In a significant move to expand its international footprint, Disney+ has entered into a multi-year co-development agreement with The Seven, a Tokyo-based production studio owned by TBS Holdings. This partnership, which marks Disney’s first of its kind with a Japanese production company, aims to bring local live-action dramas to the global stage.
The arrangement represents a strategic evolution for the streaming service. Rather than simply acquiring finished content, Disney’s team will participate in development from the earliest stages, working alongside The Seven to produce original Japanese-language series intended for an international audience.
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The Seven has already established its reputation as a formidable player in the streaming era, having produced the successful series Alice in Borderland. Under the new agreement, the studio will propose a pipeline of original intellectual property, including both fresh concepts and adaptations of existing literary works. The companies intend to adopt a long-term approach to building their development slate, signalling a desire to move beyond one-off productions.
Carol Choi, the Executive Vice President of Original Content Strategy for Disney in the Asia-Pacific region, expressed enthusiasm for the deal. “The opportunity to work even more closely with Japan’s vibrant creative community is what excites us most,” she stated. “We want to develop stories that capture the country’s unique voice and imagination.”
The Global Appetite for Japanese Storytelling
This collaboration arrives at a time when the global hunger for Japanese media is at a peak. The success of international hits such as FX’s Shogun—a historical drama filmed in Japanese—has demonstrated that domestic content can transcend language barriers to achieve massive success in the West.
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Katsuaki Setoguchi, the President and CEO of The Seven, views the deal as a critical moment for the studio’s ambitions. “We are committed to continuously creating innovative content from Japan that captivates the world,” Setoguchi said. He noted that the partnership would allow the company to leverage Disney’s distribution network to ensure that Japanese storytelling reaches a far wider viewership than was previously possible.
What to Expect Next
The specifics of the shows, including genre and plot, remain under wraps, but the focus is clearly on live-action drama. For the industry, this signals a further consolidation of Japanese production houses as global entities rather than purely domestic ones. With Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) having recently invested in American studios such as Legendary Entertainment, the message is clear: the Japanese screen industry is looking outward, and Disney is eager to facilitate that expansion.
