The “Akihabara effect” is spreading, with buildings housing Japanese content retailers springing up in major Asian cities against a backdrop of growing popularity for Japanese content such as anime and games.
Buildings housing stores offering Japanese content are being developed one after another in major cities across Asia, forming Japanese content hubs in local commercial areas. Named after Japan's “Akihabara,” these sites are driving the concentration of Japanese content distribution in local markets.
Sociologist Nakayama Atsuo (中山 淳雄) says frameworks for cooperation and collaboration with other industries, including retail, trading companies and finance, are essential to dramatically increasing overseas sales of Japanese content. He points to cooperation across multiple fields as important for overseas expansion.
Tokyo's Akihabara in Japan is cited as the starting point for this “Akihabara effect” and is viewed as a model for the overseas expansion of Japan's content industry.