long list of Japanese IP, from comics and novels to games and toys, that is now in the Hollywood content pipeline. His takeaway: Japanese IP has become a key national industry rivaling the country’s fabled automakers in earnings. Toyota may be struggling against Tesla in the global EV sweepstakes, but Hello Kitty is conquering the world.

Yet despite this dominance, the emergence of world-beating IP from South Korea and China, including games, animations, movies and streaming shows, has seemingly threatened the longtime supremacy of regional pop culture powerhouse Japan.

Japan’s Cultural Confidence Returns With “Kokuho” Leading Local Box Office Renaissance

Lee Sang-il’s three-hour Kabuki period drama “Kokuho” has grossed $109 million since its June release, marking the third-highest total ever for a live-action Japanese film. The film premiered in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes and has become a major cultural phenomenon, with government officials highlighting how it has re-inspired public interest in traditional Kabuki theater.

The success reflects renewed appetite for prestige studio filmmaking reminiscent of Japan’s Golden Age auteurs, a theme that resonated throughout the festival. At a standing-room-only TIFF Lounge event, 91-year-old directorial legend Yamada Yoji engaged in conversation with Lee about craft and the future of Japanese cinema. Other TIFF Lounge sessions paired Kore-eda Hirokazu with Oscar-winner Chloé Zhao, Fujimoto Akio with Thailand’s Pen-ek Ratanaruang, and Miyake Sho with Cambodia’s Rithy Panh, reinforcing Tokyo’s positioning as a hub for inter-Asian filmmaker dialogue.

The festival’s opening ceremony featured American auteur Paul Schrader, whose 1985 film “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters” finally made its Japan premiere this week after four decades of being blocked due to controversial content. The screening, timed to the 100th anniversary of Mishima’s birth, exemplified the festival’s growing confidence in bridging cinematic history with contemporary cultural diplomacy.

Unlike last year’s TIFF, which brought stars Paul Mescal, Fred Hechinger, Connie Nielsen and Denzel Washington to Tokyo for a Centerpiece screening of “Gladiator II,” this year’s edition was short on Hollywood glamor, though director Chloé Zhao stepped on stage to present her drama “Hamnet” as the closing film and “Elvis” producer Schuyler Weiss presented two masterclasses. The festival compensated with a robust international star presence on the red carpet, including Chinese superstar Fan Bingbing (competition entry “Mother Bhumi”), French actor Juliette Binoche (presenting her directorial debut “In-I In Motion”), Hong Kong filmmaker Peter Chan, and festival ambassador Takiuchi Kumi, alongside Japanese talents including Yoshinaga Sayuri (who received a lifetime achievement award), Saitoh Takumi, and Morita Misato.

Japanese Women Producers Break Through at Industry’s Highest Levels

Long shunted into support roles, Japanese women are now active as producers at the peaks of the industry, both locally and internationally. Proof was on stage at the From Tokyo to the World – Japanese Woman Producers Go Global talk event, a part of TIFF’s Women’s Empowerment section.

Miyagawa Eriko, an Emmy winner for the hit streaming series “Shogun,” Eiko Mizuno Gray, producer of the Cannes competition entry “Renoir,” and Murata Chieko, whose many credits include the box office sensation “Kokuho,” took different routes to the top, but all have carved out careers that would have been next-to-impossible a generation ago.

Miyagawa tasted success by finding opportunities in Hollywood, Mizuno Gray by launching an indie production company and Murata by climbing corporate ladders in Japanese subsidiaries of Hollywood studios. In the process they have paved the way for the next generation of female producers by showing just how limitless opportunities are for those with oversized talent and ambitions.

Rising Production Costs Drive Asian Co-Production Pivot

Producers in Asia are cognizant of rising costs in their domestic markets. Seminars conducted at TIFFCOM devoted perhaps as much time to discussions of salary and production caps in high-cost markets, as it did to funding. The boom in production costs has been blamed on high talent prices, stemming from extravagant spending by big streamers in recent years. There is a sense that local producers are leaning towards coproductions with producers in other countries, not just to ameliorate the financial burden, but to wean themselves away from over reliance on commissions and acquisitions from streamers.

Japan’s Production Committee Model Emerges as Co-Production Barrier

Separately, Japanese producers are very excited to and desirous of, coproducing with international partners, but language and culture still remain massive obstacles. For example, the Production Committee style of film producing, that is common in Japan, came in for criticism, and was compared poorly to Korea’s less bureaucratic and more swashbuckling style of filmmaking, which is usually helmed by just one company. Similarly, producers complained of having to spend more money hiring bilingual crew and cast when coproducing in Japan. In a similar vein, Japanese media startups and companies might express a desire to expand overseas, but their content continues to be local focused, with less thought and effort devoted to translating distinctly Japanese content to be easily consumed by international audiences. For example, in one platform’s presentation, none of the content demonstrated was localized into English, and video clips shown were not stripped of the extensive Japanese text overlays that are a hallmark of Japanese television, despite the platform being meant for international producers.

Cannes 2026 Country of Honor Signals Belated Global Ambitions

Japan’s selection as the Cannes Film Market 2026 Country of Honor will see the nation co-host the market’s opening night gala for 1,200+ delegates and feature across flagship programs highlighting animation, genre cinema and co-production opportunities. Officials plan to use the platform to demystify Japan’s production committee financing model for overseas producers, with the goal of enabling more meaningful international co-productions, as Japan produces around 1,200 films annually with $1.31 billion in box office receipts.

Despite the language barrier, Japan in general, still looms large in the imagination of Asian filmmakers. The sui generis nature of Japanese culture, practices and lifestyle continue to be a font of inspiration for directors in the region. The number of international filmmakers, actors and producers presenting films with a Japanese link, is testament to that continued fascination about Japan.