Japan’s anime industry reached a record market value of ¥4.45 trillion in 2025, marking a 15.8% rise from the previous year. Growth came from both domestic and overseas markets, with international sales continuing to account for the larger share of the business.
According to Deadline, figures presented by the Association of Japanese Animations (AJA) at TIFFCOM showed that overseas revenue reached ¥2.54 trillion, or 57.1% of the total market. Domestic revenue stood at ¥1.91 trillion, making up the remaining 42.9%. The AJA’s latest figures put the overall market at ¥4.4491 trillion, up 15.8% year on year.
The growth pattern also marked a change from 2024. Overseas revenue rose by 17.2% in 2025, while domestic revenue increased by 14.1%. A year earlier, overseas sales had climbed by 26%, while domestic revenue remained largely unchanged. Overseas earnings first overtook domestic revenue in 2020, and the gap has continued to widen.
Masahiro Hasegawa, editor-in-chief of the AJA’s Anime Industry Report, said more Japanese companies were looking beyond their home market for new sources of income. “Many Japanese business entities are going overseas to pursue revenue opportunities, so we expect this trend to continue,” he said.
The report also examined how much revenue reaches anime production companies, rather than the production committees that finance projects and bring together multiple rights holders. This narrower measure rose by 8.4% to ¥505.5 billion in 2025, compared with ¥466 billion in 2024.
Hasegawa said more production companies were taking equity stakes in their projects and retaining intellectual property (IP) rights. This allows them to earn a share of revenue from overseas markets, rather than relying solely on production fees.
The industry’s strong performance in 2025 came in a year when Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle became a major hit at home and abroad. The film earned around $794 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo, making it the highest-grossing Japanese film to date.
The momentum has continued into 2026. Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of Mermaid Island has grossed around $159 million worldwide. Box Office Mojo’s figures place it among the year’s major global releases, with its performance putting it ahead of titles such as Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie and Dhurandhar: The Revenge in the ranking cited in the report.
“Anime’s international breakthrough has already been realised,” Hasegawa said. He added that Japan had identified the content industry as one of its core sectors and that the report reflected the anime business’s growing interest in emerging markets. He also stressed the importance of adapting content for local audiences and tackling piracy.
The Japanese government has launched a support programme for its content industries under the IP360 initiative. It aims to raise overseas sales of Japanese content to ¥20 trillion by 2033. Within that target, the anime sector aims to generate ¥6 trillion in export revenue, almost twice its current level.
