Entertainment giant Walt Disney Co will team up with several Japanese companies to produce animated features in Japan, a leading market for such films, a Disney official said yesterday.
Disney will work with Toei Animation Co, Madhouse Co and Jinni's Animation Studios, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to talk to the media.
The Nikkei, Japan's leading business daily, reported the move was aimed at bolstering Disney's efforts to gain wider acceptance of its animated programming in Asia. The company official declined to provide details.
With Madhouse, Disney will produce a TV program Stitch!, an offspring of the Lilo & Stitch series, to be aired in Japan, the official said. With Jinni, Disney will make a short animation film Fireball, she said.
The Nikkei said the partnerships would allow Disney to tap local talent and computer graphics technology to produce programs targeting audiences in Japan and elsewhere in Asia.
These programs will be broadcast via satellite and terrestrial channels, but Disney will also look into delivering content to mobile phones, the report said.
Disney has its own animation and movie channels in more than 100 countries, including Japan, where it launched Disney Channel in 2003. The company also started offering a cellular phone service here this month.
The Nikkei quoted an unidentified executive at Disney's Japanese unit as saying that the move would "position Japan as a new base for content creation."
Toei Animation, meanwhile, will tap Disney's distribution network to expand its overseas reach, the report said.
The US firm will continue to look for partners, but it doesn't have plans for any acquisitions or capital tie-ups for now, Nikkei said.
For Disney, a longtime producer of hit shows in the US, this will mark the first time that it has gone offshore with the core production processes for major programs, the report said.
The studio has tried to penetrate the global animation market by exporting programs, but has concluded that production should be localized from scratch so that its shows will be widely accepted in different countries and cultures, according to the Nikkei.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS