LINE Digital Frontier, the operator of Japan’s LINE Manga service, has outlined a strategy focused on expanding its Japanese-originating content to a global audience.
This expansion will leverage the existing global platform of its parent company, WEBTOON Entertainment, which recently listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Works serialized on LINE Manga in Japan are made available internationally through the WEBTOON app.
In a recent interview with Oricon, LINE Digital Frontier CEO Masamine Takahashi said the company now considered the global stage its main battleground. The move follows a period of rapid expansion for Japan’s digital manga market, which grew into a 500 billion yen (USD 3.2 billion) industry following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Takahashi noted in the interview that LINE Manga has reshaped Japan’s manga landscape since its 2013 debut by embracing “vertical scrolling” webtoons that were once met with skepticism but are now widely accepted.
Following WEBTOON Entertainment’s listing in the United States, Takahashi said the company had set its sight on the global market. Rather than competing with other studios, LINE Manga is focusing on building an environment where high-quality works can be consistently produced and delivered worldwide.
Takahashi added that LINE Manga sees itself as a platform before anything else, working cooperatively with outside creators and companies instead of treating them as rivals. Partnerships with Japanese webtoon studio Number Nine and other capital alliances are part of a broader strategy to boost the overall standard of Japanese-made webtoons.
“To grow the entire market and bring good works into the world, we actively provide support, including investment,” Takahashi said, adding that the goal is to make both new and classic titles available in accessible and appealing formats to readers worldwide.
The company’s efforts to cultivate new talent have also paid off. Platforms like LINE Manga Indies allow amateur creators to publish their own works, sometimes leading to major success.
One such example is Senpai wa Otokonoko, which started as an indie title and was later adapted into an animated film. Takahashi described the project’s appearance on a Times Square screen during WEBTOON Entertainment’s Nasdaq debut as “a huge accomplishment” that symbolized how far digital comics had come.
With digital distribution becoming the global norm, LINE Manga is also accelerating efforts to release titles overseas without delays. Takahashi noted that translation barriers are shrinking, allowing simultaneous or near-simultaneous releases in multiple regions — something that was previously impossible in the print era.
He stated that Japan held a “decisive advantage” in this global push: a mature readership and culture where people who read manga when they were young continued to do so as adults. “This is commonplace in Japan, but it’s an incredible culture,” Mr. Takahashi said. “This mature readership and culture is our greatest weapon.”
He identified making this advantage a global standard as the company’s next challenge.
To overcome the challenge of global expansion, Mr. Takahashi said the company had adopted a “creator-first” principle. He stated that LINE Manga intended to act as a platform which will help the works of creators reach the world, which according to him was “synonymous with building the infrastructure that allowed creator talent to cross borders and be fairly evaluated.”
“The ingenuity and creativity in expression from creators is truly amazing,” Mr. Takahashi said. “Our role is to create the network that allows the works they draw to reach the world.” He said the company’s stance was to “believe completely in creators” and their ability to produce a “masterpiece” that could leap “beyond the limits of the format.”
A project to distribute 100 Disney works in partnership with WEBTOON Entertainment was cited as one “stepping stone.” Mr. Takahashi said collaborating with global IPs would stimulate new creators and serve as an “entry point” for audiences who had never interacted with manga before.
Source: Oricon
