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Oshi is actively developing a transparent digital platform designed to unite anime creators, fans, and licensees in meaningful collaboration. Fans enjoy early access to exclusive content and behind-the-scenes insights, deepening their connections to the anime they cherish. Creators can directly engage with global audiences and international brands, significantly enhancing their visibility worldwide. For licensees, Oshi delivers detailed audience analytics and engagement data, streamlining and improving licensing decisions.
Anime is thriving globally, but the industry’s foundation must quickly adapt to sustain this growth. While poised to surpass $30 billion globally by 2030, anime still faces significant structural challenges. For instance, licensing deals often exclude global fans and international players alike because the processes are complicated, unclear, and difficult to navigate, especially for smaller companies or international audiences. The situation is akin to an exclusive club with ambiguous rules, leaving many uncertain about how to gain entry. Many adaptations remain incomplete, leaving fans disappointed and creators unable to fully share their vision. For anime to truly flourish, the systems behind it need thoughtful improvement and greater transparency.
Oshi emerged precisely to bridge these gaps by thoughtfully evolving the systems behind anime production. Built on transparency and collaboration, Oshi creates an ecosystem where fans, creators, and licensees collaborate directly through innovative licensing and fan contributions. Together, we’ll sustain creativity, improve access, and complete stories worth telling.
To showcase our platform's effectiveness, we pursued securing master licensing rights for a prominent anime IP with great determination and strategic planning. Traditional licensing negotiations in Japan typically span eighteen months or more, but the Oshi team chose a proactive and culturally sensitive approach. Starting in mid-2024, our founders made frequent trips to Tokyo, carefully navigating complex cultural dynamics, building essential personal relationships, and earning trust with industry stakeholders.
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Leveraging credibility from past collaborations significantly accelerated this usually lengthy process. A key partner in this effort was Kasagi Labo, a respected company known for creative anime merchandise produced under their Kissui brand, such as the popular 'Kokoro' figurine. This rapid achievement highlights our team's agility, determination, and unwavering commitment.
Selecting this particular anime IP was a strategic decision, driven by its strong global appeal and the unique flexibility it provided in fully realizing Oshi’s innovative licensing model. Beyond strategy, the choice was deeply personal to our team, resonating with their long-standing passion and emotional investment in ensuring its success.
Oshi Chief Executive Officer Kendrick Wong explained,
“This anime was special to me and the whole team. We'd been fans of the series for more than a decade, and seeing that there was still a passionate community who loved it as much as we did made us even more excited to bring it back.”
Early positive responses from external partners and enthusiastic support from investors further validated our strategic direction, underscoring the industry’s readiness and appetite for meaningful change.
Reflecting on this pivotal milestone, Kendrick Wong emphasized the team's resolve:
“Every challenge we encountered strengthened our determination. Securing this licensing deal swiftly required intense effort, clear vision, and deep dedication. This moment clearly demonstrated that our vision for global anime licensing is achievable and already underway. It showed us we're moving in the right direction at Oshi.”
This accomplishment embodies Oshi’s core mission: making anime licensing open, global, and genuinely fan-driven.
Creating an anime IP is demanding, often requiring immense dedication from talented animators and creators. Yet despite this effort, many creators rarely see their work's direct impact on the fans who cherish it. Traditionally, intermediaries such as major streaming platforms and global entertainment companies create distance between creators and audiences, leaving creators without a clear sense of how deeply their stories resonate worldwide.
Oshi bridges that gap by nurturing direct connections between fans and creators. Fans will be able to actively express their appreciation and passion through various community-driven actions, including submitting fan art, showcasing cosplay, and participating in interactive community highlights, among other activities. These authentic expressions of fandom significantly enhance the fan-creator relationship, creating a dynamic environment where fans feel recognized, valued, and deeply connected.
Creators, in turn, will benefit from meaningful opportunities provided by Oshi, such as openly sharing early concepts or rough sketches directly with fans before official releases. Alongside other innovative tools and experiences, these interactions help creators gain clearer insights into their audience's interests, deepening their confidence and creative clarity. Through real-time community engagement, creators can directly witness the enthusiasm, gratitude, and excitement their stories inspire.
By fostering these meaningful interactions and fan-driven celebrations, Oshi transforms the creative journey into a deeply rewarding and inspiring experience for both fans and creators alike.
Anime fans are among the most passionate in entertainment, yet traditionally, their involvement is limited to consumption. Despite campaigns and petitions, fans rarely see their passion translate into meaningful influence on anime’s trajectory.
Oshi changes that dynamic by making fandom actively participatory from the earliest stages. Fans will be able to contribute meaningfully through direct support, community advocacy, and engagement with promotional activities and community events. Imagine discovering a new anime through Oshi, following creator updates from initial concepts to completed episodes, and directly influencing special content releases. This is the anime experience Oshi brings to life. On Oshi, supporting an anime IP and its production could lead to such unique experiences, turning passive viewers into engaged participants who genuinely shape the anime’s community journey.
