Animenomics

Japanese amusement giant Genda’s North American claw machine business returned to profitability in July after hitting operational stumbles earlier this year as it looks to add more anime prizes into claw machines across the region. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

A wave of large cyberattacks that have exposed millions of consumers' personal data at Japanese companies has spread to domestic anime and manga websites, including one of Japan's largest digital manga and e-book platforms. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Japan's anime studios are reevaluating their reliance on foreign subcontract studios as outsourcing costs rise in a period of a historically weak yen, adding pressure to an already tight anime labor market at home. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

TakaraTomy Arts is undertaking an ambitious plan to grow its Gacha capsule toy vending machines in North America, through partnerships with amusement giant GENDA, Sega Fave, and trading conglomerate Mitsubishi. Read our interview with executives from TakaraTomy Arts.

Japan's second largest toymaker and Beyblade maker TakaraTomy is launching a corporate rebranding overseas in 2027 and stepping up investment in toy development, especially for "kidult" consumers at home and abroad. Read our interview with CEO Akio Tomiyama.

Through 2030, Link-U will spend 40% of Crunchyroll's investment on expanding Crunchyroll Manga into new markets, 32% on platform engineering and operation for Crunchyroll Manga and other Link-U services, 28% on manga title acquisition and localization, according to JFSA filings.

Crunchyroll, through its Japanese subsidiary, plans to spend ¥918 million (US$5.9 million) to acquire a 7% minority stake in digital manga technology firm Link-U, which built the Crunchyroll Manga platform that was launched in October 2025.

American–Japanese anime production studio N LITE building a slate of works with Afro-origin stories in public, seeking to create excitement in an increasingly difficult market for original films and shows. Read our interview with CEO Christiano Terry.

Digital manga platform MangaPlaza is gaining traction in its fifth year of operation in the United States, surpassing 1 million registered users at the end of July, its operator said this week. Read our interview with the platform's management at NTT Solmare.

Saudi Arabia's Manga Productions is pivoting toward producing its own anime IPs after years of working with Japanese companies to co-create and import anime, amid a rapidly growing entertainment market at home. Read our interview with CEO Essam Bukhary.

Since the pandemic the audience for anime in the US has tripled in size, says @animenomics.com here at the first Anime NyC and XTraxks licensing summit. It’s a powerful mix of new characters and nostalgia for older viewer says Richardson Handjaja. #animenyc

Kadokawa's migration of @bookwalker.com earlier this year to a new platform run by subsidiary M12 Media has opened a door for the English-language e-book store to grow beyond serving manga and light novels from Japan. Read our interview with CEO @quarkboy.bsky.social.

Kadokawa's new English-language @bookwalker.com platform is the first Japanese-owned commercial e-book service to adopt an open standard for digital rights management, giving portability to digital manga and light novel readers. Read our interview with CEO @quarkboy.bsky.social.

Technology startup @comici.jp builds a software-as-a-service platform that powers digital apps for Japan's traditional manga magazines, and now it wants to help bridge the gap between magazine editors and overseas readers. Read our interview with founder and CEO @daisakku.comici.jp.

Aniplex posted record net sales in the most recent fiscal year thanks to blockbuster titles like "Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle" and "Kokuho", but earnings at its affiliated anime studios remain mixed as anime production costs soar. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Japan's Fair Trade Commission has published formal guidelines on anime production contracts, pushing for more governance in the anime industry as the country seeks to triple anime exports to ¥6 trillion by 2033. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Kodansha will start localizing and publishing manga in India this autumn in a joint venture with Dai Nippon Printing, aiming to reduce piracy by printing in the country to keep costs and manga retail prices low. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Crunchyroll invested in more anime production committees than any other company, Japanese or otherwise, in 2024–2025, allowing it to secure streaming rights without needing to bid, plus earn a share of anime production profits. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Anime studios specializing in 3D CG are finding it harder to ignore AI in their production workflow as San Francisco-based Autodesk moves to quickly embed AI tools in 3D animation software like 3ds Max and Maya. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Rising printing costs in Japan have pushed the average price of a manga volume up by 24% since 2020, and war in Iran is now driving up the cost of naphtha, a key petroleum product used in making ink and manga's glossy dust jackets. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Indonesia has a growing comics scene, but locally made comics hold just 10 percent of the domestic market, and creators are struggling to get readers to care amid a sea of manga from Japan. Read this story by Jakarta-based correspondent Yohana Belinda.

Growing scrutiny of anime's production committee system by regulators is generating renewed interest among the public and Japanese news media in anime studios that are building alternative business models to retain ownership over works. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Crunchyroll has more than 21 million paid subscribers worldwide as of March, Sony reported in its year-end earnings presentation today. The streaming platform started its paid subscription service in 2009 after it struck its first anime licensing deal with TV Tokyo.

