The Hollywood Reporter
I worked in public relations for the first few years, but then I started to look for opportunities in another dimension of the industry, which I really wanted to do from the beginning — international sales. Sooner or later, I got promoted by TBS Television when they decided to add a new international sales team for their movie output. So, I again jumped into that project and fully focused on selling their blockbusters for about five years.
How would you sum up the situation for Japanese theatrical distributors and cinemas at this stage in the coronavirus pandemic? It very’s tough. I think the big volume of local-language content the streamers are producing is actually shrinking the opportunity for Japanese theatrical cinema in many markets of the West. More people in Europe and the U.S. may be watching Japanese content overall, thanks to the streaming platforms’ output. But there is still only so much appetite for Japanese cinema out there, and the streamers seem to be gobbling it all up.