Participation is incentivized and visibly rewarded, creating a deeper, more meaningful bond between the anime and its audience. Fans on Oshi become valued contributors, directly rewarded for their early support, loyalty, and active participation through exclusive digital experiences, limited-edition collectibles, early access to content, and special production opportunities. For instance, if a series reaches certain clearly defined milestones of community engagement, creators can confidently pursue additional content knowing there's a tangible audience ready to support it. This structured engagement model responds to long-standing industry concerns by providing a transparent link between fan participation and tangible outcomes.
At its heart, Oshi ensures every anime success becomes a shared celebration because when anime thrives, creators and fans win together.
Licensing deals for anime IPs often unintentionally exclude smaller or international licensees. While legal complexity plays a role, the primary barriers are structural: smaller licensees typically struggle to identify where to start or whom to contact, while major licensors naturally prioritize larger, established partners. Furthermore, anime IP owners frequently lack the bandwidth or resources required to manage numerous smaller licensing agreements effectively. As a consequence, global fans often face delays or limited official access, resorting instead to unofficial channels.
Oshi addresses these structural barriers directly by providing a clear and accessible licensing marketplace. Its transparent, technology-driven standards remove uncertainty around starting points and contact processes, enabling licensees of all sizes to easily navigate and engage across multiple categories, including merchandise, streaming rights, gaming, events, and more.
Through carefully researched and purpose-built licensing tools developed by Oshi, the traditionally complex licensing approval process is simplified, empowering IP owners to effortlessly manage licensees and connect seamlessly with global audiences. From inception, Oshi treats anime inherently as a global medium, significantly reducing delays and region-specific restrictions. Its transparent licensing structure ensures rapid international accessibility, enabling fans worldwide to support anime IPs directly. This global-first mindset ensures anime titles aren't constrained by geography or staggered rollouts, fostering simultaneous international engagement and maximizing global fandom potential.
Oshi’s model aligns incentives clearly and effectively for creators, fans, and partners within a unified ecosystem. Instead of fragmented, competing interests, each stakeholder collaborates toward shared, collective success.
Fans grow alongside the anime IPs they love, experiencing a deeper emotional connection and ongoing involvement in each IP's success. Creators benefit directly from aligned incentives that encourage creative ambition, providing clearer economic rewards and greater artistic freedom. Licensees gain streamlined, predictable processes that simplify their participation, ensuring they can efficiently invest in and support anime IPs poised for global growth.
Oshi’s platform quietly facilitates transparency and fairness through blockchain technology, without taking focus away from storytelling and community building. The platform enriches the anime experience for fans, creators, and brands by prioritizing creativity and meaningful collaboration, keeping technology seamlessly integrated in the background. At its core, Oshi maintains a transparent ledger that clearly records contributions and rights ownership, ensuring trust, accountability, and smoother access to global capital and participation across the ecosystem.
Tech-driven platforms often arrive promising change, only to falter due to cultural insensitivity or superficial engagement with industry norms. Oshi deliberately avoids these pitfalls by collaborating directly with respected anime industry veterans. Among Oshi’s advisors is Masao Maruyama, co-founder of MADHOUSE and founder of MAPPA and Studio M2. Additional advisors also include Masao Takiyama, president of Animax and former president of Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan, and Yasushi Uchida, former COO of Gonzo, board member of TwinEngine, and strategic advisor to Genco. Tony S. Izumi, former CEO of MADHOUSE Beijing, serves internally as Oshi’s Chief Animation Officer. Their collective expertise ensures Oshi remains deeply aligned with traditional anime practices, nuanced cultural expectations, and authentic industry insights.
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With this foundation, Oshi complements and enhances established practices. It introduces systems that support growth while honoring tradition. Recognizing anime’s deep cultural roots, Oshi collaborates with established studios and producers to design systems that are informed by tradition yet flexible enough to meet the needs of a changing industry. Rather than replacing existing production structures, the platform introduces thoughtful enhancements that improve how anime IPs are developed, sustained, and supported. These systems expand access to revenue and global audiences while maintaining respect for the creative autonomy that has long defined industry standards in Japan.
Anime today stands at a critical moment. Challenges such as burnout, incomplete narratives, and restrictive licensing represent symptoms of an outdated model. Oshi addresses these challenges directly, introducing practical alternatives that will move the industry toward a more sustainable and equitable ecosystem for the future.
Fans move from passive viewers to influential participants who shape the stories they love. Creators reclaim creative authority, capture their fair share of value, and gain meaningful influence within the industry. Licensees gain unprecedented equitable access, welcoming global partners previously sidelined by restrictive gatekeeping. These fundamental shifts transform anime’s global trajectory away from short-term thinking and closed systems toward enduring creative freedom, equitable participation, and dynamic global collaboration.
Ultimately, Oshi is purpose-driven. It respects anime’s unique culture while addressing critical structural challenges practically and sustainably. Kendrick Wong explains:
“We started Oshi because, as lifelong anime fans, we sensed something important was missing. The deeper we explored, the clearer it became. Creators faced structural barriers, and passionate fans were losing their connection to the stories they loved. Oshi is our effort to rebuild that vital connection, empower creators and fans, and ensure anime’s continued vibrancy for generations.”
Oshi envisions a future where creators reclaim their voice, passionate communities drive lasting change, and anime becomes a shared global experience that is alive, accessible, and thriving.
