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Manga Market in Japan Shrinks for 1st Time in 7 Years in 2025
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
The All Japan Magazine and Book Publisher's and Editor's Association's (AJPEA) Research Institute for Publications revealed last Friday its report on the Japanese manga industry in Japan in 2025. The manga market shrunk 1.7% year-on-year in 2025, with the market value amounting to 692.5 billion yen (about US$4.40 billion), compared to 704.3 billion yen (about US$4.47 billion in current conversion) in 2024, which represented an all-time high for the manga industry. This represents the first time since 2017 that the manga market has shrunk, as it has seen a year-on-year increase since then.
Despite the decline in 2025, the market is still larger than the record growth jump in 2020, when the market grew 23% from the 498.0 billion yen (about US$3.16 billion) in 2019 to 612.6 billion yen (about US$3.89 billion) in 2020.
Sales of printed compiled manga book volumes shrunk by 14.4% year-on-year, now amounting to 126 billion yen (about US$801 million), while the manga magazine market also shrunk by 12.7%, now amounting to 39.2 billion yen (about US$249 million). The print numbers combined amount to 165.2 billion yen (about US$1.04 billion yen), a reduction from 2024's 192.1 billion yen (about US$1.22 billion in current conversion). The print market has overall shrunk every year since 2017, when it amounted to 258.3 billion yen (about US$1.64 billion in current conversion).
The digital manga market value increased 2.9% year-on-year, now amounting to 527.3 billion yen (about US$3.35 billion), with digital manga now amounting to about 76.1% of the total manga market (the market value includes manga subscription services, but does not include web advertising revenue).
AJPEA had revealed its report on the overall publishing industry in Japan in 2025 last month. The publishing market as a whole declined 1.6% in 2025 to a total market value of 1.6305 trillion yen (about US$9.82 billion).
The digital market rose 2.7% to 581.5 billion yen (about US$3.69billion), and the print market decreased 4.1% to 964.7 billion yen (about US$6.13 billion), the first time in fifty years (1976) it has been below 1 trillion yen in value. Digital publications currently take up 37.6% of the market share.
Sources: Hon.jp (鷹野凌), Research Institute for Publications website (link 2, link 3), Animenomics (Richardson Handjaja)
