2024 has been a long year for us all, and a good one for anime fans. We laughed, made memes about our favorite anime waifus, and even cried together a few times. In this post, let’s look at the state of anime, and cover 13 anime trends that will shape the future!
Great news! We got the last stock of the 2025 calendar season in this week. We’ve got Quintessential Quintuplets, Hatsune Miku / Vocaloid, plus a few more JAV calendars. We also added some emergency stock of the Dandadan calendar, since everyone loved it so much! Browse our calendars here!
Where Is the Industry Going? Let’s Examine 13 Anime Trends for 2025!
It was an amazing year for anime, with hundreds of series released…far more than any of us could hope to keep up with. Over the past twelve months of blogging about anime, I noticed certain anime trends that might continue into the future. Let’s explore them now!
The Anime Industry Is Growing
One reason why Sony shifted its focus from the declining Playstation platform to anime is that the growth of the industry is incredible. In 2024 the worldwide market for anime reached $34.66 billion, a $10 billion increase over just five years. With a growth rate of 11% year-over-year, it’s never been a better time to own anime IP.
Anime Remains Important to Streaming Platforms
Sony completed its takeover of the anime streaming world, officially closing the venerable Funimation brand after 30 years. Overall, anime accounted for 6% of the total income for global streaming platforms. Streaming companies love anime because it’s super cheap to make compared to all other kinds of content. A 12-episode season of anime costs around $2.4 million to make, a tenth of what a single episode of She-Hulk cost Disney+.
How did J-List customers react to Funimation going away? Read this blog post!
Sony Continues to Increase Its Influence in the Anime Industry
Another big anime trend is the ongoing rise of Sony in anime. While news that Sony was buying Kadokawa outright didn’t turn out to be correct (yet), the two companies are forming a strategic capital and business alliance, with Sony buying a big chunk of Kadokawa stock. Many fans are nervous that Sony is overly sensitive to subjects like “diversity” and that their increasing influence could harm anime overall. I prefer to watch what Sony does, not what they say. And every season, Sony-owned studios give us plenty of sexy anime moments.
More Anime Trends: The Weak Yen Creates Challenges for Anime Studios
Over the past few years, the Japanese yen has become extremely weak against the US dollar. This is because of the difference in interest rates between Japan and the US, allowing large pension funds to execute “carry trades” that involve borrowing money cheaply in Japan and investing it in US Treasuries. This move in the yen is great for fans because we can buy anime figures or naughty products from J-List for lower prices. But it’s bad for Japanese consumers who import food or iPhones from abroad or want to travel to the US.
The slide in the yen also affects anime production, since studios inside Japan naturally need to pay more for animation work done in studios all around Asia. Yet Japan hasn’t had serious inflation for thirty years, so people here don’t understand that it’s normal for prices to rise over time for various reasons.
Anime Remakes Make a Splash
We got a lot of anime remakes in 2024, including Spice and Wolf, Ranma 1/2, and my beloved Space Battleship Yamato: Be Forever Yamato. It’s always great to get a fun series remade in a fresh new form, although it’s sad that Ranma didn’t have the same level of fan service as the original did. What anime do you think will be remade in the future? A reboot of Maison Ikkoku can’t be far off.
Long-Running Anime Series Continue to Be Supported by Fans
In 2024, we got new seasons of some fan-favorite franchises such as Re:Zero, Blue Exorcist, Date A Live, Is It Wrong To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon?, Arifureta and Hibike! Euphonium. We even got Kizumonogatari, the first Monogatari series installment in years.
While it’s always good to get new seasons of beloved shows, there is a strange tendency for fans to not watch the new seasons after banging on the table so loudly for them. Have you ever done this?
24-Episode Series Are on the Rise
Is it me, or are anime seasons getting longer? While most of us have become used to single cour seasons of 12 or 13 episodes, an increasing number of series have been dropping with 24 episodes. This is awesome when the show is great (Sousou no Frieren, Ao no Hako, Dungeon Meshi, Spice and Wolf 2024). But it can be sad to see a show struggle to keep the buzz going in its second half, which happened with 2.5D no Ririsa.
