Anime, manga expand 'Star Wars' universe
Plus: FuRyu incorporates anime business subsidiary; Cygames sponsors Kentucky Derby horse race; Middle-aged male protagonist manga titles surge; and more
This is your weekly Animenomics briefing, covering the business of anime and manga. Today is Wednesday, April 23, 2025.
In case you missed it: A song by the Love Live! anime voice actor unit AiScReam has landed on Spotify’s Viral 50 Global chart in third place, a performance that music critic Patrick St. Michel is calling “the first true viral global hit out of Japan this year”.
Lucasfilm taps anime, manga to grow ‘Star Wars’ series
Star Wars film and television production company Lucasfilm is once again leaning on Japan’s anime talent to help expand the space opera franchise’s story universe, adding new Japanese projects to the Star Wars: Visions animated anthology series.
Why it matters: Last weekend’s Star Wars Celebration Japan drew 105,000 attendees, a record for the convention, reaffirming Japan’s importance to the Star Wars franchise.
Catch up quick: Star Wars: Visions will debut its third season in October with new anime shorts from nine Japanese studios, Lucasfilm announced at the event.
The first season in 2021 also showcased works by Japanese animators, while the episodes in the second season were made by studios elsewhere around the world.
Director Kenji Kamiyama and Production I.G are also producing a standalone The Ninth Jedi series that expands on the story of the season one episode of the same name, to be released in 2026.
Manga featured prominently in Lucasfilm’s publishing panel, revealing an art book of Hisao Tamaki’s 1999 Star Wars: A New Hope manga and multiple new manga titles by international artists.
The intrigue: At Star Wars Celebration Japan, Lucasfilm set up an anime and manga pavilion that featured concepts from Star Wars: Visions and collaboration art between Lucasfilm Animation and Studio Ghibli.
“Japan has always influenced my creativity. I grew up loving Tokusatsu, and was captivated by anime series like Macross […] Miyazaki’s film Princess Mononoke […] changed the way I thought about animation,” Lucasfilm chief creative officer Dave Filoni wrote in a message accompanying his contribution to the art collection.
The pavilion also exhibited a drawing of The Mandalorian character Grogu and soot sprites from My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away, drawn by Kiki’s Delivery Service and Ponyo character designer Katsuya Kondo.
FuRyu incorporates anime planning business subsidiary
FuRyu will split off its anime business and form a new subsidiary, to be called FuRyu Pictures, to fund, manage, and license anime productions, the Tokyo-based maker of photo sticker machines and arcade game prizes told investors on Monday.
Why it matters: The split reflects FuRyu’s optimism in its anime business, which has funded successful productions like Laid-Back Camp and Show By Rock!!, even leading production committees.
What’s happening: FuRyu Pictures, to be led by Seiji Ando, a longtime producer at the company, will assume control over assets, liabilities, and contracts under FuRyu’s ¥933 million (US$6.7 million) anime business come June.
In February, the company reported that net sales in the anime business were up 12.8 percent year-over-year for the nine months through December 2024.
FuRyu Pictures will assume an estimated ¥1 billion (US$7.1 million) in total assets and ¥181 million (US$1.3 million) in total liabilities.
The bigger picture: Macroeconomic pressures in the arcade game prize business and declining sales in the photo sticker segment are creating urgency for the company to find new sources of revenue like anime and video games.
“Given the U.S. being a huge growth market for FuRyu figurines, additional tariffs reduce demand due to the increased price,” equity research group Continuous Compounding, which tracks FuRyu, said in a statement provided to Animenomics.
What we’re watching: “FuRyu’s investment plan in anime was about ¥500 million (US$3.5 million) per year, and I would be surprised if that is not revised upwards in the near future,” equity research analyst Jesús Rodríguez of Dungeon Investing told Animenomics.
Clippings: Cygames to sponsor U.S. thoroughbred races
Mobile gaming firm Cygames is sponsoring the 151st Kentucky Derby and the 16th Unbridled Sidney Stakes thoroughbred horse races in Louisville, Ky. next week. The Kentucky Derby is North America’s most-watched horse racing event. (Press release)
Catch up quick: Cygames is the developer of Umamusume: Pretty Derby, a lucrative mobile game featuring racehorse girl characters that has been adapted into anime and is awaiting an English-language release.
Derby venue Churchill Downs has used social media to attract more young Gen Z attendees, creating an opportunity for Cygames engage a U.S. demographic new to Japanese mobile games.
Publishing giant Kodansha adopted the Catalonian festival of Saint George’s Day, often associated with the gifting of books, for a marketing campaign that distributed the company’s manga titles in print for free in Tokyo. (Oricon News)
Our thought bubble: It’s a creative way to incorporate other cultures into manga promotion. The use of peel-off samples of six manga titles featuring 200 Japanese surnames also creates a unique, personalized gifting experience for passersby.
Brazil is now Crunchyroll’s second-largest market by number of subscribers, second only to India. About 85 percent of subscribers in the country are Millennials and Gen Z users, says Brazil marketing director Roberta Fraissat. (Valor Econômico)
Between the lines: India and Brazil are among territories where Crunchyroll lowered prices in 2022 to boost subscriptions globally.
New York-based GKIDS is investing in the development of a stop-motion anime film adaptation of Taiyo Matsumoto’s award-winning manga Sunny, to be exhibited at the Cannes Film Festival’s Annecy Animation Showcase next month. (Variety)
Pierrot and Asahi Production entered into a capital alliance, expanding a partnership that has existed between the two anime studios—Pierrot as a prime contractor and Asahi as a digital photography studio—since last year. (Animation Business Journal)
Detective Conan: One-eyed Flashback set new series records for opening weekend box office revenue (¥3.44 billion, or US$24.5 million) and screenings. (CinemaCafé.net)
Middle-aged male characters get their manga spotlight
Readership of manga titles featuring middle-aged male protagonists have more than doubled compared to five years ago, according to sales data shared by Tokyo-based digital manga and e-book store BookLive.
Why it matters: Manga serials with titles containing the word ojisan (meaning uncle or old man) or ossan (old man) are most popular with male readers in their 40s, who are more likely to have disposable income.
By the numbers: BookLive tracked more than 200 works with titles containing the keyword ojisan or ossan out of the 120,000 manga titles in its catalog.
Publishers last year debuted 42 first volumes of manga serials featuring older male protagonists, more than doubling since 2019, when 18 new works using those title keywords were published.
Four months into this year, 19 new manga containing ojisan or ossan in their titles have already been published, exceeding the pace of last year’s publications.
Zoom in: From Old Country Bumpkin to Master Swordsman, published by Akita Shoten and whose anime adaptation began airing this month, is the most popular title overall.
Recent fantasy hits like From Bureaucrat to Villainess (Shonengahosha) and Uncle from Another World (Kadokawa) also rank among the ten most popular works.
Titles popular with women include Pops Loves Kawaii Stuff (Flex Comix), a comedy that has been adapted for live-action television, and Ojisan × Musume’s Love (Shogakukan), a romance series with sales of over ¥150 million (US$1.1 million).
What they’re saying: “It’s important to note that the ‘uncles’ who appear in manga about older men are not necessarily handsome older men,” a BookLive spokesperson said in a statement provided to media.
“Stories in which unremarkable older men use the experience and judgment they’ve gained throughout their lives to succeed may resonate with readers of the same generation as the protagonist, or even older generations,” the company said.
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