The Asian entertainment industry has seen a significant increase in global audiences in the past five or six years. If Asian entertainment is seen from a general perspective, three things come to mind: drama, music, and anime. The front liners of these genres are Korea and Japan. Japan dominated the anime side, and Korea took the world by storm through KPOP and K-Drama.
The success of the industry is evidently seen when Korean drama shows like Squid Game, All of Us Are Dead, Crash Landing on You, and many others capture the hearts of global audiences that even streaming giants like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney Plus is not only licensing old dramas but even collaborating with producers from Korea to try to get more audiences to watch these dramas in their own platforms.
The same is true with anime. In the 2020s alone, many anime shows have been licensed by these same streaming platforms so that they may be accessible to fans worldwide. Netflix, one of the main streaming platforms used by the world, currently has a decent line-up of anime shows and movies that caters to all anime genre. May it be Shoujo, Shounen, or a simple slice of life, name it and Netflix might have just the thing for you.
However, according to the Japanese website, Record China, one of the directors of the Walt Disney Company stated that the contents of South Korea are far more superior compared to those produced in Japan, especially in terms of its capacity to capture the themes and genres that the rest of the world enjoys.
Rebecca Campbell, the chairman of international content and operations at Disney says that the Korean Works created by Disney is fantastic content from a regional and global standpoint and that it is a “piece that the audience can relate to.”
Some Korean audiences also agreed with the claim saying that although Japan certainly has unique sensibilities, their works lack global expansion and that nothing much has improved since the 90s. The KNetizens also called some Japanese content unpleasant and lacking realism.
Though it is true that a lot of Japanese dramas are not in the limelight, Kdramas and Anime are incomparable. They cater to completely different audiences who are interested in only one of either. Though there are a select few who may appreciate both, they are rare.
On the other hand, both Japan and Korea are doing extremely well with regard to content popularity and global expansion, and the world is looking forward to what both have to offer in terms of series and shows both live action and animated alike.
