Sales revenue of the anime industry Japan 2021, by segment

The animation industry in Japan generated a revenue of approximately 1.31 trillion Japanese yen via overseas sales in 2021. Merchandising accounted for the largest share among domestic sales revenues, reaching a value of more than 663 billion yen during that year.

The anime market

The anime industry is a booming enterprise in Japan. One major contributing factor is the growing demand in other countries, which has led to a strong increase in overseas sales particularly since the mid-2010s. A notable area of growth for the industry is the streaming business, which was able to overtake television in the domestic market for the first time in 2020. Due to the competition between major streaming services, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+, this segment has received a lot of media attention in recent years. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, live entertainment, which encompasses live performances, exhibitions, and cafés, among other things, also constituted a segment that enjoyed increasing popularity.

Anime production companies

In Japan, animation works are usually produced by so-called production committees, which represent cooperative endeavors between companies belonging to various related industries. The production of content often goes hand in hand with further products, such as merchandise in the form of toys or character goods. While this cooperation reduces the risk each company has to carry and allows for the utilization of a highly specialized know-how when it comes to the various market segments, the actual animation production companies only earn a small proportion of the revenues generated in the anime market. Although there has been a growing number of animation production companies since the turn of the millennium, many of them are comparatively small-scale businesses. Data on the average annual revenue of production companies show that specialized studios that operate as subcontractors earn considerably less than prime contractors. As many animators drop out early in their careers due to overwork and low wages, the improvement of working conditions has repeatedly been discussed as one of the important issues to be solved for the industry.