Soft power, hard cash: Southeast Asia’s billion-dollar anime obsession

For Sana Kok, anime has always been more than entertainment. The 28-year-old Malaysian still remembers the first series he caught on television as a child: the bright colours, larger-than-life characters and cinematic storytelling unlike anything else he had ever seen. By his teens, action-packed anime titles had become a fixture of his evenings. “Anime has some of the best storytelling out there,” said Kok, now a digital marketer who sees his childhood fascination reflected in a new wave of...