Joyce Su

Senior Thesis

4/27/2022

Mr. Stevens

Japanese ACG Industry Under Covid-19 Pandemic

I. Introduction

People are having a hard time since 2020. Covid-19 Virus had suddenly

appeared on earth and soon spread and influence the world. Many people are getting

nervous, and trying to stay at home in order to protect themself. At the same time,

some city tries to block the community in order to stop the spread of the virus. After

storing enough food and medicine and make sure everyone in the family is healthy,

people began to persuade their happiness and fun. As a result, many young people

enjoy searching on internet and enjoy the information’s in it. And above all the things

on the internet, Japanese ACG industry attract many of these young people, they love

to see those handsome character, cute animals or Pokémon and those exciting stories.

Also, the develop of Japanese ACG industry is interesting. In fact, Japanese ACG

industries shows it good ability to survive in the Covid-19 pandemic and gradually get

used to it, also shows its strong relationship with Japanese culture, and advertise those

culture to the world.

that is necessary to know about Japanese’s ACG industry is, ACG is a simple word

represent “Animation, Comic (In Japan, Comics are also called Manga), and Games.”

These three things, sometimes will also include Light Novels (Including Light Novels,

all those things above are called ACGN in short), is also named “nijigen”, or “two-

dimension space”, meaning a world that is flat. So, sometimes the character in ACG

in also called “paper human”. Although there is so many similarities and relative

history between Animation, manga, and games, they have different format and

economic features.
II. Literature review

Edubirdie and Chakraborty explain that ACG industry is one of the most

historical and important industries in Japan, dominant by broadcast of Animations and

sale of Cartoon books and games. Also, ACG is not only a kind of business, but also a

symbol of Japanese culture and witness of Japanese history. Moreover，ACG culture

and industry had already become a part of Japanese people's life.

In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic had effect ACG industry a lot. Forbes explain

that the Covid-19 pandemic had result in the delay of the animation broadcasting.

However, according to The Economist, 5 June 2021, Recent years, the Global

audience have more chance to enjoying the Japanese anime, and the Covid-19

pandemic further increased this process, which make Japanese anime and culture

spread to the whole world.

On the other side, nippon argues that the digital version of cartoon books become

more popular while the traditional books and magazine remain stable. Most of people

who read Cartoon books believe that they are not been affect a lot by the Covid-19

pandemic, some of them even have more chance to go to the bookstore.

The most famous Japanese games company, Nintendo, is also affect a lot by the

Covid-19 pandemic. Owen S. Good prove that the sale of digital games had reach a

record number level, and the require of switch is increase dramatically. However,

according to Xiling Wu and Jalen Lopez, the chip shortage resulted by the Covid-19

pandemic had caused huge difficulties of producing enough devices, and ACG is not

the only one affective. Wu believe that Chip shortage might exist for a long period of
time, so industry need to prepare for it.

Argues in Kagawa Masanobu and Lauren Orsini’s article, Japanese ACG had

strong relation with its culture. Such as “kawaii” which means something really cute,

or “Yokai” which represent Japanese monster and mythology. Those things are very

common and popular elements in Japanese ACG program. And later during the

Covid-19 pandemic, Japanese culture become even more popular.

1. History of ACG

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, ACG is a very successful and rich industry in

Japan. In 2019 animation -related revenues from tv, streaming and gaming rights, live

entertainment, cinema tickets and merchandise sales hit $24bn (The Economics,

2021). It also had a long history. “Manga first existed during the Taishō period (1912–

1926); some girls’ manga magazines of that era commonly depicted people with

exaggerated eye size, which is a symbol only seen in modern manga” (Edubirdie

2022). By the special and cute characters, Manga soon become popular, and many

more Manga is produced, and later many of Manga is adapt in to amines and games.

After the birth and develop of animation, manga, and games, during the post-

World war II period, many more manga and animations appeared when “Japanese

people gradually attempted to rebuild their nation from debris” (Edubirdie 2022). One

of the most important manga and anime artist during this period is called Osamu

Tezuka, famous for his work “Astro Boy” that talks about the story of a robot boy in a

growing industrialized future nation

Few decades later, ACG as an industry in whole, developed rapidly in the 1990s.

At 1991, Japanese is facing serious economic crisis caused by price bubble collapsed，

and this event eventually causes a wide spread of depression, anxiety and hopeless.

