The anime business had another record year. The Association of Japanese Animations (AJA) said the global anime market reached 4.45 trillion yen (about US$28.2 billion) in 2025, up 15.8% year over year. It presented a summary of its annual Anime Industry Report at the TIFFCOM trade event in Tokyo on October 29. The full report comes out in early December.
The numbers
- Overseas: 2.54 trillion yen (about US$16.1 billion), up 17.2%
- Domestic (Japan): 1.91 trillion yen (about US$12.1 billion), up 14.1%
- Overall: 4.45 trillion yen, up 15.8%
The overseas market was bigger than Japan's own for the fourth time, after 2020, 2023 and 2024. AJA counts more than TV, film, home video and streaming. Its figure also includes merchandise, music, events, concerts and overseas licensing, so think of it as the whole economy around anime, not just tickets and subscriptions.
The studio side
The industry market and studio revenue are different numbers, and AJA tracks both. Revenue flowing back to production companies rose 8% in 2025, and overseas business made up 27.9% of studio revenue, up 25.5% from 2024. Per Variety and Deadline's coverage, report editor-in-chief Masahiro Hasegawa said more studios are taking equity stakes in their own shows. Holding onto the IP is how a studio gets a share of the overseas money instead of a flat production fee.
How to read it
The overseas growth matches what we see in our own data. The shows that pull the most votes and searches on SenpaiRanks are global simulcasts: the Solo Leveling franchise, the Gundam catalog, and the manga-to-anime pipeline on the NYT bestseller list. The Japanese government also wants overseas entertainment sales to reach 20 trillion yen by 2033. More global money means more adaptations and more crowded seasons. If you're trying to sort through them, that's why we built a dual-axis anime ranking, and this month's trending anime board shows where the attention is going right now.