Message from the President

Five years have now passed since I became president, after many years of devoting myself to artist management. That time seems to have gone by really fast. Shortly after I took office, the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread around the world. In these turbulent times, when people have been forced to adapt to new lifestyles and ways of working, and with conventional wisdom turned on its head, I have continued to act in my capacity as an executive, thinking of the happy faces of all kinds of people, no matter what the circumstances. It is not easy to talk about everything that happened during these five years, and the difficulties that the whole world faced, but there are two results in particular that I can think of now.

The first is the heightened solidarity that comes from having a shared mission. In particular, during the pandemic, there were live concerts and plays without audiences, drama shoots where actors avoided contact with each other, and cancellations of live concerts in domes and arenas that had been prepared with our best efforts. Under the government slogan of avoiding anything "non-essential or non-urgent," we faced the feeling that society was questioning the significance of our existence as creators of the inspiring and impressive moments that drive people's lives. Even under such extremely challenging conditions, where advanced creativity is required, our artists and employees were able to work together to think through what they could do at the time and take on many challenges. I think that the experience of overcoming the pandemic togetherーby returning to our mission each time and building on thatーhas brought us even stronger solidarity than ever before.

The second result is the shift toward digital transformation (DX), in the sense of increasing the number of points of contact for communication. Until now, our industry has valued live and onsite experiences above all else, in everything we do. Of course, this is still key. But during the pandemic, whether we liked it or not, we could no longer express our work in real-life settings, and this situationーwhere there was no time to loseーhelped to accelerate our coexistence with the digital world. I feel that this was a very good opportunity for us to develop our approach to live-ism in a wide range of areas for the future. We have always worked with the spirit of breaking the status quo, but it is thanks to these five years that we have been able to elevate ourselves to exploration and evolution, and beyond that, to innovation.

Ever since I was a student, I had always wanted to do a job where work that I have been passionately absorbed in moves people's hearts and becomes a hot topic in the world; or work that allows me to hold my head up high as proof that I've lived, even if just for my own satisfaction. This has been the source of my passion since I joined AMUSE, and the corporate philosophy that "the only way to captivate someone's heart is to offer inspiring and impressive moments" has been my motto ever since joining the company. When attempting something new or taking on new challenges, it is very naturalーand importantーto formulate a detailed strategy envisaging business success. Even if the outcome is that it does not turn into a business, if it becomes a hot topic in the world as a piece of entertainment, then I still consider it to be a great success in a sense. This may be a characteristic of our business, but I am confident that, even if a single project does not produce financial results, by becoming a topic of conversation in the world, and eventually becoming a trend for people, it will create culture that will vibrant our times, and eventually return in the form of figures. This is because I feel that AMUSE's history is a series of hot topics spread around through artists and their works, and that this is how we have grown as a company. Of course, there are times when our attempts generate no effective blows neither for creating topical interest nor business performance. The great sense of frustration and chagrin felt at those times is what trains our hungry spirit to create the next movement. The Amuse Group will continue working relentlessly to take on the challenges of ensuring that its artists and their works remain relevant and vibrant the times.

There is one more thing, which I value in my daily life and always share within the company. It is to approach everything we do with a cheerful, energetic attitude, and a smile on our faces. These words are simple, but people naturally gather around those who are cheerful, energetic, and have a good smile. This spawns more friends and allies, forming a large circle of people. This is something that we may take for granted, but I believe that having a high awareness of this is an important quality for those engaged in the entertainment business, which creates inspiring and impressive moments for people. It is also a kind of pride. The ironclad rule for making people happy and making them enjoy themselves is that you must first enjoy yourselfーbe cheerful, be energetic, and smile. It is the inspiring and impressive moments we create that captivate people's hearts.

In 2023, we announced our Medium-Term Vision and Medium-Term Management Plan, which set goals for our 50th anniversary (FY2028). Our Medium-Term Vision is "Transformation into a production house that works together with every talent and takes on challenges globally." While we have continued to take on various challenges in overseas markets, the Japanese market is expected to shrink in the future due to the decline in population caused by the declining birthrate. Since the pandemic, the awareness and activities of young artists in particular have already reached overseas via social media platforms. Of course, the Japanese domestic market is very important, but to achieve growth on a larger scale it is also very important for we and our artists to stay aware of the wider world and to work with a global perspective. With this in mind, we have adopted the slogan taking on challenges globally.

At the time of AMUSE founding, in a room of an apartment building, we state ourselves as a "production house" where colleagues could huddle together like a family and immerse themselves in their creative activities. Going forward, we will continue to deliver the inspiring and impressive moments that we create through our circle of colleagues and allies to the world's great stage, just as we have always done.

Our target indicators are operating revenue of 65 billion yen and operating profit of 5 billion yen. By strengthening the discovery and development of new artists with a global outlook, creating content that connects Japan and the world, and developing services and solutions in cutting-edge technology domains, we aim to achieve record-breaking sales and increased profitability, while also becoming a source of global hot topics.

