Too many companies making anime unprofitable, he said—then his own numbers proved otherwise.
In the spring of 2026, KADOKAWA's chief executive Takeshi Natsuno offered a sweeping diagnosis of the anime industry's ills — too many companies, too much organizational bloat, too little consolidation — while his own company quietly recorded an 82.7 percent collapse in net profit. The timing invited a harder question: whether the sickness he described in the industry at large was, in fact, a mirror held up to his own house. As activist shareholders moved to unseat him and rivals posted healthy gains, the episode became a quiet parable about the distance that can grow between a leader's public vision and private accountability.
- KADOKAWA's net profit fell 82.7 percent in FY2026, driven by an over-reliance on formulaic Isekai content and a volume-over-quality production strategy that yielded no breakout hits.
- Just weeks before the results dropped, CEO Natsuno publicly blamed industry-wide fragmentation and organizational bloat at rival studios — a diagnosis that his own company's numbers would soon contradict.
- Activist investor Oasis Management responded with a 133-page case for removing Natsuno, citing mismanagement of key IP, reckless content scaling, and a pattern of deflecting responsibility onto external forces.
- While KADOKAWA struggled, competitors like Toei Animation posted 25.7 percent profit growth, undermining the claim that market saturation was the industry's universal problem.
- KADOKAWA's board backed Natsuno and pointed to new ventures like the Animec joint venture with Aniplex as evidence of strategic renewal — but a shareholder vote in June 2026 would be the real verdict.
Last April, KADOKAWA CEO Takeshi Natsuno told an audience that the anime industry had a structural problem: too many small production companies with bloated management layers that had nothing to do with creative output. His prescription was consolidation — merging scattered studios, unifying back-office operations, and letting creators actually create. He pointed to gaming industry mergers like Square Enix and Sega Sammy as proof the model worked, and noted that KADOKAWA itself already operated seven animation studios under one roof.
The timing proved uncomfortable. In May, KADOKAWA announced an 82.7 percent drop in net profit — not because of industry fragmentation, but because of its own strategic choices. The company had leaned too heavily on Isekai formulas and Narou adaptations, ramped up title volume without increasing editorial capacity, and produced no breakout successes to justify the approach. The problem, by KADOKAWA's own accounting, was internal.
Oasis Management, the company's largest shareholder, took notice. The activist investor published a 133-page presentation calling for Natsuno's removal, cataloguing years of alleged failures: poor IP stewardship, a quantity-over-quality content strategy, and the particular irony of a CEO blaming the broader market for problems he had effectively described as his own in the same earnings announcement.
Natsuno retained the support of KADOKAWA's board, which pointed to a new joint venture with Aniplex — called Animec — as evidence of a strategic pivot toward the kind of major film releases that had been driving profits at Toei Animation and Bandai Namco. Those rivals, notably, were thriving. Toei had grown net profit by 25.7 percent year-over-year. IG Port's trajectory had been upward for years. The anime industry wasn't uniformly struggling — KADOKAWA was.
Whether Natsuno's consolidation thesis was wrong or simply incomplete remained an open question. Perhaps KADOKAWA had too many of the wrong studios, run in the wrong way. A shareholder vote scheduled for June 2026 would determine whether he would have the opportunity to find out.
Takeshi Natsuno, the chief executive of KADOKAWA, stood before an audience last April and said something he knew would ruffle feathers: the anime industry has too many companies, and that surplus is killing profitability across the board. It was a bold diagnosis from a man running one of Japan's largest media conglomerates, and it came at a moment when his own company was quietly hemorrhaging money.
Natsuno's argument was structural. He pointed out that across the anime sector, small production outfits had accumulated layers of management—presidents, executives, sales staff—that bore little relation to actual creative output. The real problem, he suggested, wasn't animator wages or production costs in the traditional sense. It was organizational bloat. His solution was consolidation: merge these scattered companies into larger groups, unify their back-office operations, and free the actual creators to focus on making work rather than managing bureaucracy. He cited the gaming industry as proof the model worked—Square Enix, Koei Tecmo, Sega Sammy—all born from mergers that had strengthened rather than weakened their respective markets. Even KADOKAWA itself, he noted, now operated seven animation studios under one roof following its acquisition of Chiptune the previous year.
