Anime Industry Report 2022
SummaryAuthors
Hiromichi Masuda

Anime Industry ResearcherAuditor, Video Market Corporation

Tadashi Sudo

Journalist
Appointed professor, Japan University of Economics Graduate
School,Entertainment Business InstituteToshiyuki Koudate

Codate CO.,LTD.

Atsushi Matsumoto

Atsushi Matsumoto / Journalist / Associate Professor, Keiwa Gakuen College

Kazuo Rikukawa

President, Character Databank, Ltd.
Director/Secretary-General, Character Brand Licensing Association

Tomotaka Ishida

ADK Emotions Inc.

Yasuo Kameyama

Ph.D. Student, Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University
Senior Director of C i P Committee

Yuji Mori

President, Senior Director, Dentsu Consulting Inc.
Specially Appointed Professor, Graduate School of Asia University

Masahiro Hasegawa

Producer, HUMANMEDIA Inc.
Part-time Lecturer, School of Network and Information, Senshu Univercity

Representative Director

Content Business Div

Planning Director

Editor
Hiromichi Masuda(editor in chief)

Anime Industry Researcher
Auditor, Video Market Corporation

Masahiro Hasegawa

Producer, HUMANMEDIA Inc.
Part-time Lecturer, School of Network and Information, Senshu Univercity

Misako Ashikawa

HUMANMEDIA Inc.

Cooperation in Material Research
Mitsuru Soda

Animation Researcher, curator
eiga.com inc. Director

Editorial Cooperation
Hiroko Uehara

Part-time Lecturer , Shobi University Graduate School

Megumi Onouchi

President, HUMANMEDIA Inc.
Vice Chairman, The Association of Japanese Animations,
Digital production environment Committee
Vice Chairman, The Association of Japanese Animations,
Human Resources Development Committee

March, 2023
The Association of Japanese Animations

Only a Year After the Effects of COVID-19, 2021 Returned to Basic Growth Trends
The anime industry was very affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, but it recovered quickly by 2022. The entire industry was gripped by nervousness when the state of emergency was announced in April 2020, but production pace was back tonormal in the second half of the year due to developments such as the introduction of remote work. As a result, 2021 showed the highest profits in history, surpassing the previous highest-grossing year, 2019. We can see that there is a stable demand foranime from the free-answer surveys taken by all the anime studios.

〈The Industry Reached 2.74 Trillion Yen, 113.3% of the Previous Year, Showing a
Return to Growth Trends from Before COVID-19〉
The anime industry market had grown for ten years straight from 2010 to 2019, but in 2020, the direct hit from theCOVID-19 pandemic made it drop to 96.5% of the previous year. The pandemic continued into 2021, but profits grew
dramatically to 2.74 trillion yen, 113.3% of the previous year. 2021 created a new record of 9.1% over 2019’s 2.51 trillion
yen, the previous record, and it is believed that the effects of COVID-19 were firmly stopped in their tracks. On the other
hand, the domestic market is forecasted to shrink due to the decreasing birthrate and aging population. Moreover, theglobal streaming market may have reached its peak. The industry seems to be losing the momentum that it reached in themid-2010s. This shift will gain considerable attention moving forward.

2,000
1,500

1096.81118.2

1223

1339.5The Japanese anime industry has been steadily growing since 2010, but the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic that
raged havoc in 2020 stopped that growth in its tracks, with the industry making only 96.2% of the previous year’s profits.
However, the main reason for that is the reduced profits that came about from schedule delays were carried forward. Inthe free response section of the survey, studios said that production orders have continued to increase and that the number
there’s a high possibility that earnings will improve. This shows that the Japanese anime market is supported by stable

2514.52,5001337.5〈Internet Streaming, Merchandising, and Foreign Business Drove the Market’s Record
High in 2021〉

of projects is more than the number of production studios available, so production costs continue to rise. Because of that,[Figure 1] The Japanese Animation Market in a Broad Sense (Yen in billions)1304.2 1350.4 1314.3 1388.8 1266.1 1323.9

Thinking of the Primary Factors Driving the 2021 Market

1476.91637.1

1829.2

1990.32742.22419.9demand. All fields of the industry profited in 2021 compared to 2020, but compared to the previous records made in 2019,the fields that increased were Video, Streaming, Merchandising, and International. TV, Movies, Music, Amusement, and Live2142.1 2180.7

Viewing fields all declined. The fields that drove the growth in 2021 were Streaming (+86 billion yen compared to 2019, ashare increase of 37.6%), Merchandising (+76 billion yen compared to 2019, 33.5%), and International (+113 billion yen,49.3%). Together, they increased to 275 billion yen, but Movie, Amusement, Live Viewing, and other fields declined, so

1,000

compared to 2019, the total industry increased by 228 billion yen. It can be said that those three windows are what500

supported the growth of the anime industry in 2021.

