On November 4, 2021, the Association of Japanese Animations published the “Anime Industry Report 2021”, which summarizes the industry trends of Japanese animation in Japan and overseas.

The report compiles market statistics from 2020 and information on the state of the industry in 2020-2021.

The most important news according to the report, is the contraction of the global anime market in 2020, which was enjoying record-breaking growth for the past 10 years.

The market size in 2020 was 2.4 trillion (or 2,426.1 billion) yen, a 3.5% shrink compared to 2019 first time in 11 years.

The animation industry market calculated from the sales of animation production companies is 274.4 billion yen. This is also a 9% year-on-year decrease, the first year-on-year decrease in 11 years due to the COVID-19 effect.

Despite the slump in entertainment industries around the world, anime’s global market expanded.

All items other than distribution and overseas were negative year-on-year, but live entertainment was particularly affected by a 66.6% decrease to 29 billion yen.

A large factor behind this was online streaming. Streaming was one of the few areas in entertainment that grew under COVID-19; its expansion around the world is connected to the increased demand for Japanese anime. 

On the other hand, the distribution market grew significantly with a 35.8% increase, boosted by nesting demand. The amount of 93 billion yen is more than double the amount of 46.6 billion yen in the video software market.

The overseas market has surpassed the domestic market. This is because domestic sales decreased by 3.2% from the previous year to 1,186.7 billion yen, while overseas sales increased by 3.2% to 1,239.4 billion yen. 

In recent years, the two markets have been competing with each other due to the rapid growth of overseas markets, but this is the first time that they have reversed.

The market is estimated based on questionnaires to animation production companies and various presentation materials every year. 

Source: Animation Business, ANN