A little over a year has passed since we announced our Medium-Term Management Plan, and we are beginning to see areas where we are making good progress, and areas where there is room for improvement. One area that has been going well is development of original works of IP, films, etc. We are working hard to produce our production title lineup for the next several years, and we already have more promising titles than we set as our target in our Medium-Term Management Plan. As one example, the manga title Until I destroyed my husband's other family (co-produced with HykeComic) began serialization on the vertical scrolling manga comic platform "webtoon" for smartphones in October 2023 and gained popularity, ranking first in LINE Manga's overall ranking. In July 2024, it was dramatized on TV TOKYO, and attracted a lot of attention. We are currently developing a number of other titles that can also be developed in this way, and we hope that you will look forward to them in the future. We are also actively working on synergies between creative works and our artists, and development with an eye to overseas markets. Going forward, we will continue making bold and enterprising efforts as the cornerstone of achieving the Amuse Group's Medium-Term Management Plan.

In terms of artists' activities overseas, there have been various attempts, but BABYMETAL's success has been particularly amazing. I am proud to say that the BABYMETAL world tour, of 98 performances in 25 countries between 2023 and 2024, which drew approximately 280,000 people, is one of the most popular and audiencedrawing tours among Japanese artists currently active on the world stage. The mainstream way that Japanese musicians make it overseas is by combining their work with anime theme songs and the like, but BABYMETAL are an exception to that rule. Over the past 10 years, thanks to the originality and appeal of the band's character, musicality, and performances, through a series of steady live tours around world, BABYMETAL have gradually built a fan base that has grown into a global movement which has crossed over to many countries. BABYMETAL is a proud example in the Japanese music scene of the extraordinary efforts of its members and team over many years that have eventually borne great rewards. Last year, they spent a large portion of the year touring abroad, and watching them has reminded me that, in order to compete on the world stage, you need to be hungry in everything you do. I have been truly impressed and inspired by the way they adapt to their situation at any given timeーwhether it be in their preparation or travel, in harsh environments that are different to Japanーand face the customers who attend their live performances in each country. I would like us to actively encourage and support young artists to challenge the world, in order to develop such global awareness and hunger. Going forward, I would like us to incorporate more live performances, especially in Asia, as if they were part of Japanese domestic tours.

On the other hand, one area where we have not yet tapped the potential and where there is room for improvement is in our new challenge, the Life Culture Businesses. Against the backdrop of the growing global adventure tourism market, AMUSE is planning to commercialize the wonderful natural assets of Yamanashi Prefectureーwhere our headquarters is locatedー using our unique skills as producers. However, due to delays in planning and various other factors, we recorded losses in the last year and made the decision to withdraw from some of our businesses that had not taken off as hoped. While we are currently reviewing and revising our plans for this business, which has cultural and social significance, I would like us to continue working to give shape to attractive content and environments for peopleーespecially familiesーin Japanese domestic tourism, to eventually capture the expanding inbound market as well. During the pandemic, when we were not able to host live events, we experienced firsthand the importance of expanding our business portfolio. By securing a revenue stream separate from our core artist business, we aim to stabilize our business and lay the foundations for an artist-first approach. With new businesses, we will work to achieve success by making flexible decisions based on careful scrutiny of the rate of return on invested capital and other expectations.

I see the current state of the Amuse Group organization in terms of two axes: vertical and horizontal. The vertical axis represents the formation of independent teams that share ideas and passions, with each of our artists or businesses at the center. The stronger the vertical axis, the greater the level of independence, and the more colorful and clear the team color. In this way, the identity, talent, value, and potential of each team is nurtured, and the outline of the team's strengths becomes clearer. The horizontal axis represents group-wide collaboration across divisions. As this function increases, the feeling of unity throughout the organization as a whole grows, but it also tends to lead to an organization that places more emphasis on uniformity across the board than on team independence. Both vertical and horizontal axes are necessary for growth, and balance is key.

Until 2019, AMUSE was a company with the strong vertical axes, acting as a receptacle for the individual sensibilities and personalities of each artist and staff member. Moving into the pandemic, the whole Group had to support each other, which led to a rapid acceleration of horizontal strengthening. While this in itselfーas I mentioned aboveーhas been a major achievement for the past five years, we must work to create an environment in which artists and those involved with IP and content can work with even greater passion and responsibility, and fully demonstrate a strong sense of individuality. With this in mind, starting in October 2024, we introduced a new organizational structure. I hope that our newly established in-house companies and operating companies, spun off from our key businesses, will display their own set of sensibilities as production houses, with passion that is heightened by their scaleーwhich is as small and flexible as when AMUSE was first established.

Our strengths are generally regarded as our talented artists, live-ism that is based on real inspiration and emotions, skills as producers to create topical interest, and one-stop solutions within the Group, but in fact our real strength lies in the human power, such as humanity, of our artists and employees. Our job is to engage with people's hearts and minds and have many dialogs with them, to give shape to their ideas and plans and turn them into cultural swells. Our business' the most important things are imagination, born out of curiosity, and communication for actualizing ideas. People's performance varies greatly depending on the heat of their passion. AMUSE is a passionate group that uses the power of people to challenges all possibilities.

Only people can move people's hearts. Society is currently buzzing over the potential of AI, but the values that we hold dear remain unchanged. Even then utilizing evolved digital technologies and AI, people are still at the heart of the process. Only a person's feelings and talents can move people's hearts. If one person's heart is moved, it will eventually spread and move the hearts of others around the world. This is truly an emotional butterfly effect. The entertainment created by the Amuse Group will continue to stir the hearts of people in this new era, based on our belief that "the only way to captivate someone's heart is to offer inspiring and impressive moments."

We ask for your continued support and expectations for the Amuse Group in the future.