Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) Begins Demonstration Experiment of “Anime Therapy” at Yokohama City University’s COI-NEXT Center Minds1020Lab

Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) Begins Demonstration Experiment of “Anime Therapy” at Yokohama City University’s COI-NEXT Center, Minds1020Lab ​
Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) Press Release: October 30, 2025 Demonstration experiment of “Anime Therapy” begins at Yokohama City University COI-NEXT Center Minds1020Lab Examining the effectiveness of character-mediated counseling as a “social prescription” Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (DNP) and Yokohama City University’s COI-NEXT Center of Excellence (COI-NEXT)
Minds1020Lab launched a pilot project on October 1, 2025, called “Anime Therapy®,”*1 an online counseling program using original characters. The project primarily targets young people experiencing difficulties in life. The project aims to verify the effectiveness and usefulness of “Anime Therapy,” which uses anime for mental health care, as a form of “social prescribing”*2 that can improve quality of life (QOL), with the aim of implementing it in society.
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Image of “anime therapy” counseling using characters [Points of joint research] 1. About “Minds1020Lab” The Center of Innovation (COI-NEXT) is a collaborative research and development initiative aimed at realizing a vision of future society through collaboration between industry, academia, government, and the private sector, including universities, research institutes, companies, local governments, and civic groups. Minds1020Lab, established by Yokohama City University as part of COI-NEXT, is an academic hub conducting comprehensive research into the mental health issues that make life difficult for young people. We are developing services and content to enhance
psychological resilience (the ability to recover from adversity and difficulties), and are building an interactive platform (interactive information infrastructure) through collaboration between industry, academia, government, and the private sector. 2. About “Anime Therapy” Panto Francesco, a proponent of anime therapy, defines it as “a therapy that aims to achieve psychological healing through the viewing of works that incorporate elements of fiction and realistically depict human conflicts and physical, relational, and social suffering.” Immersion and empathy in anime works are expected to promote psychological benefits and self-transformation. 3. About DNP’s Initiatives Inspired by a lecture by Mr. Panto at the “DNP Value Creation Seminar” for employees in September 2023, DNP began conceiving and examining the social implementation of anime therapy. In March 2024, we joined Minds1020Lab and are working on developing a social prescription program based on anime therapy. To achieve this goal, we designed an online counseling demonstration experiment together with Mr. Panto, a visiting researcher at Yokohama City University. For this experiment, DNP was responsible for the design and creation of the original characters and the design and production of the counseling system.
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/69194/916/69194-916-459009aafffed8aee383242d22b42324-1280×905.jpg Key visual of the demonstration experiment 【Online Counseling Demonstration Experiment Overview】 • Implementation period: October 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026 • Target audience: 20 adults aged 18 to 29 • Flow of demonstration experiment: 1. Subjects chose one original character from six, with a story background based on Mr. Panto’s original idea. 2. Psychologists conduct online counseling based on anime therapy through their own avatar characters. 3. Subjects answered questionnaires based on psychological indicators before and after counseling, and psychologists measured the effectiveness. *1 Anime therapy: A “new generation entertainment-based” psychotherapy that uses narrative works such as Japanese anime and games to provide mental care through empathy and immersive experiences. Reference URL https://shinsho.kobunsha.com/n/n5fc4ffa25f20 *2 Social prescribing: An initiative that encourages participation in local social resources and activities in addition to traditional medical treatment. It aims to improve quality of life and well-being by addressing social
determinants of health that are difficult to address with medical treatment alone, such as loneliness and lack of purpose in life. *The company and product names listed are trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective companies. *The information provided is current as of the date of announcement. It may be subject to change without notice. *We are currently recruiting participants for a pilot test of online counseling. For details, please see the following webpage. Please note that applications may be closed without notice if the target number is reached.
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