KADOKAWA ANNUAL REPORT 2004

The lineup of magazines published by Kadokawa Shoten Publishing Co., Ltd. is literary a treasure house of the information contents. And, such contents do not simply end up as the paper media but is diverted to various information platforms such as Internet, cellular phone and PDA. This diversification was made possible by the IT digital technology, and the demand for the supply of information is increasing more than ever. Kadokawa Shoten is actively developing such new publications as “Adult Walker” and “Family Walker” in order to cultivate new categories of targeted readers. In the meantime, in the field of literary magazines, Kadokawa Shoten newly published “Yasei Jidai” with brand-new appearance in order to reinforce its literary department.
Media Works Inc. reorganized its editorial department to reinforce the editing team of those leading magazines in their kinds as “Dengeki PlayStation” and “Dengeki Hobby Magazine”, in accordance with the recognition that the feature of the company is the “publishing company founded on the publication of magazines”. Media Works will keep sending out new magazines that can only be produced by the company, in order to accomplish its theme “to establish the business field that no others can imitate”.
SS Communications Inc. is enjoying favorable business as both sales volume and advertisement income of “Lettuce Club” exceeded the same of the previous year, although the newsstand price of the magazine was raised in November 2003. SS Communications Inc. newly published a magazine “Mainichi ga Hakken” in January 2004. It is a magazine targeted to the readers of 60s and older and is new trial for Kadokawa Group. SS Communications plans to establish a membership system for the readers, build up the collaboration of the magazine and the hobby circles of the members and start up such membership services as travel planning and mail order sales, so that the magazine will grow up as the reliable partner to the readers.
MediaLeaves Inc., which has ENTERBRAIN, Inc. and ASCII Corporation under its control, newly joined Kadokawa Group. ENTERBRAIN is a publishing company specialized in the field of entertainment information and has established steady position in the game industry by the publication of the top of the kind magazine “Weekly Famitsu”. ASCII is a publishing company specialized in the PC and IT related fields, known as the publisher of “Weekly ASCII”. This genre of PC and IT publication is the area, which Kadokawa Group so far was not so active, and we are confident that the participation of these two new members will diversify the group’s activity fields of contents business.