I was browsing Reddit and saw a discussion about Sony-owned A-1 Pictures, which had finished its fiscal year in the red. This got me wondering how profitable anime is for studios, especially Sony. Let’s take a look at the anime industry profitability in this blog post!
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A-1 Pictures Reports a Loss for Fiscal Year 2024. Should Fans Be Worried?
It was reported that A-1 Pictures, the studio that brought us such hits as Sword Art Online, Your Lie in April, and Kaguya-sama: Love is War realized a loss of 178 million yen. That sounds like a lot of money, but in US dollars it’s just $1.2 million. That’s a tiny amount for a capital loss, just a rounding error for a major studio.
Most anime since the 1980s has been funded by “anime production committees,” which are loose alliances of companies like Aniplex, Bushiroad, television broadcasters, streaming platforms, and music labels that invest in a series and then split the profits, if there are any. Studios usually get a flat fee for producing the animation, with no profit share, although they get an oversized slice of the Blu-ray sales.
I often cast shade on the production committee system for being unfair to the studios that make the anime we all love. Wages in the anime industry are frightfully low. I learned that Makoto Shinkai only got paid $200,000 for his smash hit Your Name. On the other hand, having a system which allows companies to spread risk around so a show that fails to find an audience won’t take out an entire studio is obviously a good approach and helps to ensure anime industry profitability.
Why have so many of the great ecchi anime studios gone bankrupt? Read this blog post next!
Anime Industry Profitability: How Much Money Does Sony Make from Anime?
Sony is, of course, a sprawling conglomerate with many core businesses. These include:
- PlayStation, the core of the company’s profits, brought in half of the ¥1.14 trillion ($7.8 billion) the company earned last year.
- The company’s various music labels are huge, managing stars like Beyoncé, Bruce Springsteen, and A$AP Rocky. Music contributed $1.3 billion in revenue last year. They also manage all the top anime singers in Japan.
- Sony’s films are sometimes amazing, like the modern run of James Bond films. I’m not a fan of the way, whenever a project makes money for Sony, the company will continue to remake it for all time (Spider-Man, Sword Art Online).
- Sony’s cameras and imaging business is brisk, and they probably make the camera in your smartphone.
- In Japan, Sony has several surprising businesses, including Sony Life and Auto insurance, a Sony Bank, a popular line of makeup, and more.
Then there’s anime. The most recent numbers: $147 million for Aniplex, $8.5 million for Crunchyroll’s profits, and small losses for A-1 Pictures and CloverWorks. So, Sony makes lots of money from anime, and it’s a pie that’s only going to get bigger.
Anime Is a Great Business — Unless You’re an Anime Studio
Anime is a great business to be in if you’re a well-capitalized conglomerate or own a worldwide streaming platform. Animation is cheap to make, costing just $2-3 million for a 13-episode series, compared with $30 million per episode for Stranger Things season 5. If a show is a hit, fans will respond by buying Blu-rays, figures, and lots of other official goods.
And the industry is growing. The worldwide anime market is currently around $26 billion, but it’s expected to reach $40-50 billion over the next five years. The inflow of money from streaming services in the US and China, coupled with improvements in productivity thanks to AI, will probably be good for companies like Sony. Anime industry profitability is only going to increase.
But what if you’re an anime studio? Things might not be as good, in this case. You can expect to earn low wages, work long hours, and generally not get a share of profits if the anime you’re working on is a smash hit. But at least you got your dream job, working in the anime industry!
Who Created the Anime Production Committee System?
Incidentally, the person responsible for the anime production committee “innovation” was Toshio Suzuki, the business-minded co-founder of Studio Ghibli. When Lupin the 3rd: The Castle of Cagliostro failed to make its massive budget back, Tokyo Movie Shinsha was in danger of going bust. In response, Suzuki came up with the current system as a way for multiple companies to invest in an animated film in a safer way, and receive profits as they flowed in. The first film made under the new system was Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
Thanks for reading this blog post exploring anime industry profitability, with individual anime studios as well as behemoth Sony. Got any anime-related topics you’d like to read more about? Tell Peter in the comments below, and he’ll research it!
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J-List is your Friend in Japan, bringing you awesome products from Japan every week, and even letting you special order products we don’t normally carry through our new Megumi Express proxy buying service. We’re happy to announce that J-List Pocket Tissues are back and will be included with all orders shipping from Japan, while supplies last. Start browsing now!
