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NEWS: Cool Japan Fund Allocates 14 Billion Yen for Overseas Projects

"investing in large refrigerating and freezing facilities in Vietnam to promote Japanese food sales."

I wish that could happen in the US. Would love some authentic Japanese food/products xD

Many Japanese think it's a waste of taxpayer money, rather leave to private enterprises. Becoming more hot issue.

I'm not sure how this is going to help promote Japan, for instance most anime fans and otaku like myself know where to get most goods, and for the most part thats ebay simply because, lets face it - being otaku is one of the more expensive hobbies for westerners, my Japanese penpal cannot believe the average cost of goods compared to what he pays on average.

This is part due to the import fees on goods, and the extra costs for companies like Funi and Sentai to dub so naturally, its more expensive because they also have to make profit after all. Also, we have very little in the way of anime on TV, pretty much Toonami and thats it for most people unless your very lucky to get the full funimation channel, since the on-demand one isn't very good at all.

If the Japanese government wants to successfully promote Japan, then getting costs lowered is the first start. I also think, giving a large amount of money to just one particular company isn't going to do much at all.

you hear that, japan? keep blocking easy access to your music videos based on stupid "copyright" grounds you'll continue to see decrease in the interest of your music and an increase in korean music.

my japanese music collection used to outnumber my korean music collection two songs to one, now, for every one japanese song i have, i have 3/4 of a korean song. pretty soon, it's gonna be for every two korean songs i have, i'll have one japanese song.

If the Japanese government wants to successfully promote Japan, then getting costs lowered is the first start. I also think, giving a large amount of money to just one particular company isn't going to do much at all.

We had our government come up with the "It's More Fun in the Philippines" PR program and it became a hit despite criticism being leveled against it, and it restored confidence in ourselves as a people even though we are also critical of our government and the men who run it.

However, I insist that governments must be accountable and transparent on exactly how much they spend on PR programs, and who actually gets the money at the other end of the trail.

Either the program should return dividends or it could be seen more as a convenient scam.

If I'm not mistaken, the Philippines PR campaign was about promoting tourism, wasn't it? That's a sincere effort to boost tourism dollars, and a much more effective strategy than trying to promote exports through selective companies chosen to represent Japanese culture.

Looks like some of the 14 Billion Yen will be coming to the United States towards Tokyo Otaku Mode.

When programs like this are indeed legitimately aimed to improve a country's economy, the funding will often be awarded with the stipulation that the private company's finances become public, which is the ethical thing to do when you are funding a private company with public money.

The money coming from this program won't ever get passed the highest officials within the companies.