One day, I received an e-mail asking May’n to be a guest performer at their first AFA. May’n had never performed at an event overseas before, but I remember receiving an enthusiastic offer and accepting it!
At the time, I had heard about the popularity of Japanese anime content overseas, so I was looking forward to seeing what kind of atmosphere an anime event outside of Japan would have. However, it was my first time in Singapore, a live performance environment, and I had no idea how large an audience, so I remember traveling there with a certain amount of nervousness.
On the day of the live concert, many audiences came and the venue was filled to capacity. I still vividly remember the audience calling out “May’n” right before the concert.
Incidentally, at that time, the penlight culture had not yet taken root in Southeast Asia. What most left an impression was that audiences coming from Japan handed out the penlights to audiences at the venue and taught them how to wave. Two years later, around 2010, people started bringing their own penlights and using them during live performances, just as they do in Japan.

I also consider myself more like a family member with Shawn and everyone at AFA than a relationship between the organizers and the performers. Seeing them work so hard to run the event with such respect for Japanese content and to make it so much fun, I felt a sense of gratitude as a Japanese person. There were many business arrangements that I could help them with my experience, so I was able to assist them without any conflict of interest. I am the type of person who expresses my thoughts and feelings directly, so I think that I have been able to express them to the AFA members in a straightforward manner. After that, AFA’s scale grew visibly larger every year, and the expansion of Japanese content in Southeast Asia made me feel that there was great potential for the market.

SOZO was a strong ally who believed with me in May’n’s potential in Southeast Asia. A local reporter who covered the event at the time told me that May’n was the first time a Japanese female artist had a solo performance in Malaysia instead of an event appearance. There were various problems, such as the power going out just before the show started, but I believed that the enthusiasm of Shawn and the rest of the SOZO staff would clear things up. Performances overseas can sometimes have unexpected problems that you don’t anticipate when you are in Japan. That is why partners are so important.

had the impression that more and more artists were trying to expand overseas in the name of “Cool Japan” after 2010, and as I participated in AFA and other events in other countries, I realized that if there are so many people who love Japanese content, then in the name of Made by JAPAN, I thought that if we could use Japanese creativity and know-how to produce and nurture the gemstones of those countries into stars, the local audience would be happy to support them.
Isn’t it a great story to see the person from your country become an active star in Japan, where your favorite content is?
Recording, artist photo and music video shoots were done in Singapore. The first recording took place a few days after the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011, and I remember going to the airport with the label staff, not knowing if the plane would fly.
I believe that what I felt through this project and through training overseas artists, as well as the experience I gained through joint management with the SOZO team, is the starting point for the current international management of HORIPRO INTERNATIONAL.

It was a valuable experience to be able to work with all the countries from the very first event, and it was also a great opportunity to learn about the characteristics of each country’s market.
It is no exaggeration to say that the basement of fans in Southeast Asian countries who have always supported May’n has been with this challenge.

In light of our mutual progress, I believe the capital alliance with SOZO was inevitable.
We did not want to do what HORIPRO wanted to do through a capital tie-up, but rather to give a bigger boost to the business that SOZO and Shawn were promoting through a capital tie-up.
In addition to AFA, we also wanted to help Japanese content and Japanese know-how take root in the Southeast Asian market.

In addition to the artist operation-based efforts to date, we also conducted a variety of initiatives for the “toC” market at the AFA showcase. We developed a concert and talk show for our artists and voice actors, and introduced our content at the booths and other various approaches.

I was proud once again to be a member of AFA and to have been able to walk together with SOZO without once having to miss a single moment of our 10th anniversary. As I walked the red carpet with Shawn, I was deeply moved as I fondly remembered the happenings of the past 10 years since 2008, and I was grateful again for the support of our artists and voice actors in the Southeast Asian market. Also, my expectations grew for the future development of the joint business with SOZO and AFA.

Having a stage with only artists and voice actors from HORIPRO INTERNATIONAL is that we had never done before in the long history of AFA.
The stage that everyone at AFA, May’n, Minori Chihara, Azusa Tadokoro, Ayaka Ohashi, and the staff of HORIPRO INTERNATIONAL worked together to create was very special for me.

“Cool Japan” developments centered on music have been covered, but in fact, international exchange of dancers has been active for a long time, and Japanese dancers have also gone abroad to perform in many countries. K-POP has attracted a lot of attention for its dance, and I believe that the Japanese dance scene has had a great impact on K-POP. I think it will be interesting to see how the Japanese dance scene will expand from various angles when it becomes commonplace to express dance with Japanese music in countries around the world.

The Southeast Asian market is the place with remarkable economic growth and a high percentage of young people, and we recognize that it is an important market with potential for further development over the next 10 years. In addition, we have been presenting Japanese animation and pop culture for the past 15 years, and the children who visited AFA at that time are now middle-aged, so we believe that Japanese content is gaining recognition among a wide range of age groups. In this sense, I believe that there are many opportunities from a different angle, and I would like to use the know-how I have accumulated over the past 15 years working with SOZO to develop new local markets in each country.

I know he is hard to say it. From my point of view, I think it all boils down to this word “The common sense of Japan is lack of commonsense of the world.” in both good and bad areas.
It can be said for both the reasons why unique culture grows in Japan and why Japan lags behind the rest of the world in globalization.