Domestic anime market grew by 14.1% while overseas market grew by 17.2%
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The Association of Japanese Animations (AJA), the industry group headed by anime production companies, presented a summary of its Anime Industry Report for this year during the TIFFCOM trade event in Tokyo on Thursday. AJA reported that the global anime market grew to a record level of 4.45 trillion yen (about US$28.2 billion) in 2025.
That included 1.91 trillion yen (about US$12.1 billion) growth in the domestic market and 2.54 trillion yen (about US$16.1 billion) growth in the overseas market.
The overall global anime market grew by 15.8% last year. The domestic market grew by 14.1% while the overseas market grew by 17.2%.
2025 was the fourth year in which the overseas market was bigger than the domestic market (after 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2023, and 2024).
AJA calculates the global anime market by including not just revenues from television, film, home video, and streaming releases, but also from merchandising, music releases, events, concerts, overseas licensing, and other related sources. The association distinguishes the larger overall anime market, from the smaller subset of revenues for just the companies directly involved in the production of animation.
Overseas business made up 27.9% of studio revenue, an increase of 25.5% from 2024. Revenues flowing back to production outfits increased by 8% in 2025.
Masahiro Hasegawa , the editor-in-chief for AJA's Anime Industry Report 2025, said that more production companies are taking an equity position in their works. They are holding on to the intellectual properties (IP) enabling them to participate in a share of the overseas revenue.
Anime is part of the Japanese government's five-year action plan to double the annual entertainment sales overseas from an estimated 10 trillion yen (about US$65 billion) in 2028 to 20 trillion yen (about US$130 billion) in 2033. That is 3.7 times the sales in 2024 (6.044 trillion yen or about US$39 billion).
AJA will publish the full Anime Industry Report 2026 in early December. Among other functions, AJA is also one of the main sponsors of the AnimeJapan convention (pictured above).
Sources: Variety (Lin Ying-Hsuan, Naman Ramachandran), Deadline (Liz Shackleton)