“The whole society was wrapped up in depression” (Edubirdie 2022). However, there

are many people trying to encourage people and slove all the difficulties. Japanese

Animation and Mange company, as well as the animator and the authors, “helped the
growth of the Japanese economy after the bubble burst” (Edubirdie 2022). During this

time, some important and historical ACG works appears, like Neon Genesis

Evangelion and Gundam. People believe this animation have the “ability to console

the depressed mind and encourage them to step out by creating miracles.” (Edubirdie

2022). As a sign of fighting toward suffering, ACG culture become critical and

necessary for Japanese’s people.

2. Before the Covid-19 pandemic

Today the ACG culture is sight around the world and fully industrialized.

“Similar to movie design, animation requires collective work of all departments, such

as character design, voice artists, as well as graphic designers. This process has even

grown international, as some companies prefer to conduct outsourcing so that they

could save more investments in improving graphic quality, captivating storylines, or

simply saving investments.” (Edubirdie 2022) and, in modern society, ACG finally

become inseparable, both as an industry and as a subculture. (Edubirdie 2022). In

another words, all the work of producing animations, manga, games had become

highly relative, and transform ACG from one to another is also become a common

and popular

Eventually, ACG industry and its culture had become a part of Japanese people's

life. Many ACG shopping center had appeared, such as Akihabara, the best-known

place to buy ACG related products such as pins with picture of animation characters

on it, and the world's largest comic convention Comic Market in Tokyo's Big Sight
international exhibition center （ Cochrane 184). Also, many ACG elements are

appeared on package of household items in order to attract the consumer. There's even

ACG characters appeared on subway. Undoubtedly, ACG had become an

Indispensable symbol of Japan.

1. Difficulties

However, just like many other industries, ACG had been influence a lot by the

Covid pandemic. For the animations, the most popular and famous part in ACG

culture, although it shows the ability to adapt the pandemic eventually, it still had a

hard time struggling on its Audience measurement and income.

The first challenge that Japanese animation facing is the delay of shows or abrupt

stoppage in broadcast. In Japan, animation used to broadcast on televisions, and

almost all the animation followed a specific time table. But in 2020, however, since

the stay-home policy, many of the work is shuttled down. More seriously, unlike the

imagination in many people’s mind, many of the Japanese animations are finished by

hand drawing frame by frame. “Hand drawings allow almost any expression through

imagery. Hence, animators can express unreal images that look cool once they have

mastered the necessary skills” (Ichikohji 2013). Although hand drawing is popular in

Japanese animater, it’s extremely hard to finish the animation without professional art

tool and animation team. Plus, many of the voice actor are test positive of covid, they

must stop working, and this makes the produce of animation slower. In the end, “a

handful of animation series that were slated to run this Spring 2020 are getting

delayed……The line-up was therefore disrupted as many shows had to be either

cancelled or delayed.” (Orsini, 2020). As a result, Japanese animation is facing a big

challenge. This graph below shows the change of animation market from 2006 to

2020.
 Graph 1 (Pan 2021)

Moreover, the offline sales of various animation related product, stages,

exhibitions, and other activities had been canceled one after another, the customers

and the profit greatly reduced, which has brought a destructive blow to the offline

marketing of the animation industry (Chen 2021). And cause a worse situation in the

animation industry as a hole. Eventually, the income of Animation industry decreases

not a big decreasing, 2020 is already become the first time that Japanese animation

industry decrease since 2010.

2. Things are getting better

The corrupt of the time table lead to the decline of animation industry. Many

people so hopeless that they do not believe Japanese can recover from the disaster.

However, still in the first year of covid, “as the world took up gradual recovery

starting from the mid-July, things seem to go normal for the industry as of now. Many

shows that had stopped broadcast have resumed. Many anticipated shows have been

aired. This has definitely been a sense of relief for the industry” （Chakraborty 2020）

Animation in Japan is getting better.

Another exciting news is, a Japanese animation move called “Demon Slayer:

Mugen Train” which premiering on October 2020 in Japan and mid-2021

internationally, become the “highest-grossing Japanese film of all time and breaking

Americas box-office record for a foreign-language debut” (The Economics, 2021).

Within this film, people realized that Japanese amines is still undefeatable.

This film talks about how Tanjiro and his friends board a train and defeat a

demon who tried to kill all the passengers on train after a fierce battle. The story that

talks about how people fight with the darkness and hopeless attract many people, and

give them courage to fight with the Covid virus and try best to think positive during

the Covid-19 pandemic.

