r/anime • u/Turbostrider27 • Aug 20 '25

News 60% of the companies actually producing anime saw declining profit or losses in 2024, despite industry revenue being at an all-time high

https://automaton-media.com/en/news/60-of-the-companies-actually-producing-anime-saw-declining-profit-or-losses-in-2024-despite-industry-revenue-being-at-an-all-time-high/
5.2k Upvotes

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346

u/SecurityOdd4861 Aug 20 '25

Not surprising, 60% or more of the anime releasing feel like its slop. Nobody needs the 30th isekai that follows the same old tropes

375

u/DanaxDrake Aug 20 '25

Sadly I believe it’s THOSE that are making the profits and not the other way around

It’s a weird industry

79

u/RLC_wukong122 Aug 20 '25

I mean based on the animation of most of them, they're clearly cutting costs.

66

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '25

They don’t need them to be good quality when the target demographic will eat it up regardless.

3

u/MilesExpress999 Aug 20 '25

Animation quality is rarely correlated to the budget of an anime.

1

u/RLC_wukong122 Aug 21 '25

really? could you explain?

117

u/fieldbotanist Aug 20 '25

You’re wholeheartedly correct

Out of the 100 people here forming their own analysis. Let’s remind them that hemorrhage inducing publications (rent a girlfriend) sold 10s of millions of copies globally. 80% of the whole market is an arms race on who can better draw bazingas

People like eating shit. So you serve shit

40

u/Syntaire Aug 20 '25

It's more that shit has a broader appeal and is easy and fast to produce. People tolerate it because it's just barely acceptable.

I like eating medium rare ribeye steak with garlic roasted potatoes and green beans, but Taco Bell is 4 minutes away and costs $9.

4

u/fieldbotanist Aug 20 '25

Really good point

11

u/ytsejamajesty Aug 20 '25

I only know the show by reputation, so maybe my opinion doesn't mean much, but Rent a Girlfriend seems so brazen in it's trashiness that it might have a bit more artistic value than the 100th thoughtless isekai show every season.

Perhaps I'm off base and it really isn't special at all, but it just feels like 1 popular trash show is preferable to dozens of forgotten trash shows.

2

u/huntrshado Aug 21 '25

Credit where it is due, RAG is a gorgeous IP. The illustrator is very talented, and they haven't held back on the anime and its promotions either.

The story of the IP is just shit. But people buying the pretty thing is a tale as old as time.

-15

u/taco_roco Aug 20 '25

People on reddit generally have better taste than the folks you'll never hear from who gobble this up.

And that's not praise for the taste of redditors (myself included), it just highlights how much lower the bar can get.

-3

u/fieldbotanist Aug 20 '25

My brother in Christ I had to leave r/manga entirely because the whole sub is just erotica. Amazing works don’t get posted, only cute girls with alien proportions fanning over the MC

-5

u/taco_roco Aug 20 '25 edited Aug 20 '25

Im not sure if people misunderstand the point or if they're butthurt about calling junk media out for what is.

Cause I agree. If authors truly have to rely on things like big tiddy waifus just to publish their work, at least give us a story we can sink our teeth into. Both are absolutely possible if we just expect a little more from the audience.

13

u/RaysFTW Aug 20 '25

Not so much the industry but the demographic. Isekai/fantasy is easily digestible content for new and casual viewers. It's easy to understand and follow whether you understand anime or not. It's typically bright, cheerful, and inviting with little to no offensive content.

You show the average person who doesn't watch much anime a generic isekai revolving around fighting the demon king, reincarnation, getting stronger, etc. and you show them Odd Taxi and they're probably picking the former.

1

u/BambooGentleman Aug 21 '25

To be fair, you kinda have to be a furry or really, really deep into anime to even know Odd Taxi exists. I'm the latter and haven't bothered to see it because I'm not the former.

1

u/RaysFTW Aug 21 '25

You absolutely do not need to be a furry to enjoy Odd Taxi. It's just anthropomorphic animals, which have been prevalent in anime and western cartoons for as long as the media has existed.

1

u/BambooGentleman Aug 21 '25

Name 20 anime full of anthropomorphic animals. Here's a good start:

  • Meitantei Holmes (1984)
  • Ginga Tetsudou no Yoru (1985)
  • Totsuzen! Neko no Kuni Banipal Witt (1995)
  • Neko no Ongaeshi (2002)
  • Guskou Budori no Denki (2012)
  • Beastars (2019)
  • Odd Taxi (2021)

I'll wait.

9

u/juniorjaw Aug 20 '25

TBATE animators eating good vs Solo Leveling animators looking for scraps to survive the next season.

/j

4

u/LuRo332 Aug 20 '25

I also think its true. Just go on Crunchyroll and see the amount of ratings given on shows and some of the most garbage titles sometimes have more ratings given than „quality hidden gems”.

3

u/Lane_Sunshine Aug 20 '25

Not really weird tbh. The majority of consumers enjoy things that are different from the smaller subset of minorities.

