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Kadokawa Corporation to Restructure, Dissolve Brand Companies

The financial news source Nikkei reported on Thursday that Kadokawa Corporation is restructuring its internal brand companies, including their respective editorial departments, in response to the publishing market cooling faster than anticipated. Some brand names will remain, but others, such as Kadokawa Shoten (the company's founding name) and Fujimi Shobo (its light novel brand company) will be dissolved. The company has not announced the full list of brand names it is dissolving.

The new organizational structure will consist of five departments: The Business, Life, and Culture Department; the Comics and Characters Department; the Magazine Brand Department; the ASCII Media Works Department; and the Enterbrain Department. Kadokawa will consolidate the editorial staff from its multiple brand companies into these centralized departments. The company began encouraging retirement for around 300 of its veteran editors from these brand companies last month.

In addition, Kadokawa is transferring control of the Enterbrain magazine Famitsu to Kadokawa's parent company Kadokawa Dwango Corporation's Strategy Headquarters Department, headed by former Famitsu chief editor Hirokazu Hamamura, with the goal of cultivating new business in the game industry, and as a "symbol" of the results of the restructuring.

The Shuppan Kagaku Kenkyūsho (Institute of Publication Science) reported that the publishing market was worth 1.6065 trillion yen (about US$13.45 billion) in 2014—a 40% drop from its peak in 1996.

In 2013, Kadokawa merged and absorbed nine of its subsidiary companies, each retaining its name as brand companies, and employing their own editorial staff. After consolidation, Kadokawa's sales increased 109.7% to 94.36 billion yen (about US$796.75 million) in 2013.

[Via Yara-On!]