×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

News
Anime Characters in Top Earning Fictional Characters

posted on by Isaac Alexander
Yu-Gi-Oh! ascends while Pokémon descends in annual list

Forbes has published a list of the top ten earning "fictional characters" for 2004. This is essentially a list of the top ten earning fictional properties, but labeled and presented under the guise of the main character for each property. Rather than Pokémon, the list included an entry for Pikachu, likewise Yugi represented Yu-Gi-Oh!

The top three earners were Mickey Mouse with $5.8 billion, Winnie the Pooh with $5.6 billion and Frodo Baggins of Lord of the Rings with $2.9 billion. Yugi ranked 6th on the list, earning $1.6 billion and Pikachu rounded out the list in tenth, earning $825 million. Last year when ANN reported on this annual list, Pikachu was 8th while Yugi was 10th.

The amount for each character is the worldwide sum of sales (not profit) for toy/merchandise sales, video game sales, publishing and box-office revenue, and DVD/VHS sales and rental revenue.

The list excluded properties that did not originate from narrative stories (books, movies, video games, etc...), for example like Hello Kitty. Hello Kitty would have ranked third on the list with earnings of $4 billion last year, were excluded from Forbes list.

discuss this in the forum (2 posts) |
bookmark/share with: short url

News homepage / archives