Anime beats every other genre on Asian streaming, new data shows

Anime is now the most-watched genre on paid streaming in Asia.

That is the headline from Media Partners Asia's 'The Anime Economy' report, published on 17 September 2026. Between July 2025 and August 2026, anime drew a larger monthly audience than any other genre on premium video-on-demand services, meaning paid streaming subscriptions, across the region Variety.

The gap is wide. Across eight Asian markets, between 31% and 47% of paid streaming users watched anime in any given month. The average across seven other genres tracked was 26% to 34%. In Japan, the lead was even bigger. There, 45% to 59% of users watched anime each month, against 24% to 36% for other genres.

Hours watched tell the same story. Anime accounted for 15.6% of tracked paid streaming hours in the second half of 2025 and 14.0% in the first half of 2026. In Japan, the share was 28%.

One title sits above the rest. Jujutsu Kaisen ranked as the top anime title in seven of the eight Asian markets tracked in the first half of 2026. Its maker is MAPPA, the animation studio behind Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man.

MAPPA's rise has been fast. Its share of regional anime hours jumped from 6.1% in the second half of 2025 to 17.3% in the first half of 2026. That put it first, ahead of TMS Entertainment at 16.6%, Toei Animation at 13% and titles mastered by Aniplex at 12%.

Netflix takes the largest slice of that viewing. It held 51% of regional anime hours in the second half of 2025 and 50% in the first half of 2026. Japan is tighter. Prime Video led there with a 43% share in late 2025, before Netflix pulled level at 42% each in early 2026.

Globally, anime is growing faster than Netflix itself. Viewing of Japanese anime on Netflix climbed from 3.33 billion hours in the first half of 2023 to 4.64 billion hours in the first half of 2026, a 39% rise. Total viewing on Netflix grew 4.5% over the same period. Anime's share of all Netflix hours rose from 3.6% to 4.75% Variety.

Most of that viewing is old favourites. Four-fifths of Netflix's Japanese anime viewing remains licensed library content, meaning shows bought in rather than commissioned as originals.

For fans, this means more new deals chasing the same audience. Media Partners Asia counted 21 anime transactions and alliances since 2021, with 11 struck in 2025 and 2026 alone. Sony took part in seven of those deals. Crunchyroll, Sony's dedicated anime service, has 21 million paying subscribers.

Netflix entered an expanded strategic partnership with MAPPA in January 2026 to co-create a slate of original anime projects Cartoon Brew. YouTube is also a major anime screen. In Japan alone, 70 million people watch anime-related content on YouTube each month for a total of 2.8 billion hours. Aniplex's official channel draws 5.1 million monthly viewers and Toho animation's draws 4.8 million.

Spending is expected to keep climbing. Media Partners Asia projects worldwide anime spending will rise by about 10% a year through 2030, driven mainly by Asia outside Japan and North America.