Lead: The anime market set a new record in 2025, reaching 4.45 trillion yen (about US$28.2 billion), up 15.8% on the year, according to preliminary figures from the Association of Japanese Animations (AJA).
What happened
AJA, the trade body made up largely of Japanese animation production companies, previewed the headline numbers from its annual Anime Industry Report at TIFFCOM, the content market that runs alongside the Tokyo International Film Festival. Masahiro Hasegawa, editor-in-chief of the report, presented the data. Variety, Kyodo News and Nikkei date the announcement to Friday, October 30; Anime News Network’s write-up places the TIFFCOM session on Thursday.
The broad figure, which AJA calls the overall anime market, estimates what consumers spend on anything tied to Japanese animation: TV, film, streaming and home video, plus merchandise, music, live events and overseas licensing. Within the 2025 total:
- Overseas spending rose 17.2% to about 2.54 trillion yen (roughly US$16.1 billion).
- Domestic spending in Japan rose 14.1% to about 1.91 trillion yen (roughly US$12.1 billion).
- The overseas share of the total edged up to 57.1%, from 56.5% a year earlier, per Variety.
- It is the first time the total has passed the 4 trillion yen mark, and the growth rate also beat 2024’s 15.7%.
AJA also tracks a narrower number: revenue earned by the animation studios themselves. That climbed about 8% to a record 505.5 billion yen (around US$3.2 billion). Overseas work made up 27.9% of studio revenue, up from 25.5% in 2024. Hasegawa told the TIFFCOM audience that studios are increasingly keeping rights to their own work, and he described the international push as a breakthrough that “has truly been achieved,” as quoted by Variety.
Why it matters for the anime market
For years the story was simple: a flat home market propped up by fast growth abroad. The 2025 numbers break that pattern. Both sides grew by double digits, and Japan’s domestic spending jumped far faster than the 4.6% it managed the year before. That suggests the boom is not just a streaming-export phenomenon; fans at home are spending more on films, goods and events too.
The studio figure is the part worth watching. Consumer spending of 4.45 trillion yen sounds enormous, but only a slice of it reaches the people who actually animate the shows. Studio revenue growing at about half the pace of the overall market is a reminder that licensors, platforms and merchandisers still capture most of the upside. The rising number of studios holding equity in their own titles is the trend that could change that balance over time.
There is also a policy angle. Japan’s government wants overseas content sales to reach 20 trillion yen by 2033, with anime expected to deliver a big share of that. Record years like this one make that target look less fanciful, though Hasegawa himself cautioned that exchange rates and global conditions affect the overseas comparison.
Variety also noted that big Japanese titles dominate fan-voted TV rankings on IMDb, with Jujutsu Kaisen among the anime in the top 20. If you want to put that popularity on paper, draw this character: our step-by-step Yuji Itadori face tutorial.
What we know vs what is rumored
- Confirmed: AJA’s preliminary estimate puts the 2025 anime market at about 4.45 trillion yen, up 15.8%, with roughly 2.54 trillion yen overseas and 1.91 trillion yen in Japan.
- Confirmed: Studio revenue hit a record of about 505.5 billion yen, with overseas business at 27.9% of that total.
- Unconfirmed: The figures are preliminary; final numbers could shift slightly when the full report is published. Outlets also differ on the day of the TIFFCOM session (Thursday vs Friday).
- Unconfirmed: Which individual series drove the most growth has not been broken out in the public summary.
What happens next
AJA says the full Anime Industry Report 2026, with the final 2025 numbers and a detailed breakdown by segment, will be published in December. Expect the next round of debate to focus on how much of the overseas growth came from streaming versus merchandise, and whether studio margins are keeping up with the headline boom.
Sources: Variety — Japan’s Anime Market Hits Record $28.2 Billion as Local Sales Surge; Anime News Network — Anime Market Grew 15.8% to Record 4.45 Trillion Yen in 2025; Kyodo News — Japan’s anime market tops 4 tril. yen for 1st time; Nikkei — アニメ産業市場、16%増で初の4兆円超え