As 2024 draws to a close and we look back at the year of entertainment, it is obviously a year in which Japan-related works dominated the global market. This is a varied organization of works. Some were made in Japan, while others represented the country from a more foreign perspective and some were foreign works starring Japanese artists.
The trend was ushered in by Yamazaki Takashi’s Godzilla Minus One, which debuted in North America in December 2023. The Japanese production earned international acclaim in the industry, including an Oscar for Best Visual Effects at the March 2024 Academy Awards ceremony. It also became the third highest grossing foreign-language film in American history, and it achieved these results essentially without marketing or advertising.
The same Academy Awards ceremony saw Miyazaki Hayao’s The Boy and the Heron win for Best Animated Feature and Wim Wenders’s Perfect Days, starring Yakusho Kōji, nominated for Best International Feature Film.
Around the same time, the television series Shōgun, produced by FX, a Disney subsidiary, had a record-breaking debut and earned the longest viewing time in Disney’s streaming history. At the Emmy Awards in autumn, it took home a record-breaking 18 awards and continues to rake up accolades as we enter the global award series.
With such news echoing across Japan, I have received numerous requests from Japanese media outlets thanks to my long years of living in Los Angeles. Today they are asking: “Are people overseas interested in Japanese culture now?” The answer, depending on the case, can be either “Yes” or “No.” If we take the previously mentioned Godzilla Minus One as our example, the answer is much closer to a “No.”
That is because Godzilla was around long before Yamazaki’s film; this giant lizard is not something that just appeared out of nowhere. Godzilla has been a popular franchise for years, and we could simply say that this is a case of an outstanding installment seeing release just as the fanbase was expanding.
Then, in the case of Ghibli productions, we should also consider how the recent contract with streaming platform Max, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers Discovery, has brought past works into homes across the United States and helped expand this studio’s fan base.
This is also true for Shōgun. Hollywood didn’t suddenly remake the hit 1980 miniseries. There has been communication for years about the readaptation of James Clavell’s 1975 novel. Several creators tried to do so and, in 2017, a commission went into the pre-filming stages before being cancelled. At a time when intellectual property assets have become even more valuable than ever to film and television production studios, FX’s control was aimed at ensuring that Shōgun’s valuable intellectual property would not go to waste. It’s important to note that Disney hasn’t been worried up until this point in the process, as it didn’t announce its offer to acquire FX’s parent company, 21st Century Fox, until late 2017.
In 2018, Justin Marks, who had been introduced as co-writer of Top Gun: Maverick, was named display runner. He then contacted lead actor Sanada Hiroyuki and asked if he would also be a producer on the project. It marked a new beginning for the series, which ultimately took two years of filming and post-production.
In other words, the fact that Godzilla Minus One, The Boy and the Heron, and Shōgun all came out and achieved success around the same time is simply coincidence.
However, if we broaden our scope to take a look at other works similar to Japan, the answer to the question of whether there is a greater interest in Japanese culture is closer to “yes. “
For example, there is the series Sunny, which began streaming on Apple TV+ in July 2024. The acclaimed series, which has a score of 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, stars Rashida Jones, Nishijima Hidetoshi, Judy Ongg, and Kunimura Jun. by American screenwriter Katie Robbins, based on a 2018 novel by Irishman Colin O’Sullivan, of Japanese origin.
Many pieces set in Japan are actually filmed in other locations. For example, Shōgun was filmed in Canada, while Martin Scorsese’s 2016 film Silence was filmed in Taiwan. But series creator Robbins loved Japan and insisted that Sunny be filmed there. The crew went to film in central Kyoto during the COVID-19 pandemic, which ended up being a lucky thing as it drastically reduced tourism to Japan. Actor Nishijima commented that it was the first time he had been able to film on the streets of Kyoto in his long career in acting.
Then there’s the Icelandic production Touch, which represents the country’s candidacy for the 2025 Oscars for Best International Film. It is based on a novel of the same title written during the pandemic by Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson. It is set in Iceland, London, and Japan and stars Japanese actors such as Kōki, Motoki Masahiro, and Nakamura Masatoshi.
Ólafsson was instrumental in the creation of Sony’s gaming business in North America, helping to launch the PlayStation home game console as a key part of Sony Computer Entertainment of America. His roles took him to Japan in the 1980s and 1990s, which is when he learned of the story of the hibakusha, who play a role in this story. The novel only came out recently, but it attracted the attention of countryman Baltasar Kormákur, a director with Hollywood connections after working on the 3D title Everest and Beast. It was slated for filming almost immediately.
These are all recent works written by foreign authors who knew Japan well and who later encouraged other foreign creators and artists. These works reach the hearts of the public beyond national borders.
Another Hollywood production heavily influenced by Japanese entertainment is The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, which will have its world premiere on December 13 (in Japan on December 27).
It is an animated film through Warner’s New Line Cinema and produced through Philippa Boyens, who co-wrote the scripts for the 3 main films and the 3 films that make up The Hobbit. The director is Kamiyama Kenji, who also worked on the Ghost series. in Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Eden of the East, and the paintings continue with a distinctly Japanese anime flavor.
Boyens says that she did not initially think of there being an ongoing story that should be an anime. She instead thought of this story after others recommended making an anime. “One of the interesting things that happened in the creation of this film is that the form came first,” she explains. “There was something about this particular story of the Rohirrim that felt intrinsically right for that great tradition of Japanese filmmaking that is anime.”
Anime is, indeed, a great source of pride in modern Japanese culture and has huge numbers of fans worldwide. If we see more collaborations like this, I’m sure Japanese creators will also have more opportunities to work.
I’m pleased to see Japan appearing in even more foreign productions in 2025. One example is director Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Another is Marty Supreme, from director Josh Safdie (Benny’s brother) and starring Timothée Chalamet.
Filming has already finished on The Smashing Machine, and a top executive at production company A24 has said, “The scenes of Dwayne Johnson walking the streets of Japan are so fresh. I can’t wait for the audience to see them.” He went on, “The directors for both films insisted on filming on location in Japan. It’s impossible to truly re-create Japan somewhere else. It cost money, but there’s value in showing scenery you don’t see in major American motion pictures.”
I think he wants more manufacturers and studios, like A24, to film Japanese stories on location in Japan. 2024 may have been the year that sparked a change in the making. We deserve to keep an eye out to see if any of those upcoming titles end up being the next Shōgun.
(Originally in Japanese. Banner photo: Anna Sawai, winner of Best Leading Actress in a Drama Series, with Sanada Hiroyuki, who won Best Leading Actor in a Drama Series, at the 76th Annual Awards Primetime Emmy in Los Angeles, September 15, 2024. © Reuters. )