It’s official; for the first time in recorded history, the revenue from overseas anime fans surpassed the total money from fans in Japan. Yay?
According to a report posted to NHK, the decrease in domestic revenue is directly tied to the global pandemic, which severely limited how many live events could be held in Japan over the last year. However, the global pandemic didn’t stop overseas fans from spending their money on home video releases, streaming subscriptions, and merchandise, which is what made up the bulk of the money coming in from overseas.
The record year to beat is currently 2019 but, according to the report put out by the Japan Animations Association, the industry shrank by over 88 billion yen (roughly $770 million USD) because of the previously mentioned pandemic. The good news is that the “overseas development” category, which has been rapidly rising since 2015, brought in around 1,239,400,000 yen (roughly $11 million USD), which is what helped propel it above the domestic intake.
If you’re an industry nerd, these numbers are some of the most interesting figures we’ve seen over the last couple of years. I’ve said this before on social media and I’m going to repeat it here. Anyone who says that anime hasn’t yet reached mainstream status in the global consciousness likely doesn’t know what they are talking about.
Unfortunately, these numbers come with bad news, which is that global demand for anime is likely at its highest right as I type these words. The problem is that there just aren’t enough staff and studios to keep up. I’ve published articles on the J-List Blog before which says as much. Studios are getting booked up years in advance and with quality new source material being released every month in Japan, it will not take long before we see another bubble burst much as we saw in 2008 in the United States (kids, ask your parents).
This is going to be a crucial decade for the global anime industry as a whole and it will be very interesting to see how many studios and creators are left standing when (if?) we reach the other side.
