On 24 April 2003, The Walt Disney Company announced that Disney Channel would launch in Japan, following the 20th anniversary of both
Disney Channel and
Tokyo Disneyland. It took place on 18 November 2003 on
SKY PerfecTV!, coinciding with the 75th anniversary of
Mickey Mouse. Disney held a countdown event at
Tokyo Big Sight in Ariake on launch day, open to selected guests from the general public, VIP guests and celebrities, including president and director of operations
Bob Iger, WDTV International president David Halbert, local administrative director Paul Candland and Japanese boy band
Da Pump, who used the event to launch a new song, as well as performing a cover of
Circle of Life, entirely in English. At 8pm, after airing one of Disney Channel's Wand IDs (featuring Mickey Mouse), actress
Kumiko Mori made an opening announcement. Symbolically, the first program seen on the new channel was the 1928 short
Steamboat Willie, which was followed by a message from
John Lasseter and the premiere of the film
Monsters, Inc. On 8 July 2004, a VOD service was added to Hikari TV. In the wake of the closure of the
Asian and
Korean versions on 1 October 2021,
Disney announced that it would not close the Japanese version due to the channel being more popular in Japan than in Southeast Asia. == Branding ==