I talked to the Financial Services Agency about the new corporate governance code; to Goldman Sachs about women joining the workforce; to Foreign Ministry officials about trade treaties; to an economics professor about fiscal sustainability; and so on. But the interview that stuck in my mind for many years after was with a manager at Kodansha.
My goal for the meeting was to learn about Japan’s efforts to increase its cultural exports — something the Western press had been talking about for decades. So I was absolutely astonished when the Kodansha manager told me that his company had no strategy and no plans to increase their sales of manga and anime in overseas markets. Even more surprising was his explanation as to why. “Americans don’t want to see Asian faces,” he told me.