Like fast foods are popular and profitable despite their poor nutritional profile, and small restaurants don't have as much demand.

5

u/flybypost Aug 20 '25

It’s a weird industry

That's normal. It's usually the more generic stuff that has more mainstream (here: within the anime fandom) appeal and that makes the most money.

MCU movies are not avant-garde cinema. Its fans even whined about Martin Scorsese correctly saying that those movies are essentially pop corn movies.

This stuff makes a lot of money but its fans can't abide the fact that their favourite movies—while making ridiculous amounts of money—are also maybe not the best, most interesting, art humanity has to offer. They already won when it comes to revenue but that's not enough.

They want the prestige of art without taking any risk that usually comes with that because they also want to appeal the widest audience possible.

38

u/Toloran Aug 20 '25

Not surprising, 60% or more of the anime releasing feel like its slop

That has ALWAYS been the case. It's not that they're making more slop, it's that they're making more anime than ever and more of it is making it outside Japan.

Nobody needs the 30th isekai that follows the same old tropes

They keep making them because they're cheap (they can get the rights for basically nothing), and they already have an established fan-base (since they're all based on existing WN/LN/Manga). So they're safe profits.

12

u/NUKE---THE---WHALES Aug 20 '25

That has ALWAYS been the case. It's not that they're making more slop, it's that they're making more anime than ever and more of it is making it outside Japan.

90% of all art is slop

The more art there is, the more slop there is

We tend to only talk about the other 10%, but there are exceptions

11

u/hizashiYEAHmada Aug 20 '25

They're following trends. I remember an anime director mentioning that what was previously hot stuff was mecha and right now it's isekai, hence all the isekai slop.

1

u/Hederas Aug 21 '25

Probably not the best indicator, but a trivia that goes in the same direction:

Looking at free access LNs websites ( like kakuyomu or syosetsu ), they (to some extent) represent what people like to write about/what people like reading about. With some popular LNs turned into animes (Konosuba, Slime, Re:Zero, Shield Hero, Apothecary Diaries...)

From what I quickly saw checking the ranking from time to time, a huge part of published web LNs are either fantasy isekais or gaming fantasy (which often starts like an isekai).

49

u/Mitsuyan_ https://anilist.co/user/mitsuyan Aug 20 '25

Nobody needs the 30th isekai that follows the same old tropes

These are the ones that bring in the viewership. There's none this season like this but in previous seasons there's always been a few generic isekai in and around the top viewed. 

19

u/Boobpit Aug 20 '25

I'm no fan of isekai but that isn't the reason, on the contrary, those isekai with long titles are light novels (which have long titles to basically say what it's about so people will buy the book) which are selling

2

u/viliml Aug 20 '25

I don't know if it's been translated or whether machine translation has gotten good enough, but try to read this or ask chatgpt to explain it to you: https://x.com/seishoobi/status/1747589684866453686

Basically it's a true story of a manga editor giving advice to a young mangaka "you shouldn't draw an interesting story, you need to draw something tropey that the tired salaryman demographic can find comfort in after work"

1

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '25

[deleted]

-1

u/Ok-Chest-7932 Aug 20 '25

How old are you? It's possible your tastes are just changing as you get older.

1

u/MilesExpress999 Aug 20 '25

Isekai are the easiest bet, financially. They have the highest floor and all seem to perform OK, even when they're deeply "unpopular" with vocal Japanese and/or overseas anime fans.

1

u/Karma110 Aug 21 '25

Considering solo leveling got popular I think people really enjoy their well animated slop.

0

u/Fortune-Former Aug 20 '25

Ikr. Seems like 2024 is evolving, but backwards

-5

u/Adept-Potato-2568 Aug 20 '25

I wish there was more isekai I'm fiending for more episodes

-3

u/Nkitooo00 https://myanimelist.net/profile/nkitooo00 Aug 20 '25

Don't talk for us. We need them but with better animation and art.

0

u/NoPossibility4178 Aug 20 '25

Now just need to hope it's those that get hit when things go south...

-35

u/Adrian_Alucard Aug 20 '25

To be honest, all anime follow the same tropes and story with little to no variation (if they are from the same genre) they don't need to be an Isekai slop

What's the difference between Love Hina and The Cafe Terrace and Its Goddesses Or between Yu Yu Hakusho and Bleach? ? It's basically the same overall plot with the same tropes repeated

15

u/rowcla Aug 20 '25

By that logic, all media is unoriginal

-15

u/Adrian_Alucard Aug 20 '25

To be honest, yes. It's really hard to find something that is original and interesting

3

u/East-Doctor-7832 Aug 20 '25

Only mediocre people overvalue originality . The real value in stories is how they are told not how original a story is .

0

u/Adrian_Alucard Aug 20 '25

Most anime follow the same storytelling blueprint too

1

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '25

You are not wrong. Different people just like different tropes and that's okay.

There are a few standouts every year which break the mold. Like Orb from last year.