The anime business has never been bigger. Worldwide spending on Japanese anime hit a record JPY4.45 trillion ($28.2 billion) in 2025, according to preliminary figures from the Association of Japanese Animations (AJA) — with international fans now driving well over half of the total.
Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle (Credits: Koyoharu Gotoge / SHUEISHA, Aniplex, ufotable)
Anime Market Growth Hit a Record 15.8% in 2025
Hasegawa Masahiro, editor-in-chief of the AJA’s annual “Anime Industry Report”, presented the preliminary numbers on Friday at TIFFCOM, the market attached to the Tokyo International Film Festival. The final figures will appear in the report’s 2026 edition, due for publication in December.
The headline number marks a 15.8% jump over the previous year — the fastest growth rate on record, narrowly beating the 15.7% increase recorded in 2024. The broader AJA measure covers consumer spending across television, films, streaming, merchandise, music and live events.
Overseas Anime Spending Hits $16.1 Billion as Domestic Sales Surge
Overseas revenue climbed 17.2% to JPY2.54 trillion ($16.1 billion), while the domestic market also surged 14.1% to JPY1.91 trillion ($12.1 billion) — a sharp acceleration from the 4.6% domestic growth of the year before. International markets now account for 57.1% of total anime spending, up from 56.5% a year earlier. Overseas spending has outpaced domestic spending every year since it first pulled ahead in 2023, and the gap keeps widening.
A separate, narrower measure tracking revenue earned directly by animation studios also set a record, rising 8.4% to JPY505.5 billion ($3.2 billion) — though that pace was slightly slower than the 9.1% growth of 2024. Hasegawa cautioned that exchange rates and global conditions affect the comparisons, and that overseas totals reflect a range of market factors beyond the performance of any single title.
Put in perspective, the market has roughly doubled since 2015 and is now approaching the scale of Hollywood’s global theatrical box office — a remarkable rise for an industry that was worth about JPY1.27 trillion back in 2009.
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Source: Variety — read the full story there.
