Japanese Dramas and the Streaming Success Story That Wasn’t: How Industry Practices and IP Shape Japan’s Access to Global Streaming

Abstract

I examine the relative absence of Japanese dramas in the global streaming landscape. Contrasting this to their 1990s and 2000s boom in East Asia, I argue that structural rather than cultural factors play a central role in this development. At present, a split exists between the domestic market for Japanese dramas and the transnational one, where only a few, largely off-mainstream dramas find traction. Through a discussion of streaming’s prehistory and present in Japan, I contend that the split stems, in part, from three issues: television networks’ continued dominance, industry practices that favor advertising-based revenue models, and the adoption and impact of international intellectual property regimes on Japan’s media industry in general. I argue that these issues and the split that they inform stand to have significant consequences for Japanese dramas, as well as other media genres, in the emergent era of streaming. Although Japan’s media industry has largely been able to navigate the incursion of US-based streamers into its domestic market and maintain control there, it has become increasingly reliant on mostly US-based platforms to distribute its content abroad.