Amazon MGM Studios will double its investment in original Japanese films and series, Buddy Marini, the head of its Japan studio, told a session at the TIFFCOM market in Tokyo on Wednesday 28 October. He did not give a figure. The comments, reported by Variety and Screen International, were his first remarks to an industry audience about his plans since he took the job in March.
Key facts
- Amazon MGM Studios Japan will double investment in local originals; no amount disclosed
- Buddy Marini, formerly managing director of Warner Bros. Discovery Japan and chief executive of Hulu Japan, was appointed in March 2026
- Live-action The Apothecary Diaries, co-produced with Toho and starring Mana Ashida, is due on Prime Video in 2028
- A third instalment of The Silent Service, the series Awaken, New York, is due in summer 2027
Japanese manga, anime and novels are among the most sought-after sources of adaptable IP. More money from Amazon means another well-funded bidder for rights, crews and talent able to deliver series to an international standard, at a time when Tokyo is also trying to draw more foreign production.
What Marini said
Marini, who oversees film, series and anime production for the studio, said the aim was content that works first for Japanese viewers and then travels, because Prime Video members do not much care which country a show comes from. According to Variety, he tied the extra spending directly to bringing quality up to global standards. Asked how Japanese IP is budgeted with a global audience in mind, he said, as Screen reported, that the company has to spend the money to satisfy that audience, while the amount depends on the subject.
He also described the studio’s approach to development as reverse engineering: creative staff work with Japanese screenwriters from the start to shape stories that can hold a global audience.
The slate
The biggest title named was The Apothecary Diaries, a live-action version of Hyūganatsu’s light novels, which Screen says have sold more than 57 million copies in 16 languages. Marini said the series had been made entirely in Japan with local crews, and that well-loved IP leaves little room for error with fans. Variety also reported a live-action adaptation of the makeup-artist manga Bless.
The Silent Service, adapted from Kaiji Kawaguchi’s submarine manga with Toho, was the most-watched series Amazon MGM Studios produced in Japan in 2024, according to Screen. Its feature sequel, The Silent Service: Battle of the Arctic, took ¥1.15bn ($7.3m) in Japanese cinemas in 2025, according to the producers’ association Eiren, converted at the ECB rate on 31 December 2025 of about ¥157 to the dollar. Marini said keeping that level of quality was hard.
Amazon has been adding local commissioning teams in other markets this autumn, including a new head of German originals at Prime Video.
Who else was on stage
The session, Unlocking the Global Potential of Japanese IP, was organised by the Motion Picture Association and UniJapan. Shinzo Matsuhashi, chief executive of Credeus and producer of Kokuho, the Kingdom films and The Silent Service, has seen the films he produced pass ¥100bn ($638m at the same rate) in cumulative box office this year, according to TIFFCOM. Steven Maeda, an executive producer of Netflix’s One Piece, said Netflix had first wanted the series made as cheaply as possible and had to be persuaded that fans would reject a low-budget version.
The same TIFFCOM week brought the AniBiz licensing platform backed by Toei Animation, TBS and TV Tokyo, and a plan for a Japan IP Market at the Marché du Film in 2027.
Our reading
Doubling from an undisclosed base tells outsiders little about scale, but the direction is clear, and the 2028 date for The Apothecary Diaries shows how long these projects take. For Japanese producers and rights holders, the practical point is that Amazon is now commissioning for the global service rather than the domestic one, which favours established IP and producers with track records like Matsuhashi’s. The next evidence will be new commissions announced with budgets or partners attached, and whether Netflix answers in kind. More on our Amazon MGM Studios and TIFFCOM pages.