TIFFCOM: Japan’s Anime Industry Overcomes COVID Woes to Hit New Peak

Despite the impact of the pandemic, Japan’s anime industry would seem to be in a state of rude health, according to figures in the Anime Industry Report 2022, an annual survey that has been conducted every year since 2009.  

At a TIFFCOM seminar on Tuesday, Anime Industry Report chief editor Masuda Hiromichi and TIFF Japanese animation section programming advisor Fujitsu Ryota discussed not only the numbers, but the trends behind them. 

Last year the industry hit its all-time peak with revenues of $18.4 billion, with ‘industry’ defined as not only animation content for TV, film, streaming and video, but also goods, amusements, music, foreign sales and live entertainment. This represented a 9% gain over the previous peak year, 2019. As Masuda noted, industry growth hit a roadblock in the pandemic year of 2020, but “rebounded strongly” in 2021.

“We initially thought there might be a bigger impact [from the pandemic], but the dip ended up lasting only one year,” he said.  

One reason: Anime studios were quick to make the switch to remote work and keep production levels up. Another was a backlog of titles in various stages of production that, after a temporary stoppage in 2020, started flowing smoothly into pipelines in 2021. Boosted by strong merchandising sales and rising demand from streaming services, revenues soared last year. Even video sales, which had long been limping, enjoyed a growth spurt.     

But by the far the biggest contributor was foreign rights sales, which accounted for nearly 48% of all revenues in 2021. Also, last year the overseas anime market became larger than the domestic Japanese market for the first time, reaching $9.6 billion, versus $8.8 billion for the home team.  

Anime studios, however, felt a profit pinch from rising costs due to pandemic countermeasures and growing personnel expenses, including training staff to deal with the digitalization of anime production. “A lot of studios told me that they’re going 100% digital,” said Masuda. “It’s happening quite quickly.”  

Another concern for industry is the biggest streamer, Netflix, which has been aggressively buying anime but is stingy with information about its plans. “They could change drastically,” said Fujitsu. “People in the industry want to know what they intend to do.”    

Yet another source of anxiety for the industry is China, which has been a huge market for Japanese anime, but not always a reliable one. “Who knows how the political winds will blow there,” said Fujitsu. The result can be the cancellation of an order for an entire series, for reasons that are hard to parse.  

Finally, the currently thriving streaming market, Matsuda observed, could go the way of the video market, which flourished for about 20 years, then went into a tailspin. “Streaming started in the early 2000s and is hitting its peak now,” he said. “What will be the next media? Nobody knows.”    

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