Kadokawa CEO Survives Shareholder Vote as Activist Oasis Becomes Largest Shareholder

Kadokawa CEO Takeshi Natsuno survived a shareholder vote at the Japanese entertainment group’s annual meeting, Reuters reported on Tuesday, but the result is unlikely to end the pressure campaign against him.

The reason is that Oasis Management, the Hong Kong-based activist investor that pushed for Natsuno’s removal, has increased its stake and is now Kadokawa’s largest shareholder. Oasis argues that Kadokawa, owner of game studio FromSoftware, is failing to capture enough profit from the global success of the “Elden Ring” franchise, one of the video game industry’s biggest hits of recent years.

The dispute has become a closely watched test of governance and strategy at one of Japan’s best-known entertainment companies. It also reflects a broader rise in shareholder activism in Japan around how companies manage valuable assets and return value to investors.

Oasis had urged shareholders to vote against Natsuno and supported a proposal to dismiss him at the annual meeting. Kadokawa’s board had publicly opposed that effort before the vote, arguing that a leadership change would disrupt the company’s plans.

In a June 23 change report summarized in Japanese market disclosures cited in the research, Oasis raised its disclosed holding in Kadokawa from about 13.76% to 15.25%, or 22,715,600 shares. That makes it the company’s biggest shareholder and gives it more weight as it presses its case after the meeting.

At the center of the fight is FromSoftware, the studio behind “Elden Ring.” The game has sold about 30 million copies, according to figures widely cited in corporate and industry reporting. A new “Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition” for Nintendo Switch 2 is scheduled for Aug. 28, 2026, underscoring that the franchise remains commercially active.

Oasis says the problem is not the quality of FromSoftware’s games, but how Kadokawa monetizes them. In plain terms, Oasis argues that Kadokawa keeps too little of the revenue because FromSoftware self-publishes in Japan while Bandai Namco publishes “Elden Ring” internationally, requiring Kadokawa to share economics with an outside partner.

In Oasis’s words: “FromSoftware is KADOKAWA’s crown-jewel asset: a globally recognized studio with a loyal international fanbase and a proven ability to create blockbuster titles such as ELDEN RING. Yet KADOKAWA continues to leave a meaningful share of the economics from these titles with third-party publishing partners, creating a significant and ongoing loss of value for all of KADOKAWA’s stakeholders.”

That framing is central to Oasis’s campaign. The fund is not arguing that Kadokawa should sell FromSoftware. Instead, it wants Kadokawa to run the studio more clearly as its main growth engine and retain more of the publishing economics tied to its global game releases.

Kadokawa has defended Natsuno and rejected the case for removing him. In a company statement dated May 22, 2026, it said “the Company believes that the dismissal of Takeshi Natsuno ... at this point in time is likely to damage the continuity of reforms and the stability of management.”

That response shows the company’s broader message to investors: continuity matters while it pursues management reforms and strategic changes. But the shareholder vote outcome does not settle the larger argument over whether Kadokawa is getting enough financial return from one of its most valuable assets.

Natsuno remains in place for now. Yet with Oasis holding a larger stake and continuing to press its case, the struggle over Kadokawa’s governance — and over how much of FromSoftware’s blockbuster economics it should keep for itself — is continuing.