South Korea’s CJ ENM agrees content partnership with Japan’s Toei Animation

Toei Animation is behind Dragon Ball Z

South Korean broadcast and production group CJ ENM has partnered with Japan’s Toei Animation to coproduce premium content with global appeal.

Under the deal, CJ ENM and Dragon Ball producer Toei Animation will collaborate across both companies’ libraries and create new stories for series, films and animation projects.

CJ ENM will be able to develop a Toei Animation IP into a feature film and Toei Animation will be able to develop a CJ ENM IP into an animation. A task force has been put together with creatives from both sides to accelerate production.

CJ ENM is behind films including Parasite and Snowpiercer, as well as series in the drama and entertainment genres like music format I Can See Your Voice. Toei Animation has produced a variety of anime projects such as children’s hits Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon.

Jongmin Yi, senior VP of CJ ENM’s Content R&D Center, said: “Toei Animation’s IP has great potential for transmedia or cross-media storytelling as it has an existing strong global fandom and appeals to a wide range of age groups. Through this strategic partnership, we plan to develop never-seen-before transmedia content in both Korea and Japan.”

Takashi Washio, executive officer and exec producer at Toei Animation, added: “We look forward to working with CJ ENM, a company that has been recognised for its borderless content and its influence in shaping some of the new trends in the global media entertainment landscape. We are confident the two companies will be able to create synergies to create global mega-hit content.”