Characters from popular magazines, picture books and manga are licensed for merchandizing in Japan and overseas markets across a range of products such as greeting cards, posters, calendars, T-shirts, plush bags and food packaging.

Kodansha's unbeatable catalogue of manga and novels has spawned a host of hit TV dramas, feature-length movies, anime series, DVDs and CD-Rs. The live-action TV adaptations of titles like Nodame Cantabile and Hatarakiman provided a dramatic boost to the sales of the original manga.

In the 1990s, Kodansha won great kudos for the production of AKIRA and Ghost in the Shell. Recently, Kodansha collaborated with Production I.G. to make a special anime version of CLAMP's popular manga Tsubasa, which was released in an exclusive limited edition DVD/manga set of 50,000 copies. With ventures like this, Kodansha continues to explore the possibilities of the anime production business.