On January 29th, The Association of Japanese Animations issued a summary of “Japanese Anime Industry Report 2020”. （https://aja.gr.jp/jigyou/chousa/sangyo_toukei ）
This is an annual report which covers production minutes, number of titles, and even the sales of Anime-related industries such as music and merchandizing items. It should be noted the report is based on the statistics in 2019. It DOES NOT include COVID-19 nor huge success of “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train”
The comprehensive market size of Japanese Anime market was 2.5T Yen (24B USD) yen : It was 115% of 2018. The total sales of Anime production companies were 302B yen (2.9B USD). The result was totally unexpected for the people concerned because many critics and business administrations in Anime industry predicted that the market would shrink in 2019. Huge success of movies such as “Weathering With You” and “Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire” contributed to the growth of the market. In addition, international sales, merchandizing and lottery game machine section also showed stable growth. It seems that concerns of some critics that the tightened regulations of Chinese government would affect the sales of Japanese Anime didn’t become a reality. Even though the international sales didn’t exceed the domestic ones in 2019, the turnaround will be unavoidable in near future, considering the declining birthrate and aging population of Japan.
The total TV Anime production time was 107,006 mins in 2019 and it was only 82% of 2018. The number of TV Anime title also decreased from 350 to 314. While the number of TV Anime dropped off, the one of streaming services showed significant growth. The total domestic streaming sales were 68.5B yen (655M USD) and they were 115.1% of the previous year. Although TV Anime would play very important role in this industry for a while, this result shows that the way of consuming Anime is changing among Japanese viewers.
The growth of streaming also affected on DVD and BD sales. The video package sales were 58.7B yen (561M USD, 95.9% of 2018). They have been relying on rental video store. However, numbers of the stores closed for decades. According to the Japan Video Software Association, the number of registered stores in 2019 was 2841, which was only 25% of 1999. In the meantime, the demand for video packages as collectable from enthusiastic fans seems to be supporting the sales of this section.
The sales of merchandizing section turned to increase for the first time in last 5 years. They were 581B yen (5.4B USD)and 116.2% of 2018. It seems that TV series of “Demon Slayer” “Rilakkuma” and “Sumikko Gurashi” accelerated the sales. According to COSPA, clothing company specializing in the production of cosplay costumes and other apparel for the otaku fan base, the best-selling item in 2019 was “Demon Slayer” strap. Surprisingly, it jumped to the top sales almost only in the second half of the year.
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