The graph above shows the box office of Mugen train in 16 weeks measured by

hundred million yen. The line in yellow color. The red one is Spirted away, the green

one is Frozen and the blue one is Your name

3. The help of IT technology

Except the movie version of Demon slayer, its TV version is also popular over

the world. Since people are staying at home, they have more chance to know and

interpreted about online media and steaming media. “For example, Netflix have

exposed the global audience to an extensive library of Japanese animation. The

Covid-19 pandemic, which put many live-action shoots on ice, further increased the

appeal of animation to streamers……Netflix says that over 100m households around

the world streamed at least one of its animation titles in 2020, 50% more than the year
before” (The Economics, 2021). Also, steaming media have made foreign films more

accessible, which means Japanese animation on streaming platforms had spread to

many countries. “Therefore, the consumers have a chance to choose the contents that

they prefer” (Threechownon 2021). With the popularity on steaming media, an

opportunity for cultural exchange was therefore created. With the growing audience,

Japanese animation began to use digitization in their work and the develop their

international market. Eventually, with the help of steaming media, the Covid-19

pandemic had increase the appeal of Japanese animation to internet and global

audience！

Also, Computer drawing is becoming popular amount Japanese animator.

Compare with traditional hand drawing, computer-drawing-animation had more

advantage. One of the most popular technologies used is called 3DCG. This is a kind

of graphics that express three-dimensional space and objects by performing

calculations and rendering 2D images with a computer. 3DCG had some advantage:

Its equipment is easier to access, and easy to maintain quality of artworks.

1. Printed manga

Comics in Japan, or in Japanese is called Manga, shows some similarity with the

animations. In Japan, Manga is for people of all ages, instead of just for children. It

also has a mature and successful business production line: “Manga is published in

manga magazines such as Shonen Jump (dominated by Manga for boys) or Shojo

Beat (dominated by Manga for girls), multiple chapters at time, then republished into

tankōbon volumes”（Lee 2020）. As a result, the book stores play an important role

in Manga industry since the sale of traditional books and magazine will become the

majority part on its income.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, like Animations, printed manga is also been

affect by the pandemic. In 2020, “the sales of print publications fell by 1.0% year on

year, to ¥1.2 trillion: book sales decreased by 0.9% to ¥666.1 billion, while magazine

sales declined 1.1% to ¥557.6 billion.” (Nippon 2021). It is obvious that printed

Manga is not been affect a lot, plus the sale of printed manga is keep feeling for five

years, Manga seems do not have much struggle during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In fact, a survey about “whether their purchases of printed magazines and books

had increased since the pandemic” (Nippon 2021) in Japan shows that “Overall, 14.1%

said they had increased their purchases, while 75.5% were unchanged and 10.4% had

purchased fewer books or magazines. The reasons for increased purchases included

“more frequent trips to the bookstore since opportunities for dining out or other

shopping had decreased,” and “the greater amount of time spent at home.” (Nippon
2021). From all those data above, we can see that Japanese printed Manga shows its

strong stability during the difficult and fluctuation period, and even attack more

people to read their manga.

2. Digital manga

Also, recent years, digital manga appears and gradually took a part of the Manga

markets. “Hundreds of manga printed every day in Japan and some of printed manga

book was digitized into web manga. People then make translation of Japanese

language on manga into other language -in conventional way- to share the pleasure of

reading manga through the internet.” (Arai & Tolle 2011). The survey mentioned in

the previous paragraph also discuss the scale of digital manga in 2020, which shows

that “digital sales increased by 28.0% year on year to 1393.1 billion in 2020, Sales of

digital comic books increased by 31.9% to 3.42.0 billion.” (Nippon 2021). This

survey also argues that the sale of digital manga in the past five year is gradually

increase, which means digital manga is gradually become another important part in

manga industry. And since the Covid-19 pandemic and the isolation policy, which

lead to more chance to stay at home and searching on internet, pushed the

development and the spread of digital manga in Japan, and even around the whole

world.

Now, there are over 10 digital books platform in Japan. Although it is facing

serious Piracy problem and fierce competition with Korean comics, Japanese digital is

trying to find a business format that can help then enlarge their fame and sale,
including create a organize called “Authorized Books of Japan” which fight with the

piracy digital books, and build more VIP service system on digital website which help

to earn more money and attract new audience (Sanwenyu 2021). Today, the digital

manga is already a big part of manga industry, and in future, digital manga would

help become more popular.