0
2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

〈The International Market Recovered From the Previous Year But Didn’t Reach Domestic
Figures〉[Figure 2] Japanese animation market trends in a broad sense (billion yen)item
①TV
②Movie③Video④Internet Distribution⑤Merchandising⑥Music⑦Overseas⑧The Pachinko and the like
⑨Live Entertainment
Total
item
①TV
②Movie③Video④Internet Distribution⑤Merchandising⑥Music⑦Overseas⑧The Pachinko and the like
⑨Live Entertainment
Total

2002
124.1
21.8
129.4
0.2
435.0
13.8
372.5
1096.8

2003
116.5
19.1
117.6
1.0
433.7
9.1
421.2
1118.2

2004
110.0
40.2
103.1
1.8
461.7
23.5
482.7
1223.0

2005
104.1
18.8
138.8
4.1
504.9
12.0
521.5
1304.2

2006
100.3
28.9
135.8
8.4
530.5
26.1
520.4
1350.4

2007
92.4
21.6
127.8
9.8
597.4
26.3
439.0
1314.3

2008
94.6
34.8
111.310.2
536.4
35.0
413.7
152.8
1388.8

2009
95.5
31.1
105.2
12.3
559.7
41.4
254.4
166.5
1266.1

2010
89.5
33.7
108.5
14.9
627.4
40.6
286.7
122.6
1323.9

2011
90.0
28.5
107.6
16.0
594.3
32.5
266.9
202.6
1337.5

2013
102.7
47.0
115.3
34.0
598.5
29.6
282.3
242.7
24.8
1476.9

2014
111.6
41.7
102.1
40.8
655.2
29.2
326.6
298.1
31.8
1637.1

2015
107.3
47.7
92.8
43.7
579.4
32.4
583.4
294.1
48.4
1829.2

2016
105.6
66.3
78.8
47.8
552.2
36.9
767.7
281.8
53.2
1990.3

2017
106.1
41.0
76.5
54.0
503.7
34.4
994.8
268.7
62.9
2142.1

2018
113.7
42.6
58.7
59.5
500.3
35.8
1009.2283.5
77.4
2180.7

2019
94.8
69.2
56.3
68.5
586.8
33.7
1200.9319.984.4
2514.5

2020
84.0
55.4
46.6
93.0
581.9
27.6
1239.4263.0
29.0
2419.9

2021
90.6
60.2
66.2
154.3
663.1
31.7
1313.4305.6
57.1
2742.5

YoY
88.5％
89.2％
82.8％
135.8％
99.2％
81.9％
103.2％
82.2％
34.4％
113.3％

2012
96.0
40.9
105.9
27.2
573.2
28.3240.8
227.2
1339.5

Based on questionnaires conducted by the Association of Japanese Animations and other publicly available statistics

The international market improved 74 billion yen (106%) from the previous year - from 1.24 trillion yen to 1.31 trillion
yen. That is an improvement of 113 billion yen (109.4%) over 2019’s 1.2 trillion yen. The international market hascontinued to grow since the 2000s, when content like Pokémon expanded overseas. After that, it has seen many struggles
such as the collapse of the Video market, rampant internet piracy, Chinese broadcast restrictions, the 2008 financial crisis,
and the appreciation of the yen. Nonetheless, with the improvement of internet services in the mid-2010s, Chinese bingepurchases of legitimate content guided by the government, and rapid progress of American streaming platforms, theInternational field has grown rapidly. Plus, that momentum kept up even during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the numberof people staying at home became an impetus for continued growth, so it overtook the domestic market in 2020. However,in 2021, the domestic market reversed the situation by a small margin. The domestic Streaming market rebounded grandly,
which led to the change, but the international market itself had also grown to three times its original size between 2015
and 2017, and now in the 2020s, it seems as if it is gradually leveling out. For Japan, which has a decreasing birthrate andan aging population, the trend of decline of the international market is one to be concerned about.

expected to bounce back in 2021, but while it did increase from the previous year, it stopped at 29.3% of earnings in 2019

[Figure 3] Comparison of Domestic and International Anime Markets (Broad Anime Market/Units of Hundred Million Yen)
1600

Domestic

Overseas1310.5

1400

1194.6

1200

975.1 1011.7

1000
800

724.3

600
372.5

740.3

697
421.2

782.7

1037.21245.8 1222.6

1071.5 1098.7

1313.41200.91180.5767.7

482.7 521.5 520.4

583.4
439

boosted the American animation industry since the mid-2000s, but they changed direction to releasing some films only on
streaming platforms without a theatrical release, which had a great effect on the movie theater industry. This is potentiallya dangerous problem not just for American movie animation, but for animation overall. The North American animation
box office has not seen a hit after the COVID-19 pandemic, so it will collapse if this continues. Now that Pixar and Disney413.7

are focusing on streaming, there is great attention on their future practices.

