Could you give us a sense of the scale of the overseas market?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tTani: According to data released last year by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Japan\u2019s content market is worth roughly 13.1 trillion yen (approx. $88.1 billion). By comparison, the global content market is estimated at around 135.6 trillion yen ($912 billion) \u2014 about ten times the size of Japan\u2019s market.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn addition, Japan\u2019s content exports account for approximately 4.7 trillion yen ($31.6 billion), or roughly 40% of total sales. Within that overseas share, about 60% comes from games, surpassing even anime. (Source: Entertainment and Creative Industry Policy Research Committee materials.)<\/p>\n
\n\tWith Japan\u2019s population declining, focusing solely on the domestic market won\u2019t be sustainable. The question now is how to make up for areas that were previously supported domestically by expanding overseas. I think this is a key point that the entire Japanese content industry is paying close attention to.<\/p>\n
\n\tCould you tell us about your approach to registering music data on each platform?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tHasebe: With game and anime music, it\u2019s common to register tracks under the \u201cgame title,\u201d \u201ccontent title,\u201d or even \u201ccharacter name\u201d or \u201ccomposer name.\u201d The problem with that is it creates a proliferation of artist pages. For users, that makes it harder to find everything they want in one place when they think, \u201cI want to listen to the music from this game or anime.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tTo address this, we first establish a single main artist name, and then organize all the tracks under that name. This gives users a clear, centralized page, improving the listening experience and concentrating plays in one place. As a result, it also impacts rankings and monthly listener counts, helping to highlight the scale of the content. Another advantage is that the consolidated data can be used for analysis.<\/p>\n
\n\tAkimoto: The information included on a track page is commonly called metadata, and the specifications vary greatly between streaming services. In some cases, you can assign an artist per track; in others, you can\u2019t. It\u2019s important to carefully assess these differences and provide the optimal solution for each service.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn our case, we customize the information provided by rights holders to fit the requirements of each platform. By keeping the perspective of streaming service users in mind while staying flexible, we see this as one of our strengths.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tCould you tell us the main reason behind the launch of Game Music Academy?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tTani: Looking back at the history of music, I feel that Japanese music and artists have had a huge influence on artists all over the world. But they\u2019re often seen only as individual acts, without being viewed collectively. Take K-pop for example \u2014 by building a major brand, it\u2019s created a movement that individual artists alone could never have achieved.<\/p>\n
\n\tBy framing content within a larger structure, we felt there was potential to achieve something even greater. That was a big part of our team discussions, and it led to the idea that if game music is something Japan can truly showcase to the world, why not build the same kind of framework there? That\u2019s what led us to launch Game Music Academy.<\/p>\n
\n\tWe\u2019d also like to hear about how Japanese game music is perceived from overseas. Submerse, as someone from the U.K., what are your thoughts?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tSubmerse: Personally, I find Japanese music from the 1990s really fascinating. Not just game music \u2014 even back in the \u201970s and \u201980s, it was heavily influenced by Western music, and I think Japanese artists were learning from that while creating their own output. But it wasn\u2019t just a straight copy of those influences; there was always a distinctly Japanese essence added in. That gave it a slightly different feel from the music that was popular overseas at the time \u2014 and that\u2019s the real charm for me.<\/p>\n
\n\tAnd just as the increase in game memory capacity expanded the range of musical expression, I feel like something similar is happening in today\u2019s game development. You can especially see it in the indie game scene. Development costs and timelines are now easier to manage than before, which has allowed for a flood of unique games, and I believe the indie game market will continue to evolve. Alongside that, I expect the music in indie games will keep evolving as well.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u2014This interview by Yuki Tatsuta first appeared on Billboard Japan<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.billboard.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Video game music is no longer just for games. Game Music Academy, launched by NexTone\u2019s distribution team, marks a new initiative to deliver game music as a brand to audiences in Japan and abroad. Explore See latest videos, charts and news Setting itself apart from existing distributors, NexTone is carving out new markets through metadata […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2010122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[349508,42097,26630,21932],"class_list":["post-2075748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-billboard-japan","tag-global","tag-japan","tag-music-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Melanie-Santiler-Cimafunks-Ese-Besito-Voted-Best-New-Latin-Music.gif","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2075748"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2075749,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075748\/revisions\/2075749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2010122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2075748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2075748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2075748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}