The timing of these remarks, made on April 26, was awkward. Within weeks, KADOKAWA announced financial results that seemed to undercut his diagnosis. On May 14, the company disclosed an 82.7 percent collapse in net profit. The culprit, according to KADOKAWA's own accounting, was not market fragmentation but internal strategy: the company had chased too many formulaic hits, leaning heavily on proven patterns like Isekai narratives and works adapted from the Narou platform. It had increased the sheer number of titles in production even as it kept the workload per editor stable, a math that simply hadn't worked. There were no breakout successes to offset the volume.
The irony was sharp enough that it caught the attention of Oasis Management Company, KADOKAWA's largest shareholder. In mid-May, the activist investor launched a campaign to remove Natsuno from his position. Oasis published a 133-page presentation detailing what it saw as years of failed leadership: poor strategic choices, mismanagement of valuable intellectual property like FromSoftware's games, a reckless quantity-over-quality approach to content, and a pattern of public missteps. The activist investor argued that Natsuno had essentially admitted to the quantity-over-quality problem in his own earnings announcement, even as he was publicly blaming the broader industry for his troubles.
Natsuno was not without defenders. KADOKAWA's board stood by him, arguing that the company was laying groundwork for future growth and that his leadership remained essential to those plans. The company had already begun shifting strategy, announcing in March a new joint venture with Aniplex called Animec, designed to handle distribution and promotion of major film releases—a move that looked, at least on paper, like an attempt to capture the kind of blockbuster success that competitors like Toei Animation and Bandai Namco had been enjoying.
The broader context made Natsuno's diagnosis of industry fragmentation harder to sustain. While KADOKAWA struggled, other major anime companies were posting strong results. Toei Animation had grown net profit by 25.7 percent year-over-year. Bandai Namco's visual and music division was expanding. IG Port's profitability had been trending upward for years. Even Avex, which had been in the red in 2023, had returned to growth. The industry wasn't uniformly unprofitable. KADOKAWA was.
What remained unresolved was whether Natsuno's diagnosis of too many companies was wrong, or simply incomplete. Perhaps the real problem was that KADOKAWA had too many of the wrong companies—or was running them in the wrong way. The shareholder vote scheduled for June 2026 would determine whether he would have the chance to find out.
Citações Notáveis
There are too many anime companies, and the numerous new entrants in the anime industry were making it less profitable.— Takeshi Natsuno, KADOKAWA CEO
The strength of Japan's content is its diversity.— Kimi Onoda, LDP minister overseeing intellectual property
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
When Natsuno blamed fragmentation, was he describing a real problem or deflecting from his own company's mistakes?
Both, probably. The anime industry does have a lot of small production companies with management overhead. But KADOKAWA's own earnings report showed the real damage came from chasing too many formulaic titles at once. He was naming a real structural issue while ignoring that his company had made it worse, not better.
So why would he make these comments publicly if they contradicted what his own numbers were about to show?
The timing suggests he may have believed his diagnosis was correct—that the industry needed consolidation. But then the earnings came out and revealed KADOKAWA itself had been part of the problem. It made him look like he was blaming everyone else for a disease his own company had caught.
The activist investor cited "value leakage" with FromSoftware games. How does that connect to what Natsuno was saying?
It doesn't, really. Natsuno was arguing for consolidation to reduce overhead and focus on creation. But Oasis was pointing out that KADOKAWA owned incredibly valuable IP—like Elden Ring—and was letting other companies profit from distributing it. That's not a fragmentation problem. That's a management problem.
Other anime companies are profitable. Does that prove Natsuno wrong about fragmentation?
It suggests the problem isn't fragmentation itself. Toei, Bandai Namco, IG Port—they're all operating in the same fragmented market and doing fine. So either fragmentation isn't the constraint, or KADOKAWA is uniquely bad at operating within it.
What does the June shareholder vote actually decide?
Whether Natsuno stays as CEO. If Oasis wins, KADOKAWA gets new leadership that might pursue a different strategy entirely. If the board wins, Natsuno gets to implement the reforms he's already announced—including the new distribution joint venture with Aniplex. Either way, his diagnosis of the industry gets tested against his ability to fix his own company.