By Dwi Wanna 
At the annual Motion Picture Association (MPA) seminar held during the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), a consensus emerged among global industry veterans and Japanese government officials: Japan is currently the most coveted filming destination in the world, yet it remains hindered by a bureaucratic infrastructure that risks squandering its "golden moment."
While Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s administration moves toward consolidating its fragmented content-industry support under a single, unified entity by 2027, top producers and studio executives are calling for an immediate overhaul of Japan’s international production incentive schemes. Without clear, predictable, and accessible funding, they argue, Japan will continue to serve as a scenic backdrop for projects that ultimately decide to shoot elsewhere.
The State of Play: From "Tokyo Vice" to Global Ambitions
The seminar highlighted the contrast between Japan’s cultural allure and its economic accessibility. Alex Boden, the London-based producer behind HBO Max’s Tokyo Vice, provided a sobering assessment of the current landscape. Having spent two years in Japan to film two seasons of the acclaimed series, Boden has witnessed firsthand the evolution—and the stagnation—of Japan’s financial incentives.
"Japan is the hottest country in the world at the moment," Boden told the audience. "Everyone seems to be in Japan or visiting Japan tomorrow." However, he warned that the current incentive, known as IP360, is plagued by barriers that effectively lock out the very independent films and mid-sized co-productions that could sustain a vibrant local ecosystem.
The core of the issue lies in the minimum spend threshold, which has been raised to JPY 800 million (approximately $5.1 million). For many independent filmmakers, whose budgets typically range between $1.5 million and $3 million, this threshold is insurmountable. Furthermore, the incentive system relies on a subjective, panel-based approval process rather than an automatic, criteria-driven one.
"How does a producer know that they can count on the Japan incentive in advance?" Boden asked. "That’s the question, and we need a solution."
A Chronology of Policy Evolution
The current friction is the result of years of incremental—and often disjointed—policy adjustments. The path to the present state can be traced back to 2020, when Japan initiated a research program aimed at gauging the viability of incentivizing foreign productions. Tokyo Vice was among the early projects to participate in this testing phase.
Following this, the government introduced the J-LOD (Japan Content Localization and Distribution) incentive, a precursor to the current IP360 scheme. While these programs demonstrated a growing awareness of the need to compete with global production hubs, they were launched in a piecemeal fashion across different government ministries.
The result has been a "siloed" approach to policy. Currently, content-related oversight is spread across the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This lack of centralized authority has led to what Deb Richards, Netflix’s production policy director, described as an "opaque" process for applicants.
"You can have a lower incentive, that’s fine, as long as it’s certain, as long as the criteria are clear," Richards noted. She pointed out that under the current regime, producers are often left to guess why their projects were rejected, forced to reverse-engineer the government’s priorities by observing which projects were ultimately approved.
Lessons from Abroad: The Case for Transparency
To illustrate what Japan could achieve with a more refined policy, Paul Muller, the MPA’s VP of production policy for Asia-Pacific, pointed to the success of Australia. Since June 2023, Australia has implemented a requirement that international productions must spend at least AUD 20 million ($13.9 million) while dedicating 1% of their budget to training local talent.
The results have been transformative. Since that rule took effect, over AUD 20 million has been funneled directly into local training, and the average cost of an hour of Australian television has increased significantly, indicating a more robust, high-budget industry.
Muller lauded the Japanese government’s recent willingness to shift from single-year to two-year financing models and its efforts to raise maximum thresholds. However, he emphasized that the "subjective" nature of Japan’s current approval process remains its greatest vulnerability. In a global market where projects take three to five years to materialize, the lack of a "guaranteed" incentive structure makes Japan a risky choice for major studios.
The Government’s Strategic Pivot: "Multiplication, Not Addition"
Recognizing these systemic failures, the Japanese government is embarking on an ambitious plan to reshape its content industry. Nakahara Hirohiko, director-general of the Cabinet Office’s Intellectual Property Strategy Promotion Secretariat, confirmed that a task force dedicated to the new, unified entity held its inaugural meeting on October 22.
This move is a direct response to a mandate from the Prime Minister’s office. The goal is to collapse the silos that have traditionally hampered Japanese film policy and create a single point of entry for international productions. The target is to launch this new entity by 2027.
Amari Akira, a veteran politician and former METI minister who helped draft Japan’s original basic content law 22 years ago, offered a candid reflection on the country’s past mistakes. He admitted that while the original intent was sound, the execution was sluggish, allowing South Korea to surge ahead in the global content race.
"In our day, we tried to do this through addition," Amari said. "This time, the government is doing it through multiplication." The goal is a massive expansion: the government’s public-private investment roadmap, released in July, targets JPY 20 trillion ($127 billion) in overseas content sales by 2033. This strategy treats content as one of the 17 core pillars of the national growth plan, prioritizing the attraction of large-scale location shoots and the enforcement of robust anti-piracy measures.
Implications: A Race Against Time
The implications of these reforms are profound. For producers like Georgina Pope, who heads production at Toho Tombo Pictures and has worked on major international projects such as Monarch: Legacy of Monsters and A24’s Marty Supreme, there is already evidence of positive change.
"I’m finding that Japan is really starting to realize the value of having a dynamic international film industry," Pope observed. She noted that while permitting for large-scale location shoots—such as closing roads in front of Tokyo City Hall—remains complex, the bureaucracy is becoming increasingly responsive to the needs of international crews.
However, the consensus among the experts at the seminar is that Japan must move faster. High-profile, Japan-set projects like Martin Scorsese’s Silence, the hit series Pachinko, and the blockbuster Shōgun all scouted in Japan only to move their primary production elsewhere due to the lack of a clear, competitive, and certain incentive.
"If we don’t fix this," Boden warned, "it will be a real missed opportunity."
Conclusion: A Vision for 2033
As the Tokyo International Film Festival concludes, the message to the Japanese government is clear: the country’s cultural capital is at an all-time high, but the window of opportunity is not infinite.
The industry is watching closely to see if the proposed 2027 entity can transform the "opaque" and "subjective" system of today into a transparent, predictable, and world-class incentive structure. If the government can successfully integrate the training models seen in the U.K. and Australia, and replace bureaucratic hurdles with an automatic, criteria-based approval system, the path to JPY 20 trillion in exports may be more than just a political target—it could be a reality.
As Paul Muller concluded, if the government delivers on these structural promises, the growth of the Japanese film industry is "well within scope and well achievable." The question remains whether the government’s newfound sense of urgency can outpace the traditional inertia of the Japanese state. For now, the world’s cameras are pointed toward Japan, waiting to see if it will finally open its doors for good.
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