Via Time: The Japanese government has approved a USD 500M allocation for a twenty-year project to promote Japanese culture overseas. Dubbed “Cool Japan”, the campaign will promote everything from anime to fashion to food.

Headed by the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI), the goal is to duplicate neighboring South Korea’s success on the global market. South Korea had initially invested USD 500M into cross-platform cultural promotion. Fifteen years later, its artists are prominent in mainstream entertainment and pop culture in Asia.

This is the first strong push by the Japanese government to promote cultural exports from the country, which has always been perceived as being on the bleeding edge of cool, but never managed to profit heavily from it. While Japanese “inventions” such as cosplay and “moe” culture have done well abroad, it was mainly without the support of the government.