LAST week, at Hong Kong Disneyland, Disney+ held a preview event for media, influencers, and content creators to share with the Asia Pacific region the brand new line-up of shows for 2026. It was an impressive all-day event with an incredible array of Japanese, Korean, and global series (I refuse to call them content) that is set to be released throughout next year.
The Disney+ 2026 Preview launch brought out big-named Korean celebrities such as Lee Dong Wook for the second season of A Shop for Killers; Ji Chan Wook and Doh Kyungsoo for the current series The Manipulated; Park Bo Young and Kim Sungcheol for Gold Land; and Hyun Bin, Jung Woosung, and Woo Do Hwan for Made in Korea, which is debuting on Dec 24. The first episode of which is an explosive, smart thriller set in the tumultuous, politically-charged era of 1970s Korea.
Meanwhile, Japan has also been marked as a centre for great storytelling, with Luke Kang, President of the Walt Disney Company Asia Pacific, sharing that anime titles have seen a 60 per cent growth in countries outside of the Asia Pacific Region, with Brazil, France, and Mexico being singled out amongst the many.
The whole slate from Disney+, one of the biggest studios in the global streaming market, tells us of a seismic shift in the world of storytelling
Disney+’s latest original anime production, Twisted Wonderland, which originally started out as a video game, has become the #1 most-viewed Japanese original anime globally. Its success has ensured a season two and three, which are already in production. Their partnership with anime studio Kodansha continues with new seasons of hit shows like Wan Dance, The Medalist season two, and Tokyo Revengers: War of the Three Titans Arc (season 3).
In fact, it will also be collaborating with legendary Japanese game designer Hideo Kojima and director Takayuki Sano for Death Stranding, the anime series. It is a standalone series set in the world of the video game.
“I wanted to share that world with people who don’t play video games, and I asked Sano to use the anime platform with what it does best,” Kojima says.
Of the global shows, while new seasons of The Bear and Percy Jackson and the Olympians were previewed, the biggest stage was left for the highly acclaimed hit show of last year: Shogun.
A whole panel was set up for showrunners Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo and lead star and producer Hiroyuki Sanada, so they can talk about the new season and field questions from the media guests.
This whole slate from one of the biggest studios in the world streaming market tells us of a seismic shift in the world of storytelling. The growth in interest in Korean and Japanese stories and storytelling structures like anime and K-dramas from outside of Asia is telling us that the global demand for narratives is de-centring from the Western mold.
It’s what Kang talks about — how Disney+ was looking specifically for local stories in Korea and Japan that are authentic to those cultures, and leveraging the Disney brand to make these stories globally popular and successful.
Around the world, we are all looking for new kinds of stories and a different way of seeing the world. Culture will be reframed by the media that we consume.
Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2025