Comparing "Locality" Strategies in Netflix Japan and Korea Original Content: Industrial Embeddedness and Transnational Genre Logic

Sun Yuhang

 Faculty of Humanities and Social Science, BEIJING NORMAL - HONG KONG BAPTIST UNIVERSITY

Abstract：

This comparative study examines why Netflix, as a global streaming platform, adopts divergent localization strategies in Japan and South Korea. While Netflix Japan heavily invests in manga/anime adaptations and suspense narratives (e.g., Alice in Borderland), Netflix Korea prioritizes social critique embedded within genre cinema and television (e.g., Squid Game). Drawing on platform imperialism, cultural proximity, and media industry studies, this paper argues that Netflix's localization is not uniform but path-dependent, exploiting each nation's pre-existing cultural industry infrastructure, state-media relations, and transnational genre reputation. Through comparative industrial and textual analysis, findings reveal that Japan's strategy leverages the globally mobile “odorless” cultural hybridity of manga/anime and domestic oligopolistic production structures, whereas Korea's strategy capitalizes on state-backed Hallyu infrastructure, post-democratic social realist traditions, and festival-circuit genre legitimacy. These divergent paths illustrate how global platforms reproduce, rather than erase, nationally specific cultural production logics.

Key Words：

Netflix; localization; cultural proximity; platform imperialism; Korean Wave; manga adaptation; transnational media