326.6
254.4 286.7 266.9 240.8 282.3

400

at 6.5 hundred million dollars. That was not a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is likely due to the accelerationof Streaming becoming customers’ first option for several reasons, including movie theater closings. Pixar and Disney had

1313.61147.3 1171.5

994.8 1009.2

875.3

830

1428.81239.4200[Figure 5]The Shifts in the North American Animation Box Office (Including Foreign Films) from 1980 to 2021 (in Millions of Dollars)

0
2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

Based on questionnaires conducted by the Association of Japanese Animations※The annual average rate of Principal Global Indicators is adopted as the exchange rate.

$2,433$2,500$2,239$2,000$1,738〈The 2021 Anime Industry (Profits of the Small Anime Market/Production Companies)〉
The anime industry is a market of studios that produce and create content. In 2021, this market increased by 18.3 billion$1,640$1,553$1,409$1,500$1,195yen (106.7%) compared to COVID-stricken 2020 to 293 billion yen. It did not reach the record high of 2019, which was
302 billion yen, but it can be said that the market is returning to its pace of growth before the pandemic.

$728[Figure 4]Trends in Japanese animation market in a limited sense

2,500

2,084

2,232

1,872 1,822

2,000
1,500

2,303

2,120

1,366 1,406

1,468 1,504

1,541 1,649

2009

2011

1,851 1,868

2,744

2,927
$2

2,451

2005

2006

2007

2008

2010

$26 $1$76 $100$0$123 $143$15$66$596 $562

$656

$656

$201
$104

$162

2,009
Created by the Association of Japanese Animations based on data from Box Office Mojo

0
2004

$70

$530

$0

500
2003

$1,217$336$252 $276

1,000

2002

$460 $478

$500

3,016
2,670

$1,229$1,418$1,000$599 $584

3,000$1,247$1,240$1,156$1,054$1,468

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

Based on questionnaires conducted by the Association of Japanese Animations and statistics released to public.

〈The Future of Increasing Production Costs〉
Production costs have continued to increase over the past few years. Just like last year, multiple free answers on the surveys
alluded to rising production and other costs. “Because of soaring labor costs due to work style reforms, there has been a sharp
rise in unit costs when hiring contractors, so anime production costs are rising at a faster speed than the costs for orders.
Additionally, since there is a shortage in production and creation staff, it is very difficult to create an anime production system.
The standards required for anime production are steadily growing, which is a primary factor in the increase in cost.” This
description is an example of the cycle of how implementing work style reforms requires hiring more personnel, which leads torising costs, but then as that continues, there is a shortage in human resources which leads to even higher labor costs. Of course,that is the same for contractors. How long will this continue? How will the industry adapt?

〈The North American Box Office in 2021 ~ What Is Happening in the United States?〉
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, out of the three major anime movie markets (including domesticallyproduced animation), Japan and China were not very affected. However, the biggest market, North America, had box-officetakings that were only 14% of the earnings in 2019, showing devastating effects from the pandemic. The market wasChart-1

Chart-2

Chart-3

Chart-4

The 2021 Anime Market Reached 2.74 Trillion Yen, 113.3% of thePrevious Year; The Market Returns to Growth After Limiting theInfluence of COVID-19 to One Year

Anime Industry Report 2022

The 2021 anime market reached earnings of 2.74 trillion yen, 113.3% of the previous year. It has recovered from the recession
caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and each field in the market has increased from the previous year. Compared to 2019,the four genres of Video, Streaming, Merchandising, and International exceeded 2019’s numbers, but all other genres arestill on their way to recover.
We hope this information will be useful to your business in the anime industry.

■Outline【Title】
Anime Industry Report 2022
【Publisher】
The Association of Japanese Animations【Release day】
November 11, 2022
【Size/Pages】
A4 / 124P (Report), + 4 chart sheets inserted+ All Animation Works Perfect Data(Online)【Price】
11,000 yen (tax excluded)【Index】
1.Overview of the Japanese animation industry in 2021
*Overall market trends and notable trends of the industry
2.Trends in respective media*Animation distribution market (TV animation, theatrical animation, videogram, Internet distribution), secondary use(including merchandising), advertisement/promotion, music, and live entertainment
3.Trends in the overseas market*Japanese animations in the global market
4.Special Texts* Influence of the progress of technology on the anime industry（Electronic Edition） Materials, All Animation Works Perfect Data *TV, Theatrical, and OVA
Chart: Trends in the Japanese Animation Market, Recent Movements of the Japanese Animation Industry and Market,Development of Japanese Animation in the Overseas Market, Distribution Map of Japanese Animation Studios
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