[HanCinema's News] Studio Dragon Establishes New Production Branch in Japan

On May 12th, Studio Dragon announced that they had former a new partnership with the Japanese company Line Digital Frontier to form a new branch called Studio Dragon Japan. This name is tentative and subject to change. Approximately twenty-five million dollars have been invested in the company, which is expected to start producing work in the latter half of this year once all the establishing paperwork has been finalized.

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The news follows the major increase in interest in South Korean cultural content in Japan over the last few years. The South Korean streaming service Watcha established operations in Japan in 2020, and has found this investment so lucrative they announced last month that SLL (formerly JTBC Studios) would be making a similar expansion into Japanese territory. CJ ENM has seen much success in the Japanese markets with titles such as "Hotel Del Luna" and "Crash Landing on You" among others.

Though no projects have been announced, it's expected that the purpose of the the partnership is so that Studio Dragon can start producing adaptations of webtoons licensed by Line Digital Frontier. Studio Dragon and CJ ENM have also promised collaboration with local persons in Japan to produce a wide variety of content with unique Japanese traits that may yet have an untapped global audience. Line Digital Frontier has also expressed hopes of becoming a global player through this partnership.

Written by William Schwartz