The following two pictures shows the sale of digital manga & printed

publications, and also the survey about the opportunity to purchased printed books

and magazines:
 Graph 3 & 4 (Nippon 2021)

3. Health-advertisement-related manga

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Japanese manga is not only a way of

entertainment and relax, but also an advertisement strategy. Before the covid some

company already realized that it’s a good idea to use manga character to advertise

health-related information. “With their established storyline and universal recognition

by the Japanese public across various generations, anime and manga have proved to
be an ingenious, compelling vehicle to disseminate our message” (Naruse, Jindai &

Saito 2019). After realizing the advantage of manga and animation advertise, more

poster appears, and the characters who are really popular in Japan will stand in the

poster with a mask covered his face, and told people that how important mask is with

a really exciting slogan. This kind of advertise “has received favorable responses from

the World Health Organization” (Naruse, Jindai & Saito 2019). Also, during the

Covid-19 pandemic, some artist and animator made some artwork to advertise how to

protect ourselves away from the Covid virus.

For example, in Japan there is a popular science manga called “Cells at Work!”

(Or Hataraku Saibō in Japanese, create by an artist called Shimizu Akane) which

Personification the cells in human body into a group of cute workers. In 2021, this

manga updates a story that talks about how all the characters work together to fight

with the Covid virus and eventually help the body to become healthy again. This story

help people learn about how the virus spread and reproduce in human body, and some

of the symptoms and sequelae. This manga make Japanese people began to pay more

attention on Covid virus and make the scientific words easier to understand, make it

easier for normal people to know about the virus.

1. Online games

In Japan, Online Game is an important part of Japanese game industry. This is

one of the fastest growing games in Asia, and Japanese people enjoy to play this kind

of game. Although some of them enjoy playing games that design by other country,

their local game is still extremely popular in Asia. This means “Japanese online game

play an important role in international market. In fact, Japanese users accounted for a

23% share of global mobile game revenue in 2019” (Shinkawa, Irie, Tanaka and

Yokomitsu 2021). The majority income of online game comes from the virtual goods

in the games, “which by small amounts of real-world money are spent to purchase

virtual goods, new playable characters, or other advantages for sale in free-to-play

games” (Shinkawa et al 2021). With the growing advertise between players, Japanese

online game become more popular and successful.

Later, during the Covid-19 pandemic, People must stay at home in order to

prevent the spread of COVID-19, this had made games become more popular as a

safe form of entertainment. But unluckily some people spend so many times on games

that they gradually addict to it. “Addictions to online activities and video games have

surged in Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic” (Yada 2021). We can’t disagree

that online games can let people fell relax and escape from the anxiety, and the

“Covid-19 patients apparently increased their use of video games and the internet to

ease stress stemming from being infected. Patients were 5.67 times more likely to

become addicted to video games than those free from the virus” (Yada 2021).
Consider the necessarily of relax, games should not be criticized because of its

addictive.

2. Console game: Use Nintendo company as an example

Another important part of Japanese games is Console game. This is a king of

game that must to played on a particular device. Nintendo is one of the most famous

Japanese console game companies. And the most important of its product is a game

device called “Switch”.

Like online games, those console-game fans who stuck at home spend a lot on

variety games to. They have “the ability to make one-click purchases for

entertainment to pass time, will do so in amounts up to the price of a full game.”

(Good 2020). This popularity had created a huge boost in demand for the game

industry, and many new games appeared and become welcome all over the world.

Obviously, with a more immersive and impressive playing experience created by the

gaming devices, console games become a necessary part of entertainment in order to

escape from the stress of lockdowns. The Graph below shows the increase sale and

the popularity of switch.

For example: a cute and simple game called “Animal Crossing: New Horizons”.

In this game people can design their own island, and communicate with their friends

and neighbor, which allowed the player “to socialize with other players without

leaving home” (Kuzuhara 2020). Something more exciting is, this game is utilizing

with the Nintendo calendar and clock. This allow the climate and the environment in
the game can been change by season and introducing special in-game events

(Kuzuhara 2020). This creativity design attracts a huge number of users.

In another hand, since everything in this game is so cute that people can take

their time and completely relax in this game. They enjoy their life on the island and

love to communicate with the animals around their house. Actually, Japanese people

believe that those cute animals and lovely views is critical to help them relax and

enjoy the game. Eventually, “Animal Crossing: New Horizons hit 1.88 million

boxed sales within its first three days of release, increasing to five million boxed sales

by the end of June—making it the fastest-selling Switch title in the market so far”

(Kuzuhara 2020) . It is obvious that the Covid-19 pandemic had played an important

role to the success of animals crossing.

