In a symbolic and historic realignment of economic power, the combined market capitalization of Japan’s leading entertainment companies has surpassed the value of its top automobile makers for the first time in history. This milestone, recently reported by Nikkei, signals a profound shift in the nation’s economic identity, long defined by its post-war industrial and manufacturing might. The data reveals that the combined market cap of the top nine entertainment firms—a group including global giants like Sony Group and Nintendo—has eclipsed the valuation of the top nine Japanese automakers, a sector that has been the face of Japan's corporate strength for decades.
This changing of the guard is not an anomaly but the culmination of a powerful trend, fueled in large part by the explosive global growth of Japan's creative content. At the heart of this surge is the anime industry, which itself reached an all-time high in 2024, climbing to a staggering JPY 3.84 trillion ($25.25 billion) in total market value. Once a niche cultural import, Japanese animation has firmly established itself as a mainstream global entertainment force, driving revenues that are reshaping the country's economic landscape.
The new data, compiled in a report by the Association of Japanese Animations (AJA), paints a picture of an industry firing on all cylinders, with its primary engine being international demand. According to the report, overseas revenues surged by an astonishing 26% year-on-year, reaching JPY 2.17 trillion ($14.27 billion). By contrast, the mature local market in Japan saw a modest 2.8% rise to JPY 1.67 trillion ($10.98 billion).
This marks the second-highest annual growth rate on record for the industry, second only to a 15.3% increase in 2019, and it confirms a trend that began in 2023 when overseas anime revenues officially overtook domestic earnings for the first time since the pandemic. In 2024, that gap did not just persist; it widened dramatically.
Kazuko Ishikawa, the chair of the Association of Japanese Animations and president of the storied studio Nippon Animation, affirmed the industry's new status. She stated that anime has become a core pillar of Japan’s cultural and economic exports. This success, however, brings with it new responsibilities. Ishikawa added that the association aims to "further improve industry conditions so that creators and studios can continue producing high-quality works that resonate with audiences worldwide." This statement alludes to the well-documented growing pains of an industry facing immense pressure to produce more content than ever, often stretching its creative workforce to the limit.
The production-side market itself set a new record in 2024, growing 9.1% year-on-year to JPY 466.2 billion ($3.06 billion). Within this, overseas business contributed JPY 118.8 billion ($781 million). While still a smaller portion of the production landscape, its steady year-by-year growth indicates that international co-productions and direct commissions are becoming increasingly common.
The driver of this international boom is no longer just the sale of broadcast rights for animated television shows. The modern anime industry's success is built on a sophisticated and highly profitable transmedia model.
“The overseas market now far exceeds local revenues, and the gap will only widen,” said Masahiko Hasegawa, the editor-in-chief of the AJA report. Hasegawa’s analysis points to a fundamental change in how anime content is monetized abroad. “Growth today includes bundled contracts that span theatrical, streaming, merchandising, and event rights — not just content distribution.”
This model means a single successful intellectual property (IP) can generate multiple, massive revenue streams. The rise of global streaming platforms like Netflix and Sony's own Crunchyroll has made new and catalog anime titles instantly accessible to hundreds of millions of viewers.
This accessibility, in turn, fuels demand for theatrical releases, merchandising and live events.
This economic shift from manufacturing to IP has not gone unnoticed by the Japanese government. The success of the entertainment sector aligns perfectly with the nation's "Cool Japan" initiative, a national strategy designed to leverage the country's vast "soft power" (its cultural exports) for tangible economic gain.
The government has explicitly positioned anime and its related media—including film, games, manga, and music—as a strategic core industry for the 21st century. The goals are ambitious: under the revised Cool Japan initiative, the national target is to triple overseas content sales to JPY 20 trillion ($131.4 billion) by 2033, up from approximately JPY 5.8 trillion ($38 billion) in 2024.
Achieving this goal will mean creating a sustainable ecosystem that can support the immense global demand. It will require addressing the industry challenges Ishikawa alluded to, namely ensuring that the animators, writers, and directors at the heart of the boom are supported and compensated in a way that allows for sustainable, high-quality production rather than rapid burnout.
As Japan navigates the 21st-century economy, its new titans of industry may be those who craft worlds rather than those who build cars. The symbolic victory of entertainment's market cap over the auto industry is more than a statistic; it is the crowning of intellectual property as the new king of Japanese exports, signaling a creative and economic renaissance that is being watched by the entire world.