'Attack on Titan' Kodansha Targets India's Gen Z With '370 Million' Push

The titan's advance planted on a 1.4-billion-population continent… Japan's publishing empire Kodansha goes straight for India

Kodansha, Japan's largest publishing empire, is raising its flag in the vast youth continent of India. This is not just a content-export play but a bold move—setting up a local corporation. Their preemptive push toward the heart of the world's No. 1 population powerhouse is set to signal a major shift in the global content market.

Unprecedented direct foray, a 'carpet-bombing' of about 200 titles led by 'Attack on Titan'

According to The Nihon Keizai Shimbun on the 14th, Kodansha will officially launch a joint venture in July, partnering with Japanese printers and companies based in India. Led by 'Attack on Titan,' which sparked a worldwide frenzy, around 200 mega-hit titles will be translated into English and Hindi and distributed across India. It marks the first-ever provocative attempt in publishing history for a major Japanese publisher to establish a local corporation directly in India.

They drop e-books, focusing only on the combination of 'intellectual property (IP)' and a physical fan base

The strategy is sharply differentiated. Kodansha is deliberately excluding its immediate e-book business. Instead, it will focus its firepower on diversified add-on revenue streams built around the publication of popular manga and children's books in physical print—managing intellectual property (IP), selling merchandise, and planning large-scale offline content events. The calculation is meticulous: transplant visible, real-world commerce and a strong offline fandom culture directly into India.

The explosive power of 370 million 'Gen Z'—capture the roughly 7 trillion-won-class animation market

Kodansha's decisive reason for choosing India as its base camp is the overwhelming pool of young people—Gen Z. Of India's total population, which reaches 1.4 billion people as of 2025, Gen Z, spanning 10 to 20-year-olds, numbers close to 370 million.

According to Polaris Market Research, a global market research firm, India's animation-related market is expected to jump to about 805.7 billion yen (about 7.7 trillion won) by 2032—rising 2.7-fold compared with 2024. With Kodansha launching a full-scale offensive to monopolize the continent's surging demand for content, attention is focused worldwide on what ripple effects it will create across the global entertainment industry.