{"id":43027,"date":"2026-06-18T10:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T10:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/43027\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T10:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T10:13:08","slug":"streamers-tip-japan-live-action-chinese-microdrama-as-new-trends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/43027\/","title":{"rendered":"Streamers Tip Japan Live-Action, Chinese & Microdrama As New Trends"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAPAC chiefs for Netflix<\/a>, Prime Video<\/a>, Disney<\/a> and Warner Bros<\/a> Discovery delivered their verdicts on the next hot content trends in Asia during an APOS<\/a> panel. They also discussed their content and distribution strategies for Asia Pacific, now the streaming wars have settled and it\u2019s been ten years since the disruptors \u2013 Netflix and Prime Video \u2013 launched across the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAll agreed that Japanese live action was a trend to watch, while Chinese and Thai-language content was also noted as up-and-coming. \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing is that there\u2019s a dormant fandom waking up when it comes to Japanese live action and\u00a0Chinese-language content,\u201d said Minyoung Kim,\u00a0Vice President of Content for Asia (ex-India).<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere are\u00a0always these shows that reignite the fans\u2019 passion for these stories. We\u2019re also seeing that the Thai industry is just so good at coming up with new stories and high production value, so I think Thai content also has a lot of potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGaurav Gandhi, Vice President, APAC and ANZ, Prime Video, said: \u201cWe\u2019re seeing\u00a0growth across multiple categories, but of course you can see the impact of Japanese content happening around the world. We\u2019re also increasingly seeing Indian drama travel extensively and becoming quite mainstream globally.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso speaking on the panel were\u00a0James Gibbons, President, APAC, Warner Bros Discovery, and Tony Zameczkowski, Disney APAC\u2019s Senior Vice President & General Manager, Direct-to-Consumer. Both agreed on the potential of Japanese content, with Gibbons also mentioning microdrama, which has been a major talking point at APOS: \u201cI\u2019m going to go for the vertical video format, simply because the demographics and devices are just driving it faster.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tZameczkowski also namechecked microdrama as a format to watch, as well as noting that the lines are blurring between different kinds of creators: \u201cWe\u2019re starting to see more creators from platforms like YouTube coming into the mainstream and the rise of vertical video is also really interesting. We recently launched Verts in the U.S. which enables users to browse in a vertical way, and we feel it\u2019s going to be a very powerful discovery tool on Disney+.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe four APAC chiefs all discussed what has been working for them so far in content terms across Asia. All four have found that authentic local-language content is more likely to travel than making something artificially designed for global markets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAll have had different priorities over the first decade of APAC streaming: Disney+ has focused on Japan and Korea, with ESPN and sports also a key component of the content mix; Prime Video has invested more in Japan and India, and has recently started ramping up its Korean content investment; and Netflix has been active in all of the above, in addition to Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, and more recently Philippines, in Southeast Asia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I first started, the team in the U.S. was called \u2018Global Original\u2019 and we were called \u2018International Original\u2019, said Netflix\u2019s Kim. \u201cWhat I told them at that time was, \u2018For me, you\u2019re international. Why are you global and why are we international?\u2019 That really shifted the mind of a lot of our leaders in the U.S. and around the world where we operate.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOne of the things I\u2019m most proud of in our organization is that we have leads for APAC, EMEA and UCAN reporting directly into our C-suite. We know it\u2019s really important that we treat each of these regions differently and have the right strategy to grow them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHBO Max has been quieter on the local content front during the Paramount acquisition process, but announced five new titles from Taiwan, Philippines and Indonesia at APOS, including Erik Matti\u2019s Call My Manager remake. Warner Bros has been producing local content for many years in Japan and is getting more active in Korea through a partnership with CJ ENM and its streamer TVing.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re trying to focus very clearly on premium scripts and storytelling that generates social conversation; that\u2019s the area we\u2019re focused on and it\u2019s been important to establish that,\u201d said Gibbons, when asked about content strategy for the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOn the distribution side, we\u2019ve adopted a variety of models, so HBO Max is available as an app in Southeast Asian markets, but also on JioStar in India as an integrated service, and also in different bundles around the region.\u201d (Warner Bros Discovery also launched<\/a> HBO Max on Prime Video in New Zealand this week).<\/p>\n

\n\tGibbons also talked about the strength of Warner Bros\u2019 Western IP across Asia Pacific markets. \u201cWhile it\u2019s true that global content consumption has been under pressure in this region, there are very strong fan bases for some Western IP. In our case, that has been around the Harry Potter movies with Japan and China among the top markets globally.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHe added that while the new Harry Potter TV series being released at the end of the year would bring a new generation of fans, \u201cit\u2019s equally as important that we\u2019re rolling out the theme park in Tokyo and there\u2019s another one coming to Shanghai. It\u2019s critical that your fans consume the IP not only through video, but through products and real life experiences as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe four execs also noted how Asia is increasingly regarded as a hotbed of innovation. Gandhi said: \u201cWe\u2019ve also talked here [at APOS] about our different tiers in India across mobile plans, and how we serve individual customers, and those are playbooks we invented here and are going elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re also seeing Asian content travel really well. If you think about Asia\u2019s soft power and how that\u2019s played out over the past few years, the trend initially was that global content would traditionally come from the U.S. and Europe, but now its coming from Korea, Japan and India.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tZameczkowski said Disney is \u201cjust getting started\u201d in the region. \u201cAPAC is a very large opportunity, and it\u2019s a fragmented region, and we\u2019ve spoken about the importance of local content. But it\u2019s also about localizing your existing content, your U.S. content, making sure you\u2019re relevant for your customers, and making sure you have the right bundle and local partnerships as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAPOS is taking place at the Mulia Resort in Bali, Indonesia, from June 16-18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"APAC chiefs for Netflix, Prime Video, Disney and Warner Bros Discovery delivered their verdicts on the next hot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[30564,7682,8,17,6904,2443,30565],"class_list":["post-43027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-apos","tag-disney","tag-japan","tag-japanese","tag-netflix","tag-prime-video","tag-warner-bros"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}