Japan to Use ODA to Curb Anime, Manga, and Game Piracy

Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs plans to use its Official Development Assistance (ODA) program to protect the country’s cultural content, including manga, anime, and gaming, from piracy. The July 5 announcement stated that the ministry will select roughly 10 developing countries, including Vietnam and Indonesia, for the initiative.

The initiative is designed for a global crackdown push, eventually dispatching to countries across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Previously in May, Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi raised concerns about piracy websites during a meeting with Vietnamese Prime Minister Le Minh Hung, emphasizing the need for effective action against their operators.

According to an official from Japan’s Foreign Ministry, the program will support governments through legal expertise, copyright policy development, and human resource training aimed at curbing online piracy and counterfeit goods. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) will begin the groundwork in August, while full-scale assistance is expected to start in fiscal year 2027.

Japan's ODA Program Shifts to Protect Creative Industries

ODA is a long-running foreign aid program by the Japanese government that provides loans, grants, and technical cooperation to developing countries. Recently, ODA facilitated a loan of INR 16,420 Cr. (~$1.72M) to India for projects across health, transport, and agricultural industries.

Following July 5, the fund, which was traditionally used to finance infrastructural projects, will now also be deployed to improve copyright enforcement and institutional capacity in countries where Japanese intellectual property is widely consumed.

Under the initiative, Japan plans to dispatch legal specialists, organize awareness campaigns, and invite regional experts from partner countries to Japan for copyright training. A senior official emphasized that “it will also help protect rights when developing countries create (their own) popular content.” 

The initiative follows the recent increase in pirated content related to several Japanese intellectual properties. The country’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has revealed that in 2025, the country’s content industry took a loss of ¥10.4 trillion (~$64.1 billion USD) due to pirated distribution and counterfeit goods.

METI also reported that anime and manga piracy has tripled in the last three years (2022-25). Anime and video content was identified as the most affected segment, which increased from ¥800B (~$5.24B) in 2022 to ¥2.3T (~$15.0B) in 2025.

The ODA initiative lands just after a major piracy crackdown win in Vietnam. Vietnamese authorities arrested seven people on July 2 linked to HiAnime, once considered the world's largest illegal anime streaming operation. It also follows recent lawsuits from Nippon Animation and Crunchyroll, related to piracy and counterfeit goods.