Graph 5

“Ring Fit Adventure” is another popular Switch game during the Covid-19

pandemic. In this game, user can defeat enemy through doing simple sports and yoga
poses by connecting with two devices. This game provides a chance of enjoying

sports under the isolation policy. Also, the interesting of the game method attract

many people, including who do not playing switch before. This is an advantage of

Console game: more creative games.

The popularity of game in Switch leads to the growing demand of switch. A

record year for operating profits of Nintendo was created by the Covid-19 pandemic.

In fact, “Net sales of hardware and software jumped 34.4% to 1.76 trillion yen.

Nintendo sold 28.8 million Switch consoles in the year” (Lau 2021). Obviously, the

Covid-19 pandemic had help Switch and Nintendo company won larger customers

groups and create a chance to receive more profit.

Graph 6

3. Nintendo’s Challenge
 Although the Covid-19 pandemic seems bring Nintendo huge amount of money,

it also results a severe crisis. The Switch is sold out in almost every store, including

online retailers such as Amazon. However, Because of the global chip shortage in

2020, the production of microchips hasn’t matched the significant increase of require

of Switch. “Global chip shortage could hinder the success of the Switch Pro—and the

current Switch, for that matter. All console manufacturers will struggle to fully meet

demand this year” (Lau 2021). Chip shortage become a serious problem for Switch

and Nintendo company.

The president of Nintendo Company, Shuntaro Furukawa had confirmed that

“the company couldn’t produce the necessary consoles to match demand. It’s unclear

when production will be able to match demand in the future” (Lopez 2021). Although

Switch become more and more popular these years, like other company and

businesses, however, Switch and Nintendo is still facing the challenges brought by the

Covid-19 pandemic.

Moreover, some scholar believe that the global chip shortage might extend into

late 2022, meaning Switch fans will likely continue having trouble acquiring consoles

games. Consoles and its chips aren’t the only products that is facing shortage during

the pandemic though. Computer parts and Car chips are also tough to acquire and

often significantly more expensive than normal (Lopez 2021). “The pandemic

prevention measures have disrupted the production. Various production factors were

restricted due to the pandemic prevention and control measures. Measures such as

personnel isolation, flight and port restrictions have suspended the production of chip
enterprises, resulting in passive reduced production capacity and shipments. Under

such circumstances, shipments could not be arranged on time since the production

capacity was affected by the supply chain constraints. Because chip producing is a

long industry chain which relies on efficient cross-border collaboration, but it is lack

of international prevention and control cooperation mechanism altogether” (Wu,

Zhang and Du 2021). Obviously, Solving the chip crisis is a hard and long battle, and

still require many efforts and collaboration over the world. But since Nintendo is

remain popular and upload new games continuously, plus the chip shortage is getting

better now, the company still have a strong ability to survive and adapt in the Covid-

19 pandemic and even do better in post-pandemic period.

1. Modern symbol: “Kawai” and “Iyashikei”

For Japanese anime, one of the most important elements is “Kawai”. This is also

a cultural phenomenon that indicate the obsession with cuteness. “The term loosely

translates to lovely, pretty, cute, adorable, etc. It is generally used to refer to Japan's

unique attachment to cute things or people” (Civil 2020). Many people believe that

these elements, or the Kawai culture, have ability to healing people (In Japanese, that

is called “Iyashikei”). An “Iyashikei” anime “refers to a subset of shows designed to

have a soothing effect on the viewer” (Orsini 2020). In another words, Iyashikei

anime or character is opposite to that anime that talk about fight or war which make

people exciting and crazy. Iyashikei represent the feature of calming and help you

relax, instead of conflict (Orsini 2020). This kind of anime and shows are usually

having a story and cute character, which are welcome everywhere in Japan.

During the Covid-19 pandemic and quarantine, many people try to escape stress

and depression through watching Iyashikei amines. Those Kawai characters and cute

stories makes them feel happy and relax. They hope that they can have the similar life

with the character in the amines, and this hope and wishes helps they to remain

positive and optimistic during the pandemic. Although “In most western cultures,

anime is associated with social misfits. But in Japan, it is mainstream entertainment

beloved by many” (Civil 2020). Kawai is kind of a symbol of happiness in Japan, and

welcomed by people from all the ages. Just like the game “animals crossing”

mentioned previously, Kawaii things had attracted a lot of people, and it is becoming
more and more popular through the help of the Covid-19 pandemic. In another words,

Kawaii, the Japanese symbol of happiness, had gradually bring its relaxing

atmosphere to people around the world.

