Kadokawa Employees Reportedly Excited At Prospect Of Sony Takeover Due To Issues With Current Leadership: “They Are Hoping That If Sony Acquires The Company, The First Thing They Will Do Is Cut President Natsuno”
While the potential completion of the Sony-Kadokawa acquisition deal has raised concerns for anime, manga, and video game fans around the world, the same cannot be said for the latter company’s actual employees, as a new report suggests that thanks to issues with their current leadership, more than a few of them are welcoming a possible takeover with open arms.
As previously reported, in recent weeks, the PlayStation parent company has expressed a confirmed interest in potentially acquiring the Japanese entertainment conglomerate wholesale.
If successful, this acquisition would grant Sony ownership over not just Kadokawa’s video game-related holdings, such as Elden Ring developer FromSoftware and Danganronpa stewards Spike Chunsoft, but more notably their anime and manga operations, which include Himouto! Umaru-chan anime production studio ENGI, and the home magazine of Bio-Boosted Armor Guyver, Monthly Shonen Ace.
Given Sony’s turn in recent years towards censoring Japanese works for overseas audiences and mismanaging their video game divisions (for an example, look no further than their shuttering of their Japan Studios subsidiary or their attempt to ‘fix’ Concord by just throwing money at it), as well as the potential monopolization risks posed their ownership of Funimation and Crunchyroll pose to the Western anime industry, their potential purchase of Kadokawa has many fans worrying that their favorite entertainment franchises will soon see a significant decrease in quality.
But as far as Kadokawa employees are concerned, a Sony takeover would be a welcome move – especially if said move would lead to a change in their allegedly ineffective leadership.
Providing personal insight into this positive sentiment, an unidentified Kadokawa employee explained to Yahoo! News Japan (as machine translated by DeepL), “As a publicly traded company, acquisitions are bound to occur, and the atmosphere was positive, saying, ‘If it’s Sony, why not?'”
“The atmosphere is positive,” he added. “We have no resistance to being acquired, and it becomes a topic of conversation when people ask us who we would like to be acquired.”
In providing an additional layer of context to the situation, another employee, this one a veteran at the company, told the news outlet, “The employees around me are very much aware of the possibility of an acquisition of Sony and are happy with the [potential] move.”
“There are a certain number of employees who are dissatisfied with the current administration of company President [Takeshi] Natsuno, who does not even hold a press conference when personal information is leaked due to a cyber attack,” they added, making reference to the ransomware attack that struck the company earlier this year. “They are hoping that if Sony acquires the company, the first thing Sony will do is cut President Natsuno.”
Interestingly, this is not the first time Kadokawa employees’ frustrations with Natsuno’s leadership have made their way into public.
One such notable incident occurred in 2021, when in response to being asked whether Japanese magazines (including some manga magazines) should continue to dedicate page space to photoshoots of gravure idols (non-nude models who appear in risqué photoshoots), Natsuno opined, “I really feel that we need to redefine the standards of what is acceptable for the public, [and] what is not, to be appropriate for the Internet age.”
“The publishing industry I’m in is full of ‘liberal’ [as in, pro-freedom of expression] people, but I really feel that we need to redefine the standards,” he added.
Facing intense backlash from fans for their President’s take, the company itself released a statement distancing themselves from his pro-censorship views.
“Although Natsuno participated in the program in his personal capacity, his comments were highly inappropriate for the Company’s President and Representative Director, and he deeply regrets them,” said Kadokawa. “The series of comments he made on the program have no relevance to the Company’s business operation policy.”
In apologizing for his actions, Natsuno ultimately agreed to cede roughly 20% of his monthly salary for a total of three months back to the company.
Though both parties are ostensibly working towards doing so, at current, the Sony-Kadokawa deal has yet to be finalized.
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