CJ ENM and Naver Target Japanese Drama Market

Invested 30 Billion KRW to Establish Studio Dragon Japan
Betting on Genre Content... Expanding Business via OTT and More

CJ ENM announced on the 12th that it will establish Studio Dragon Japan in collaboration with Line Digital Frontier in Japan. They will jointly invest 30 billion KRW and begin operations from the first half of the year. Line Digital Frontier is the Japanese subsidiary of Naver Webtoon. A CJ ENM official stated, "We plan to revolutionize the Japanese drama market by leveraging our strengths in content planning, development, financing, producing, and distribution along with Line Digital Frontier's intellectual property (IP)." He added, "We aim to further enhance our global competitiveness by building a production system that spans domestic (Studio Dragon and CJ ENM Studios), the US (Endeavor Content), and Japan."

Last year, Japan's content market size was approximately 243.4815 trillion KRW, ranking third after the US and China. True to its status as a traditional cultural powerhouse, it possesses a wide range of IPs suitable for video adaptation. Line Digital Frontier is Japan's largest digital comic platform company. Through Naver Webtoon's Japanese service, 'Line Manga,' it discovers and nurtures numerous local creators. CJ ENM is confident that by combining its excellent planning and production capabilities accumulated through Studio Dragon, it can create differentiated content to target the market. This potential was confirmed through meaningful achievements with titles like 'Crash Landing on You,' 'Hotel Del Luna,' and 'Goblin' on Netflix. Focusing on new channels including global online video services (OTT), they plan to serve as a gateway for global expansion. A CJ ENM official explained, "The Japanese drama market is mainly domestic, led by terrestrial channels, and there are few premium large-scale productions such as genre dramas for global OTT platforms, so there is ample opportunity for success."

CJ ENM has already achieved various results through strategic partnerships with Naver. Representative examples include 'Sweet Home' and 'Yumi's Cells.' They adapted Naver's webtoon and web novel IPs into films and dramas, gaining great popularity.