Japanese anime is no longer an export-only growth story. In 2025, worldwide consumer spending on anime reached JPY4.45 trillion, or $28.2 billion, up 15.8% year on year, according to preliminary figures from the Association of Japanese Animations’ annual Anime Industry Report presented at TIFFCOM. The pace of growth was also the industry’s fastest yet, just ahead of the 15.7% recorded in 2024.
For media planners and streaming executives, the more telling change is where the growth came from: Japan’s home market accelerated while overseas momentum remained strong.
Local rebound meets overseas scale
Overseas revenue rose 17.2% to JPY2.54 trillion, or $16.1 billion. That segment still dominates, taking a 57.1% share of all anime consumer spending, up from 56.5% a year earlier. But the local market climbed 14.1% to JPY1.91 trillion, or $12.1 billion — a sharp break from 4.6% local growth in 2024.
- Worldwide spend: JPY4.45 trillion / $28.2B, up 15.8%
- Overseas: JPY2.54 trillion / $16.1B, up 17.2%
- Japan local: JPY1.91 trillion / $12.1B, up 14.1%
- Overseas share: 57.1%, up from 56.5%
Hasegawa Masahiro, editor-in-chief of the report, said 2025 broke the pattern in which a sluggish home market sat alongside rapid growth abroad. Overseas revenue first overtook local revenue in 2023, and the gap has widened each year since.
Studio revenue tells a different story
The broad figure covers everything consumers spend around anime — TV, film, streaming, merchandise, music and live events. A narrower measure tracks revenue earned by animation studios themselves. That studio total rose 8.4% to a record JPY505.5 billion, or $3.2 billion, a slightly slower pace than the 9.1% growth of 2024.
Overseas business accounted for 27.9% of studio revenue, up from 25.5%. Hasegawa noted that studios often do not deal directly with international partners, which keeps that share relatively low. “The idea of studios holding the rights to their own works and managing them to generate revenue is growing year by year,” he said.
The next battleground: merchandise, not just viewing
Anime’s global visibility is now quantifiable. On IMDb, anime titles fill one-third of the 300 TV series with the most user votes — 100 titles — and nine of the top 20. Attack on Titan leads with 726,000 votes, ahead of Rick and Morty.
But Hasegawa’s argument is that overseas success has so far been mainly about watching anime, while in Japan anime has long driven related goods and services. The next phase is exporting that fan-economy structure: merchandise, services and family anime that spans generations at home. Studios listed localization fitted to local language, culture and law, along with anti-piracy measures, as their growth priorities.
That shift matters commercially because Japan’s government has set a content export target of JPY20 trillion by 2033, with anime expected to contribute JPY6 trillion. Japanese content earned JPY6.1 trillion abroad in 2024, and anime accounted for roughly one-third of that.
Ishikawa Kazuko, head of the AJA and Nippon Animation, pointed to the supply-side condition: creators and production management need an environment where they can “devote themselves to creating with peace of mind.” For buyers and marketers, the signal is clear — streaming reach is now table stakes, and the margin opportunity is turning viewers into repeat merchandise and service buyers across markets.
Source: Variety
