The recent rise of indies in Japan gave local cities an opportunity to develop their own music industries. The first case of the success was brought in Okinawa Prefecture, in which the mainstream hit of Mongol 800 prompted the prefectural administration to foster the indie industry. Since the end of World War II, Japan's music industry has overly been concentrated in Tokyo. The nascent dispersal deserves to be examined as a possible breakthrough for the nation's sluggish music industry, whose domestic market as a whole is beginning to shrink for a variety of reasons. The present article discusses how a local music industry has been developed in the City of Fukuoka, as a case study, and identifies some of the footings for forming a viable music industry out of its cultural movements.
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