Anime Industry Grows Again in 2018, Overseas Makes Up “Almost Half” of the Entire Market

Every year, the Association of Japanese Animations puts together a report detailing the state of the anime industry in Japan from the previous year. The full 2019 Anime Industry Report – detailing the state of the industry in 2018 – has just been released, and the NHK summarised the report which details some interesting areas of growth for the industry, and well as declines.

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NHK reports that the anime industry broke the 2 trillion yen mark again in 2018, with the total market valued at 2.181 trillion yen (US$19.93 billion), up from 2017’s 2.152 trillion yen (US$19.66 billion). The growth of 19 billion yen (US$173.5 million) marks the sixth year of continuous record-breaking growth for the anime industry since 2013.

Domestically the anime industry has grown to 1.172 trillion yen (US$10.69 billion) from 2017’s 1.167 trillion yen (US$10.64 billion), the first time the industry has increased in Japan in 3 years but still not close to the 1.309 trillion yen (US$11.94 billion) high of 2014. For the first time, domestic streaming revenue at 59.5 billion yen (US$542.7 million) has surpassed that of home video releases at 58.7 billion yen (US$535.4 million).

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The main source of growth for the anime industry has come from international markets where sales have topped 1 trillion yen for the first time at 1.009 trillion yen (US$9.201 billion). This makes international sales – such as overseas anime film screenings and licensing to streaming companies – the single biggest revenue source for the anime industry in 2018. In the report, the domestic market is split into different categories (like ‘pachinko’ and ‘film’) while international sales are combined into ‘overseas.’

While growth for the anime industry has slowed down in 2017 and 2018 – mostly due to the decreases on the domestic side–, after the rapid increase from 2013 to 2017, the anime industry is larger than it’s ever been, with new trends – such as streaming – finally being reflected in the numbers. The full report is available now for 11,000 yen (US$100) if you want to dive more into the data behind how your favorite anime come about.

Source: NHK, Anime Industry Report 2018

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Daryl Harding is a Japan Correspondent for Crunchyroll News. He also runs the YouTube channel about Japan stuff called TheDoctorDazza, tweets at @DoctorDazza and posts photos of his travels on Instagram.