Crunchyroll, HAYATE, LINE Digital Frontier Partner to Produce Anime of 'Around' 15 Webtoons
Crunchyroll will exclusively stream the anime made through this partnership in select territories.
HAYATE Inc. was founded in March 2025 and is headquartered in Tokyo. Aniplex's Masanori Miyake leads the venture as Chairman and CEO along with President and COO Leo Watanabe. The staff is composed of Aniplex and Crunchyroll employees. HAYATE is focusing specifically on planning, developing, and producing anime content for Crunchyroll's streaming platform worldwide. In April, HAYATE acquired all shares of anime studio Lay-duce, making it a wholly owned subsidiary. HAYATE is overseeing the production of the upcoming Ghost of Tsushima: Legends (Ghost of Tsushima: Kuroudo Kitan) anime series.
LINE Digital Frontier CEO Shin-bae Kim had announced in February 2025 that the company would produce 20 animated adaptations of webtoons that year, significantly expanding its webtoon-based IP business. LINE Digital Frontier is the operator of LINE Manga, the Japanese subsidiary of Naver Webtoon.
LINE Manga has been aggressively pursuing webtoon adaptations since 2024. In 2024, it produced 12 adaptations, a significant increase from just one in 2022 and two in 2023.
Source: Press release
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