The 39th Tokyo International Film Festival wrapped this week, a few days after its content market TIFFCOM, with Japan’s government talking up a JPY20 trillion ($126.6 billion) content export target, and the anime industry arriving with numbers to back it up. The festival ran Oct. 26–Nov. 4, with TIFFCOM held Oct. 28–30 at the Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Trade Center in Hamamatsucho. Across both, the talk kept returning to who owns Japanese IP, who pays to develop it and how far producers will travel to find partners.
Here are the key takeaways. The hardest number of the week came from the Association of Japanese Animations (AJA). Spending on Japanese anime worldwide reached a record JPY4.45 trillion ($28.2 billion) in 2025, up 15.8% on the year, according to preliminary figures presented at TIFFCOM by Hasegawa Masahiro, editor-in-chief of the AJA’s annual “Anime Industry Report.” Much of the growth came from home.
Local growth jumped to 14.1% from 4.6% in 2024, reaching JPY1.91 trillion ($12.1 billion). Overseas revenue rose 17.2% to JPY2.54 trillion ($16.1 billion), slower than the 26% of a year earlier, though overseas still accounts for 57.1% of the total. Studio revenue also hit a record, rising 8.4% to JPY505.5 billion ($3.2 billion).
The industry is also building its own institutions. The AJA named its new national prize the Nippon Anime Awards and set the first ceremony for Nov. 21, 2027, at SGC Hall Ariake in Tokyo. The name was revealed at Tokyo Anime Next, an event co-organized by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.
A TIFFCOM symposium on Oct. 30 examined what the awards are for. Japanese IP Continues to be the Market’s Currency TIFFCOM spent three days selling Japanese stories to the world, and the Cannes Film Market signed up for more. On Oct. 29 the two markets said they would stage a second Japan IP Market in Cannes on May 14–15, 2027, following a first edition in May, when Japan was Country of Honor at the Cannes market.
Back in Tokyo, eight rights holders pitched titles in English at the Tokyo IP Market: Adaptation & Remake on the market’s first day. Shochiku offered its long-running “Otoko wa Tsurai yo” film series, Takara Tomy pitched its “Beyblade” toy franchise and Toei put forward the film “Inugamimura.” The platforms are spending. Buddy Marini, head of Amazon MGM Studios Japan, said at a TIFFCOM session on the global potential of Japanese IP that the studio is doubling its investment to bring its content up to global standards.
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