EMIKO IIJIMA

VP Anime Production, Crunchyroll

THR’S

(Japan)

Iijima might just be the Peggy Olson of the Japanese anime world. She began her career in the secretarial pool at Tokyo anime studio Pierrot, the creator of several world-famous anime series like Naruto, Bleach and Tokyo Ghoul. Iijima would spend a decade as a secretary at the company, but she also distinguished herself as the studio’s only employee fully fluent in English, an ability that opened the door to taking on an additional role helping out with the thennascent international distribution business. “I did well with that, so then I was asked to do international sales as well,” she remembers. “Then I started including domestic distribution responsibilities as well. Eventually, I was overseeing the merchandising division — and I was put in charge of a subsidiary company in China.”

Iijima’s climb through the ranks of the Japanese anime industry happened to coincide with a revolution in the content category’s global popularity. During her early days, she and her colleagues would travel to the U.S. to compete against other Tokyo studios to sell a single Pierrot title to Cartoon Network for the one or two slots the cable channel reserved for anime. “Today, Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon are all coming to Japan to chase us for as many of the best anime titles as they can get. It’s a change I couldn’t have imagined 20 years ago,” she adds. What was once a niche curiosity has become one of the hottest categories among Gen Z youth on a global basis, reflected in the blockbuster box office receipts that top anime hits earn in cinemas (Demon Slayer: The Movie pulled in $447 million in 2020) and the soaring prices the streamers are willing to pay for the most pedigreed series.

After nearly 25 years, Iijima left Pierrot in 2019 to join U.S.-based Funimation, which later merged with Crunchyroll in a $1.2 billion Sony acquisition to become the world’s largest anime specialty service. “When I was at Pierrot, part of my job was to find the best international foster parents for our IP. I found that Funimation was consistently the best parent — taking the most care to market and distribute our titles effectively.” Later, she decided to join the streamer — “to more deeply explore and contribute to anime’s international potential,” she says. Today, Iijima heads up Crunchyroll’s co-production division, working with top anime studios and creators in Japan to co-produce original anime films and series for the company to stream exclusively.

In much the same way that anime’s audience has diversified globally, change has finally begun to arrive within the industry’s production ranks, too. When Iijima began her career in anime in the 1990s, it was rare to find a woman outside of a secretary role. Although she acknowledges that women remain rare among the very top executive ranks, Iijima says “there are more and more high-level female producers and team leaders who are thriving.”

She offers this advice to young women launching their careers in the anime industry today: “When you are starting out, don’t be constrained by what you think your own preferences are. Accept every assignment and challenge without hesitation. Do it and find a way to learn from it. Eventually, this path will lead you to a landscape you couldn’t have imagined.”