TOKYO: Kadokawa Corporation confirmed that they received an initial letter of intent to acquire company shares from Sony, in a statement released on Wednesday responding to media articles about the possible acquisition.
Following initial media reports of the possible acquisition on Tuesday, Kadokawa’s share prices shot up by 23 per cent, according to Reuters.
WHAT IS KADOKAWA?
Kadokawa Corporation owns various video game studios, most notably FromSoftware Inc. which released mega hit Elden Ring in 2022, as well as various instalments in the Dark Souls series which inspired an entire subgenre of action role playing games called soulslikes. The Japanese media conglomerate also owns Spike Chunsoft, the developer behind the Danganronpa series, and more recently Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero. The developer of the Octopath Traveller series, Acquire is also owned by Kadokawa, as well as RPG Maker creator Gotcha Gotcha Games.
But the Japanese behemoths influence doesn’t end with just video games. Various anime, manga, film, and TV companies are part of the Kadokawa Group. In regards to anime, their studios include Doga Kobo, Kinema Citrus, Studio KADAN, Raging Bull Co., and ENGI Co.
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FAN REACTION
Fans of the company were worried after learning about Sony’s desire to acquire Kadokawa. In regards to the video game studios, fans believe that this may lead to future titles being made exclusive to PlayStation, limiting accessibility for people on Microsoft’s Xbox platforms and the PC audience.
Following the acquisition, Sony will control an even larger amount of the anime and manga industry, with the company already owning both Aniplex, a production company whose subsidiaries include A-1 Pictures and Cloverworks, as well as Funimation, an anime distributor and operator of one the most popular anime streaming platforms. This worries fans as they believe Sony’s future monopoly in the anime industry may result in a lack of creativity in future works, as well as increased censorship.
Sony has a history of censoring video games, with a report in 2021 from Gamespark revealing that a character in a Naruto game by CyberConnect 2 was supposed to have a missing arm, but the studio was stopped from including this, as Sony prohibit limb defects in human-looking characters. Many other Japanese games have been censored by Sony for having suggestive imagery.
Fans believe that Sony’s censorship will extend into the future anime projects produced by Kadowkawa.
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