Abstract
This paper explores how media mix, which is a characteristic of the Japanese cultural industry,
actually works. By interviewing the field practitioners of media mix who are the Light Novel editors
of KADOKAWA, this paper shows how the practitioners perceive their job and media mix, and what
practices are being made based on their perception. The finding show that the media mix functions as
a strategy to sell more of the editors’ books, and practitioners’ motivation is not due to creativity, but
fear of risk. This paper further demonstrates that there are three risks in the practice of media mix,
and attempt to show how light novel’s editors are overcoming it. The first risk is the narrowness of the
light novel market, the second risk is the anxiety about the partner company, and the third risk is the
anxiety about the media mixed work. In order to overcome this, the light novel editors make efforts
to create good works with media mix. As a usual practice, they focus on making characters well, and
when choosing an illustrator they proceed with thinking about the media mix. Second, they constantly
collect information about partner companies, and sometimes present them at partner companies.
Third, they control the timing of the release of their work to complete a good media mix work, in
order to not lose the charm of the work by participating periodically and actively in the screenplay.
