U.S. And Global Expectations Push Anime Stories To Diversify

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – NOVEMBER 19: Director Hiroshi Nakamura speaks during The Eminence in Shadow 2nd Season Panel at Anime NYC – Day 2 at Jacob Javits Center on November 19, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for AMC Networks)

Getty Images for AMC Networks

Anime companies are seeking other genres to fill a gap left by the end of the golden era of isekai anime as production is set to decrease.

Kadokawa, one of Japan’s largest entertainment conglomerates, acknowledged overreliance on the fantasy subgenre as a factor for a decline in its domestic publication business, as shown in its recent earnings report. Isekai—translated as “different world” as a character is transported to an alternate world—anime production began its upward spike in 2021 as the company touted the genre’s potential at a TIFFCOM seminar that same year.

Now, five years after its rise, domestic and global audiences are ready to move on.

Quantity Over Quality Titles

As a publisher, producer and promoter, Kadokawa has the competitive advantage. The company can easily identify popular series by novel book sales before a title receives a manga adaptation. Then, it can extend a franchise’s promotional lifecycle by pushing marketing for the different existing formats as it expands to the next medium.

From the beginning of a novel’s publication to its manga or screenplay adaptation, the conglomerate had a foolproof media model along with an endless pit of content.

Yet, Kadokawa now admits this led to a lack of diversity and a “decrease in novel projects and taking on new genres.” Despite its investment to create more bestsellers, this ended up having the opposite effect as it led to “an increase in titles [that] lack originality or quality.”

This was happening at the top of the franchise media mix food chain, and had a downstream impact on the film and animation business with a 5.6% decrease in YoY net sales. Operating profit, which is the profit from Kadokawa’s core business, also dropped due to lower domestic sales and “overseas streaming licensing.” In other words, the company still made a profit but lower compared to the last period.

For the 2025 fiscal year, the entertainment giant explained the reason for the difference was the investment in new animated titles “aimed at cultivating new hit series.”

Considering the high number of isekai anime per season, this statement could mean the market is saturated to the brim with new franchises that didn’t catch an audience. As continuing installments of successful isekai anime are stuck in production, the company invested in new isekai franchises in hopes of chasing continued returns. This may have led to comparatively lower profits as the genre is spread thin.

Due to the decline of Kadokawa’s early success indicator in its pipeline—isekai novels—the likely conclusion would be fewer isekai anime in the future. For now, 2026 is set to be in line with the past four years. There will be 33 titles for this year, including the two upcoming series without release dates.

Kadokawa’s stance on the “other world” fantasy anime won’t change the finished productions for this year, but may have an impact in the coming years. Consumer interest in the genre has dwindled as the market became oversaturated with at least 30 titles per year.

Anime Series That Work Abroad

Kadokawa will continue greenlighting and producing Isekai anime; there are plenty set to release in 2026.

Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- was Kadokawa’s best-selling franchise in 2025, and won Best Isekai Anime in this year’s Crunchyroll Anime Awards. Other high-performing series in the same genre are The Eminence in Shadow, The Rising of the Shield Hero and Mushoku Tensei Jobless Reincarnation.

Noticeably, Oshi no Ko outranks all titles in net sales specifically under the Animation and Film segment.

Comparing last year’s list of Kadokawa’s promising anime titles in the 2024 earnings report, the actual sales performance for some titles likely failed to meet expectations, such as The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 4, New PANTY & STOCKING with GARTERBELT and The Shiunji Family Children.

Kadokawa credits season three of Oshi no Ko, Medalist and Sentenced to Be a Hero as the primary contributors to a strong Q4 2025, as international sales tripled compared to Q3 2025. This indicates the international draw these diverse series have on a global scale.

Overall, the Q1 to Q3 net sales of Kadokawa’s animation business were visibly lower for the fiscal year 2025 compared to 2024, despite a higher number of new titles, including isekai.

Digging Into the Anime Archive and Beyond

Where should the influential business giant look next for its Isekai replacement? A 2024 Grand View Research report found that the top-selling global manga were largely taken up by shounen titles. The report includes data compiled from global sources such as Oricon, ComiXology, Publishers Weekly, Book Depository and Retail Report.

Manga with ongoing or recent anime adaptations, such as Blue Lock, Jujutsu Kaisen and Oshi no Ko, were at the top of the list. Yet, looking past that, the following 40 titles were mostly manga published prior to 2000.

Some are familiar to U.S. audiences, like Golgo 13 and Dragon Ball, but others are completely unavailable in English and lack a recent anime adaptation. These include Takehiko Inoue’s Vagabond, Hiroshi Tanaka’s BADBOYS and Masanori Morita’s Rokudenashi Blues.

Even so, there are a limited number of brands and franchises to chase after as competition remains high for acquiring existing works. This shrinking pool of adaptable IP is a theory as to why a slew of vintage manga titles are finally receiving an anime, such as Shinobu Kaitani’s Liar Game and Yuri Suzuki’s Red River.

Kadokawa, too, capitalizes on this trend by finding opportunities for reboots, even for series that have a previous anime adaptation. The conglomerate intends to diversify and expand by “reinvigorating accumulated IP” by tapping into “anniversary strategies” for older and legendary titles.

Still, the company has exciting intentions for producing original works to enhance its notoriety as a studio. This includes “creating local original IP” and sourcing global creators with contests and other methods. Kadokawa is putting resources towards its upcoming original anime with Kinema Citrus: Goodbye, Lara.

After the groundswell of online and in-person support during its panel at Chicago’s Anime Central, Lara will continue promoting in the U.S. at this year’s Anime Expo.

With this in mind, companies should always consider an anime series’ global promotion rather than only relying on its inherent franchise momentum. Plenty of popular domestic Japanese series never catch fire abroad, while others—like the viral My Deer Friend Nokotan—are able to spread through word of mouth. Infamously, producer Ryoma Kawamura made a plea to the “red N corporation,” begging it to promote the original sci-fi anime Moonrise.

Ultimately, the WIT Studio series was buried among the over 200 anime series released in 2025. Had it received the same level of promotion as Lara, Moonrise could have become a seasonal hit.

There are clear opportunities with net-new original stories as well as older manga and novels. But the anime industry’s overreliance on the once tried-and-true isekai genre has run its course.