LINE Digital Frontier to invest 10 billion yen in Japanese manga

LINE Digital Frontier (LDF), the operator of “LINE Manga” and “ebookjapan,” has announced a plan to invest approximately 10 billion yen over the next three years to strengthen the development of original Japanese content. The investment aims to bolster in-house production, support production studios, collaborate with publishers, and assist individual creators.

A key component of this strategy is the “Global Drop” project, conducted in collaboration with parent company WEBTOON Entertainment. This initiative focuses on the simultaneous global release of new and popular manga titles in multiple languages to reach international audiences quickly and combat piracy. The first project under this initiative involved the webtoon “Ballad of the Hero,” and the Japanese title “Assassination Hero’s Path” is scheduled for global release in December.

LDF also plans to introduce “WEBTOON CANVAS” to Japan, an open platform for individual creators that allows for multilingual publication and advertising revenue sharing. LDF President Kei Mori stated that the company intends to leverage the global network of WEBTOON Entertainment to bring Japanese original content to readers worldwide.