Japan's largest fashion trade show, Fashion World Tokyo, will create an IP × Fashion Zone on its show floor space as anime collaborations with fashion and cosmetics brands targeting Gen Z and Millennial consumers continue to increase. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Adidas is the latest company choosing to leverage independently made anime-style imagery to promote its products versus licensing properties from Japan's anime rightsholders, an approach that's increasingly viable for global legacy brands. Read this feature story by editor Richardson Handjaja.

Kadokawa has formed a new subsidiary to oversee its manga retail operations in the United States, two and a half years after the publisher launched a marketing push in North America and began opening a chain of Manga Spot stores. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Bandai Namco and Plott, a Tokyo-based startup that produces short anime for YouTube, will test whether the format can be used to launch new shonen media mix properties that will grow into a new merchandising engine. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Permanent, full-time employment arrangements are growing at Japanese anime studios, over a decade of labor surveys found, challenging an oft-repeated narrative that the anime industry relies mostly on freelance animators. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Attendance at the annual AnimeJapan trade exhibition reached a new record this year as anime viewership continues to grow worldwide, but it's unclear whether the event can keep its momentum amid a planned move to Osaka for 2027–2028. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

In 2025, online content piracy cost Japan's entertainment industry a staggering ¥5.7 trillion (US$36 billion) in lost revenue, a crisis driven by limits on access to manga, anime, and other media. Read this story by Jakarta-based correspondent Yohana Belinda.

Japan's small and medium anime merchandise retailers, facing stagnation at home due to a declining population, are turning to cross-border e-commerce providers like Beenos to reach new customers abroad. Read this story by Animenomics editor Richardson Handjaja.

Original anime films are incubators of new talent, but rising production costs and changing audience viewing behavior are tipping the anime film market toward franchise films and making original productions riskier for investors. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Japan's anime home video sales and rentals plummeted 31 percent in 2025 to ¥18.7 billion (US$118 million), one of the steepest declines on record, amid an accelerating shift in domestic anime consumption to streaming video. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Japan's anime rightsholders are shifting away from film distributors like Toho and Shochiku and building their own systems for distributing anime films domestically to retain a bigger share of box office earnings. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

For @icv2.com's manga week coverage this year, I explain the numbers behind Japan's shrinking domestic manga market, plus their implications on Japanese publishers' and U.S. comics retailers' businesses for the year ahead.

Japan's domestic manga market shrank by 1.7% in 2025, the first decline in eight years, amid stalling digital sales growth and an accelerating tumble in print sales. Full-year sales were estimated at ¥693 billion (US$4.4 billion). Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

TV Asahi plans to double its anime production capacity by 2030 as the commercial broadcaster best known for classic titles like Doraemon and Crayon Shin-chan seeks to transform into a business that focuses on IP creation. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Sony Music Entertainment Japan has named Aniplex president Atsuhiro Iwakami as its incoming president and chief executive officer, a sign of the anime production planning company's growing influence in the Sony Music Group. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Sales of counterfeit anime and other character products caused US$30 billion in estimated financial damages in 2025. It was the first measure of the impact of piracy on the market for Japanese entertainment merchandise. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Japan sales of print manga volumes in 2025 saw their biggest drop since 2022. Digital manga also had its slowest growth rate on record in the second half, a sign that digital manga's growth is coming to an end sooner rather than later. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Anime films' recent successes in North America are enticing Japanese film distributor Gaga to enter direct distribution of anime films in the region, starting with a movie from the mobile game "Umamusume: Pretty Derby". Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Japan's antitrust regulator is preparing guidelines to regulate how anime production committees, studios, and streamers negotiate and share information after an inquiry into labor practices in the industry highlighted structural issues. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Link-U Technologies, which built digital manga platforms like Shueisha's MANGA Plus and Square Enix's Manga UP!, is pursuing AI-driven manga app development as the digital manga market undergoes a shift in Japan and abroad. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Toho is elevating its United Kingdom subsidiary into a European regional headquarters, with the film distribution and production giant also buying Glasgow-based anime distributor @alltheanime.com from Embracer Group's Plaion Pictures. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Japan's US$1.3 billion manga app market stands to benefit from a new law forcing Apple and Google to allow app developers to direct users to external stores in order to pay for purchases, bypassing app store fees that cut into revenue. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Warner Bros. has spent the last 20 years investing in anime, including leading production committees for "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure" and "Record of Ragnarok", but a possible sale of the company could impact its expansive anime portfolio. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

The Japan Times interviewed Animenomics editor @rhandjaja.bsky.social about the implications of the latest political spat between China and Japan on the anime industry.

Japan's user-generated web novel platforms have become a growing source of original stories to be adapted into manga, anime, and film, but their operators are contending with a rise in submitted works that are generated by AI. Read this headline and more in this week's business briefing.

CyberAgent has designated the head of its anime and IP business division as the company's next chief executive officer, reflecting its shift from digital advertising as a core business to entertainment in the last five years. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.

Kadokawa is writing down the financial value of its nearly ¥3 billion acquisition of anime studio Doga Kobo as the publisher moves to integrate back-office operations and improve profitability across its seven anime studio subsidiaries. Read this and more headlines in this week's business briefing.