2. Yokai and traditional Japanese culture

Also, the Japanese amines and character helped to spread the traditional elements

in Japan. Take Japanese “Yokai” as an example. Many Japanese ACG are influenced

by “Yokai” (means monsters). The variety Demons in Demon Slayer and cute monster

in a Iyashikei anime called Yokai’s watch, on even the animals in Pokémon, all

describe the life of Japanese Yokai. Amount Japanese people, those ghosts and

monsters are very popular and welcome.

Long times ago, Japanese use yokai and folklore to explain those strange

phenomena in their life, such as strange lights or unexpectable voice. Later, in the

Meiji period, the word yokai become more well-know. Yokai was truly popularized by

the manga artist Mizuki Shigeru, who folklore-based comic series Gegege no Kitarō

debuted as an anime in 1968, sparking a fad that introduced the concept of yokai as

popular characters to huge numbers of young Japanese.” (Masanobu 2022). These

yokai are usually represent some imaginary creatures, and having several fictional

background stories.

For example, at the end of the Edo period, a woodblock print toy appeared. A

single sheet that like yokai encyclopedia for children, similar to the Pokémon games.

The adventuring on a fantasy world and collect the various type of amazing creatures,
“with the goal of assembling a complete “Pokédex”—an encyclopedia of Pokémon.

This makes it a direct descendant of all those Edo-era playthings that were based on

yōkai encyclopedias” (Masanobu 2022). The Picture below is a part of “Pokédex”. In

other anime on manga, we can also see the influence and characters in Japanese yokai

mythology, such as the cute version of tengu in some manga. In general, Yokai

culture provide a broad topic of ACG and other Japanese artworks.

Figure 1 (Nippon 2022)

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the popularity of ACG industry and ACG culture

further increase the popularity of the Yokai. Since people began to spend more times

on animations or manga, they have more chance to know about Yokai, not only the

Japanese citizen but also the media user around the world. People began to interested

to those Yokai character in animations such as Demon slayer, admire about the

amazing shape and special ability of those monsters. Sometimes the yokai will also

combine with the Kawaii culture, such as Pokémon which are already extremely

popular around the world, and an animation called Natsume's book of friends, talks
about the story of a boy and his Yokai friends. Thus, people began to research and

learn about Japanese Yokai culture and even began to interested in ancient Japanese

history.

Figure 2

Some other traditional culture is advertised by the spread of ACG. For example,

Sakuragari (cherry blessing) is one of most important activity in Japanese spring, and

since it had appeared in so many Japanese program, Sakura had become more and

more famous around the world as a culture symbol of Japan.

Another example is Japanese traditional cloth and spring festival. During the

Covid-19 Pandemic, one Switch player had held a virtual wedding ceremony in

games animal crossing, "wearing" traditional Japanese dress. This amazed many other

players over the world. Later, “yukata (a casual version of the kimono often worn for

summer festivals) is been update to the game, and a photo contest on Instagram,
challenging players to wear their yukata in-game during the fireworks displays”

(Kasahara 2020). Summer festival, as a Japanese traditional activity, had therefore

spread to a boarder world. In another words, the Covid-19 pandemic help to advertise

and spread the Japanese traditional culture to the world.

Japanese ACG industries, which represent Animation, Comic books and games,

is a historical and representative industry in Japan. Just like many other industries,

ACG had been affect a lot under the Covid-19 pandemic and quarantine policy.

At first, the quarantine policy had led to the chaos of animation time table and

therefore result to the decline of animation industry, but this policy also caused the

flourish of steaming media and digital product. Eventually, online anime and comic

books become more accessible and popular, making animation and manga began to

recover. Also, some animator began to create story related to the pandemic or story

that encourage people fight with the difficulties during the covid.

For games, since playing games can makes people relax and escape from the

street brought by the Covid-19 pandemic, or have fun and do exercise when they are

isolated at home, Switch become more and more popular. This popularity help

Nintendo company earn many moneys, but eventually the production of devices under

the chip crisis and pandemic cannot fit with the huge require of Switch, which bring a

huge challenge to Nintendo company. Now Nintendo is still upload new games and

trying to maintain its popularity, in fact there are still a lot of people fascinating with

Switch and enjoying playing it.

In General, Japanese Anime, Manga and Games industry had shown their

amazing ability to survive in the Covid-19 pandemic, gradually get used to it, and

even become more popular in the digital platform all over the world. At the same time,

Japanese cultures had been spread to the whole world since this culture is really
common in their animations, manga, or games, and since Japanese ACG works had

attract many new consumers around the world. And eventually, the Covid-19

pandemic had made Japanese ACG industry and Japanese culture more and more

popular and famous on earth.

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