Part 2/11:
Despite the widespread perception that anime is booming worldwide, industry sales data paint a different picture. According to a report from Cartoon Brew citing market research firm Take Hoku Data Bank, Japan’s anime industry actually experienced a decline in sales in 2020 for the first time in a decade. Sales fell by approximately 1.8%, dropping from 255.7 billion yen in 2019 to around 251.1 billion yen in 2020—roughly $2.3 billion USD. This downturn breaks a nine-year growth streak and is attributed, in part, to pandemic-related production and release delays, as well as a significant decline in the number of new TV anime series being produced.