From my position as an observer of the anime industry, 24-episode series are more “sticky” and remain in the minds of fans longer than 12-episode shows, which are nearly always forgotten the moment they end. Unless, of course, that show managed to make fans cry, like Madoka Magica, Angel Beats or Ano Hana.
Ecchi Anime Are Going Strong
Or, as one of my followers on X perfectly put it: “T&A is definitely on the menu.” Despite the influx of funding from streaming platforms, anime studios aren’t feeling pressured to steer away from sexy fan service. In fact, 2024 might just go down as one of the most perverted years in anime history — and honestly, I’m here for it.
Censorship Is Getting Less Annoying for Westerners
In general, I found the level of censorship in anime reasonable in 2024. There were no ridiculous animated cats hiding panties as we got in the broadcast version of Ayakashi Triangle, and no fully blacked-out screens as we saw with World’s End Harem. The same can’t necessarily be said for anime fans in conservative countries like China. The above sexy scene from Dandadan was broadcast with no changes on Crunchyroll but got cropped and censored for Chinese viewers.
Western Credit Card Processors Make Life Hard for Ecchi Retailers
Now for one of the most disturbing anime trends. 2024 saw several Japanese companies stop accepting Visa and Mastercard or remove certain products from their sales lineup due to pressure from payment processors. Melonbooks, Toranoana and DLSite all had huge problems due to pressure from these companies. It’s something we worry about on J-List every day, too. We recommend every anime fan create a PayPal account and link it to your bank account, as Paypal has always been the most reliable company for these kinds of payments. If you don’t have a PayPal account, why not open one now?
Testosterone Levels Are Rising in Anime
While there were some popular shoujo anime in 2024, like Yubisaki Renren or The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor, the genre had a muted 2024. Hell, Kimi no Todoke season 3 arrived, but created so little buzz I didn’t even notice it until writing this blog post.
Instead, anime in 2024 felt loaded with extra testosterone, with action-packed series like Kaiju No. 8 and Bleach: The Thousand-Year Blood War, male wish-fulfillment romances like BokuYaba and 2.5D no Ririsa, plus several standout fan service titles. Of course, every genre can be enjoyed by every type of fan.
‘Big Anime’ Is Changing Anime Expo Forever
Did you enjoy walking around the main hall at Anime Expo in 2024? I didn’t, because adult retail booths were demoted to the “dungeon” this year, the underground room where Artist Alley has traditionally been located. And next year, all booths selling physical products will be down there, to make more room for more sprawling exhibits by Sony, Bushiroad, and other anime giants. All adult booths like J-List, J18 Publishing, and Fakku are wondering how many years it will be before they get rid of all 18+ sellers entirely, or put us in a room in one of the official con hotels.
New Doors Are Opening for Anime Marketing
With anime becoming more popular than ever, there are endless ways for companies to promote products to fans. Which McDonald’s Evangelion burger would you like to try?
Nervousness About How AI Will Influence the Industry
While some people are up in arms about AI, I view it as an interesting technology that will raise our personal productivity — the amount of useful work each of us gets done every day. But some fans are especially wary of how AI could change the industry we all love. Will we start to get awful AI-generated backgrounds, or have to deal with more low-grade CGI animation? Will AI translation take over English subtitles, forever robbing us of such gems as “Nekotani looks like she needs eye bleach!” or “That old computer still works. Pog!” Only time will tell.
Thanks for reading this blog post about 13 anime trends that could play out over 2025 and beyond. Do you disagree with any of my views? Please tell me in the comments below!
Let’s Chat
Also, be sure to follow J-List on these platforms!
- Twitter/X, where Peter posts anime booba for you
- Bluesky, where we post several times a day
- Facebook, where we share memes and discuss anime
- Instagram, where you can look at sterilized anime memes because it’s Instagram
- Discord, if you want to chat with other J-List customers of culture
Great news! We got the last stock of the 2025 calendar season in this week. We’ve got Quintessential Quintuplets, Hatsune Miku / Vocaloid, plus a few more JAV calendars. We also added some emergency stock of the Dandadan calendar, since everyone loved it so much! Browse our calendars here!
