Comisma and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank plan an anime production fund aimed at investors shut out of production committees
The GANMA! operator and the trust bank signed a basic agreement on October 28 for a fund that will mainly back anime productions. Reports put its target at 10 billion yen by the end of fiscal 2027, spread over about 10 projects.
Ten billion yen, roughly US$63.4 million, is the figure attached to a new attempt to change who pays for anime.
On October 28, the IP company Comisma and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank reached a basic agreement on a fund whose money will go chiefly into anime productions, set up and run by the two of them jointly. Their own announcement left the fine print for later, but reporting cited by MyAnimeList says the partners want 10 billion yen under management before fiscal 2027 is out, enough to back around 10 projects over three years. Investors would be paid from a cut of broadcast-rights fees and merchandise sales.
Why a fund, and why now
Most anime is still financed through production committees, in which publishers, broadcasters, distributors and ad agencies each put money into a title in return for a share of its rights. The arrangement spreads risk, but it can make decisions slow and leaves the rights divided among several companies.
The new fund is pitched at the people that system tends to leave out: companies curious about anime but without an easy way in, overseas investors, and individuals. The partners say they want to put more risk capital in front of productions and, in doing so, raise what creators earn.
The backdrop is a market growing faster than studios can keep up with. According to the Association of Japanese Animations' Anime Industry Report 2025, Japan's anime market set a new high in 2024 at above 3.8 trillion yen, with overseas streaming and merchandise doing much of the lifting. Tokyo has put content on its list of 17 strategic growth fields and wants overseas sales of Japanese content to reach 20 trillion yen by 2033, up from 6.1 trillion yen in 2024; for anime alone, the goal is 6 trillion yen, against 2.1 trillion now. Meanwhile, many established studios have their calendars booked several years ahead.
Who is behind it
Comisma runs the manga app GANMA!, which centers on original works, and says it has created more than 440 IPs of its own; it now launches upward of 100 new manga a year. Its best-known title, Yamada-kun to Lv999 no Koi wo Suru, has passed 6.5 million copies in Japan across print and digital. It has already become an anime series as well as a live-action movie, and it is sold abroad in 17 languages.
The company also has its own studio. Qzil.la, which Comisma fully owns, made SEKIRO: NO DEFEAT, a feature adapted from FromSoftware's Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice that came out on September 4, 2026. Its other credits include both theme sequences for Kingdom's sixth season and a single episode ending, for episode 11, in the first season of Chainsaw Man.
For the bank, the deal slots into a strategy its parent laid out in May 2026: Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group's three-year plan covering fiscal 2026 through 2028 names asset management as a central pillar for growth. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank brings fund arrangement and its investor network; Comisma brings IP development and production know-how.
What comes next
Nothing about the fund is final yet. The two companies say they will keep working out its structure, and no projects have been named.
