A couple of things to note before you guys jump in to read. All of the information that you see below is accessible via the Anime Industry Report 2021 which must be purchased. You can check out the summary report available here. Note that I was unable to include all of the information included in the 130-page report. In addition, some of the charts will not be displayed as usual since I had trouble making them look good. Nevertheless, I have left all of their respective Google charts all the way down below. Also, I have decided to split the report into several sections, of which the rest of the sections are viewable down below:
Anime Industry Report 2021 (Part 1): Market Fell for the First Time Since 2008, Overseas Market has Surpassed Domestic Market
Anime Industry Report 2021 (Part 3): The Crumbling Videogram Market, but is There Still Hope?
Anime Industry Report 2021 (Part 4): Music and Merchandise Sales Slowed Down
TV Animation has witnessed its weakest in terms of production minutes since 2012 as the number of minutes plummeted to 100,845, 5.72% year-on-year. This is partly due to the falling number of titles, 302 to 278 amid the pandemic that as was discussed before had caused the postponement and delay of titles. Number of minutes was at its highest in 2006, at 136,407 before continuously dropping to 90,445 in 2010. It then recovered onward from 2011 to 2014 before dropping again and stablised for the next few years. In 2018, the second highest production minutes were achieved at 130,347.
2020 also saw the lowest production minutes for Kids / Family related titles at 46,518. A further drop of 5.72% from the year before. Kids / Family shows saw nearly 70,000 minutes worth of production between 2000 to 2008, but ever since then, it has gradually been decreasing. In 2015, Adult related content surpassed it to see constant increase in production minutes. According to the report, the number of studios in Japan that have been working on adult related content for the past 15 years have now overtaken those who work on Kids / Family content.
It is not just TV Animation that faced a decline, in fact 2020 saw the weakest theartrical Animation works and production minutes since 2014. Number of works fell to a low 66 while production minutes were down by 34.06% year-on-year to 4,837 minutes. This has also caused a slight drop in box office revenue by 10.84% from 69.20 billion yen (≈610.53 million USD) to 61.70 billion yen (≈544.36 million USD). However, it is not too bad considering prior years (between 2014 to 2018), the number of theatrical works were higher and yet sales were not significantly higher than 2020. According to the report, Japanese animation is integral to the movie market, accounting to 43.1% of the total movie box office of where the Animation films alone generated more than 40% in revenue.
The high box office turnout is not really surprising though as that is the year where Kimetsu no Yaiba Movie: Mugen Ressha-hen made its film debut. According to the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan where the report sourced its data from, the film alone made 38.70 billion yen (≈341.41 million USD) in revenue. That is 37.28% of the total box office revenue of all theatrical Animation combined. The followings are The Top 20 Anime films in Japan in 2020:
Top 20 Anime Films Box Office Leaders in Japan (2020)
(Source: Anime Industry Report 2021 via the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, Bunka Tsuushinsha, and The Association of Japanese Animations)
| Title | Box Office Revenue (¥) | |
| 1 | Kimetsu no Yaiba Movie: Mugen Ressha-hen | 38,700,000,000 |
| 2 | Doraemon Movie 40: Nobita no Shin Kyouryuu | 3,350,000,000 |
| 3 | Stand By Me Doraemon 2 | 3,000,000,000 |
| 4 | Entotsu Machi no Poupelle | 2,300,000,000 |
| 5 | Violet Evergarden Movie | 2,140,000,000 |
| 6 | Fate/stay night Movie: Heaven’s Feel – III. Spring Song | 2,000,000,000 |
| 7 | Pokemon Movie 23: Koko | 1,700,000,000 |
| 8 | Crayon Shin-chan Movie 28: Gekitotsu! Rakuga Kingdom to Hobo Yonin no Yuusha | 1,200,000,000 |
| 9 | Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi | 880,000,000 |
| 10 | Mononoke Hime | 880,000,000 |
| 11 | Kaze no Tani no Nausicaä | 730,000,000 |
| 12 | Made in Abyss Movie 3: Fukaki Tamashii no Reimei | 650,000,000 |
| 13 | Fate/Grand Order: Shinsei Entaku Ryouiki Camelot 1 – Wandering; Agateram | 440,000,000 |
| 14 | Shirobako Movie | 404,000,000 |
| 15 | Precure Miracle Leap Movie: Minna to no Fushigi na Ichinichi | 400,000,000 |
| 16 | Majo Minarai wo Sagashite | 300,000,000 |
| 17 | Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna | 300,000,000 |
| 18 | King of Prism All Stars: Prism Show☆Best Ten | 180,000,000 |
| 19 | Ged Senki | 150,000,000 |
| 20 | Monster Strike the Movie: Lucifer – Zetsubou no Yoake | 140,000,000 |
The report also noted several interesting figures on Anime films performance elsewhere, mainly China and outside of Japan. For China, it was Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna that performed the best amongst Japanese animation, generating sales worth 2 billion yen (≈17 million USD) while Boku no Hero Academia the Movie: Heroes:Rising is the best performer in the Overseas market (not including China) at 13.50 million USD. Note that 2021 saw the global release of Kimetsu no Yaiba Movie: Mugen Ressha-hen, of which we can be assure would generate a significant amount of revenue for the industry especially from overseas.
Overseas Anime Film Box Office (2020)
(By The Association of Japanese Animations via Box Office Mojo)
| Titles | Box Office ($) | |
| 1 | Boku no Hero Academia the Movie: Heroes:Rising | 13,500,000 |
| 2 | Tenki no Ko | 8,060,000 |
| 3 | Kimi to, Nami ni Noretara | 330,000 |
| 4 | Tokyo Godfathers | 240,000 |
| 5 | Jiang Ziya: Legend of Deification | 220,000 |
China’s Top Japanese Anime Film Box Office (2020)
(By The Association of Japanese Animations via Maoyan Entertainment)
| Titles | Box Office (¥) | |
| 1 | Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna | 2,000,000,000 |
| 2 | Doraemon Movie: Nobita no Shin Kyouryuu | 990,000,000 |
| 3 | Violet Evergarden Gaiden: Eien to Jidou Shuki Ningyou | 780,000,000 |
| 4 | Kaijuu no Kodomo | 260,000,000 |
| 5 | Pokemon Movie: Mewtwo no Gyakushuu Evolution | 260,000,000 |
Let me know if you find any issues with the information above! Also, don’t shy away from dropping a comment or two down below and share your thoughts with us.
Source:
The Association of Japanese Animations
Google Charts:
Production Minutes of TV Animation
Production Minutes of TV Animation (Kids / Family vs Adults)
Production Minutes and Number of Works of Theatrical Animation
Box Office Revenue for Theatrical Animations (2000 – 2020)
Download visualisations:
Theatrical Box Office Revenue (2020)
Top 20 Anime Films Box Office Leaders (Part 1)
Top 20 Anime Films Box Office Leaders (Part 2)
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