Japan's anime According to data presented by the Association of Japanese Animation (AJA) at TIFFCOMmarket division Tokyo International Film Festival.
The session, which also included presentations from Godzilla studio Toho Global on its international strategy, the Gundam franchise and the Annecy Award-winning feature ChaO, which will also screen at the Tokyo Festival, highlighted how anime continues to drive Japan's growing global content economy.
Overseas revenue rose 26% year-on-year to 2.17 trillion yen ($14.27 billion), while domestic revenue rose 2.8% to 1.67 trillion yen ($10.98 billion). This is the second-highest annual growth rate on record, following a 15.3% increase in 2019.
AJA Chairman Kazuko Ishikawa, who is also president of Nippon Animation, said anime has become a major pillar of Japan's cultural and economic exports. She added that the association is committed to further improving conditions in the industry so that creators and studios can continue to create high-quality work that resonates with audiences around the world.
The upcoming “Anime Industry Report 2025,” to be released in December, divides the market into two key sectors: the broad “anime industry market,” which measures overall consumer spending on anime-related merchandise and licensing, and the narrower “anime production market,” which tracks studio revenue.
The manufacturing market also set a record in 2024, growing 9.1% year-on-year to 466.2 billion yen ($3.06 billion). Overseas businesses contributed 118.8 billion yen ($781 million)—still a smaller share overall, but growing steadily year on year.
“The overseas market now far exceeds local revenues, and the gap will only widen,” said Masahiko Hasegawa, editor-in-chief of the AJA report. “Today's growth includes comprehensive contracts that cover theatrical, streaming, merchandising and events rights, not just content distribution.”
AJA data shows that overseas anime revenues exceeded anime revenues in 2023 for the first time since the pandemic, and that the gap widened sharply in 2024. The International Otaku Events Association now lists 136 anime-related events in 51 countries and regions, adding to the genre's global momentum.
The Japanese government continues to position anime and related media, including films, games, manga and music, as a strategic core industry. Under the revised Cool Japan initiative, the national goal is to triple overseas content sales to 20 trillion yen (US$131.4 billion) by 2033 from about 5.8 trillion yen (US$38 billion) in 2024.
AJA predicts that future growth will come not only from distribution and theatrical revenues, but also from exports from the entire Japanese anime ecosystem, including related products, retail campaigns and cross-media collaborations.
“Anime is no longer just about storytelling,” Hasegawa said. “This is a full-fledged cultural economy, and this economy is quickly becoming global.”
