Aniplus

• 1. Introduction

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  Aniplus Inc. started life not as an anime company but as a television station called SBN TV, owned by a conglomerate called C& Group. When that parent company dissolved under a liquidity crisis, the station's future was uncertain. JJ MediaWorks stepped in, acquiring the station in July 2009 and renaming the company to Aniplus Inc. just one month later. By the 7th of December 2009, the Aniplus television channel was live. What followed was a steady, deliberate expansion across South Korea and Southeast Asia that would eventually make Aniplus the biggest anime distributor in South Korea. How did a company built on the wreckage of a failed broadcaster grow into a force spanning television, streaming, retail, drama production, art exhibitions, and annual conventions?

• 2. Building the Foundation

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  Seung-Taek Jeon, the CEO of JJ MediaWorks, took the reins at Aniplus following the acquisition, steering the company through its earliest years under new ownership. The Aniplus television channel launched in December 2009 and quickly became the core of the business. Within a few years, the company looked outward. In 2013, Aniplus launched a separate television feed for Southeast Asia called Aniplus Asia, and the following year it established Plus Media Networks Asia in Singapore to handle anime and Korean drama distribution across that region. That Singapore subsidiary would go on to operate both Aniplus Asia and a Korean entertainment channel named K+, which launched on the 17th of September 2014. Also in 2014, Aniplus moved into art exhibitions by establishing a subsidiary called Media & Art, signaling early that the company intended to be more than a broadcaster. The listing on KOSDAQ on the 7th of February 2020 marked a new chapter, giving the company public market access to fund further deals.

• 3. Aniplus Asia Across the Region

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  Aniplus Asia first appeared in a carrier lineup on the 16th of January 2013, as part of Thai operator TOT IPTV's launch. The channel reached Indonesia on Big TV in September of the same year, then arrived in Singapore on Toggle.sg on the 6th of November 2013, and on Singtel TV on the 14th of March 2014. Expansion into Malaysia came in April 2017 via Astro Go, and Sky Cable picked it up in the Philippines the following month. The channel's carriage history across the Philippines alone tells a complicated story: Easy TV Home added it on the 25th of May 2018 but ceased operations on the 30th of September 2019; Cablelink picked it up in September 2018; Cignal added it on the 4th of January 2020 but shut it down on the 1st of January 2024. By February 2023, Aniplus Asia also appeared on Unifi TV in Malaysia as a video-on-demand channel. Notable series carried by the channel include Attack on Titan, The Promised Neverland, and Lycoris Recoil, many of them aired day-and-date with Japanese broadcasts. As of 2024, the channel's titles are licensed to platforms including Amazon Prime Video, Bilibili, Crunchyroll, Disney+, iQIYI, Netflix, and WeTV.

• 4. Retail and the Aniplus Shop

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  On the 28th of April 2017, Aniplus opened its first physical retail location in Hapjeong-dong, Seoul, under the Aniplus Shop brand. The store concept blended merchandise retail with a collaboration cafe format, giving fans a space tied directly to the anime titles Aniplus distributed. Expansion was deliberate but targeted: the second branch opened in Daejeon on the 9th of July 2021, followed by a Gwangju location on the 19th of August 2021 and a store in Seomyeon, Busan on the 28th of October 2021. By mid-2021, the company had plans to reach five cities across the country within the third and fourth quarters of that year. A separate collaboration cafe, Aniplus Cafe Singapore, opened at Esplanade Mall in Singapore on the 29th of November 2019, with BanG Dream! as its inaugural theme. The Singapore cafe also sold merchandise tied to various anime series, extending the retail model into the Southeast Asian market.

• 5. Acquisitions and Portfolio Growth

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  February 2020 brought more than a stock listing. In the same month Aniplus went public, it fully acquired WeMad, a Korean drama production company founded on the 12th of June 2019 by Lee Hyun-wook, a former producer. WeMad's notable productions include The Red Sleeve, Love Scene Number, and Heartbeat. On the 4th of February 2022, advertising agency NEGO Company became a subsidiary. On the 17th of August 2022, Aniplus acquired industrial design firm Rowoon Company, taking a 67.11% stake, to strengthen what the company called its IP commercialization capabilities. Rowoon's subsidiary, Rowoon Labs, works on NFT and metaverse projects. The most significant deal came in November 2022, when Aniplus and private equity firm Keistone Partners announced a joint acquisition of 87% of animation streaming service Laftel Inc. from RIDI Corporation for 80 billion won. RIDI, owner of the Manta webtoon platform, reinvested 10 billion won back into Aniplus to support Laftel's growth. Aniplus ended up with a 56.38% stake in Laftel, with 12.5% held as a call option. Laftel streams Japanese anime alongside original Korean content and series adapted from webtoons, and the service expanded to Southeast Asia in January 2024.

• 6. Acquiring Animax Korea

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  Animax Broadcasting Korea had a complicated ownership history before Aniplus entered the picture. Sony Pictures Television International originally owned the South Korean anime channel, before selling it to KC Global Media Entertainment in 2020. In April 2023, Aniplus entered an acquisition deal for Animax alongside KC Global Media Entertainment. The deal received approval in June of the same year. The transaction price was not publicly disclosed, but sources close to the deal suggested it was approximately 46 billion won. The acquisition gave Aniplus control over what had been its second-largest rival in South Korean anime broadcasting, and made it the biggest anime distributor in South Korea. Media & Art, the event management and art exhibition subsidiary, had already demonstrated the company's appetite for adjacent creative industries; in 2016, it co-produced the Korean drama series Secret Healer, and by June 2020 it was developing webtoon exhibitions and pursuing overseas contracts under a platform called Groundseesaw.

• 7. Anime X Game Festival

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  Aniplus is also the co-organizer of Anime X Game Festival, known as AGF, an annual anime and video gaming convention held in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. The convention launched in 2018 and is organized jointly by Aniplus and Sony Music Entertainment Japan. Each year it takes place on a weekend in November or December at the Korea International Exhibition Center. AGF offers guest panels, concerts, exhibit booths, and collaboration cafes. The COVID-19 pandemic forced cancellations in 2020 and 2021. When the convention returned in 2022, Daewon Media and D&C Media joined as co-hosts alongside Aniplus and Sony Music Japan, broadening the organizational base and the range of participants the festival could draw.

• 8. A Shifting Landscape

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  On the 4th of October 2024, Aniplus announced that its Korean channel would discontinue several key services effective the 31st of December 2024. Live broadcasting, VOD streaming, and download functionality were all named as services that would be wound down. The company cited changes in the media environment, pointing toward its stronger ventures elsewhere in the portfolio. Laftel, Animax Korea, and other subsidiaries were explicitly listed as unaffected. The decision marked a significant shift for a company that had built its identity around that original television channel launched in December 2009. Aniplus already distributes its programs to external platforms including Netflix and Coupang Play, and Laftel's expansion into Southeast Asia in January 2024 points to where the company sees its next phase of growth.