How Big Is The Anime Fandom?

A year back when I was looking for band members, I made it very clear on my ads that I was looking for anime/jmusic fans. I wanted my members to love and feel passionate about the niche music we were going to play. Regardless, some non-fans still responded, saying they’re open and interested, but at the same time, they had doubts about our potential as they didn’t think anime was that big.

I was stunned! As someone who has watched anime on TV as a kid, have had many anime friends through school, and continue to bump into anime fans all over the place, not to mention Toronto having quite a few anime conventions and anime stores that are doing quite well, it’s crazy how so many are ignorant about just how big anime really is here and around the world.

Consider this. Kpop has had quite a few international fans since the early 2010s. It has definitely had a few moments in the west with songs like Gangnam Style and Nobody, but didn’t stay in the limelight. Now with groups like BTS and BlackPink trending and gathering many more international fans, along with trending on music stations, it’s hard to deny how big the Kpop fandom is.

But regardless, anime has always been way more popular than Kpop, and still remains way more popular than Kpop. Don’t believe me? Here’s a chart from Google Trends. Worldwide stats from 2004 until now.

The reason why people don’t notice us is because, the majority of anime fans probably felt like outcasts growing up, or were told “Cartoons are for kids” and “adults who cosplay are weird”, so they keep it to themselves. Why reveal something when you’re going to be made fun of? Thankfully, there are yearly events where they can go out and show their pride and love more boldly around other fans.

But if you still don’t believe me, don’t worry! I got a lot of evidence and receipts for you. Let’s look around the internet, shall we?

Streaming Sites

So let’s start with the obvious place to find anime fans, and that’s websites that stream these shows. Netflix has actually adopted anime into their library under their own category. And this may surprise you, but according to recent studies, more than half of Netflix’s 220 Million subscribers are watching anime!

According to Netflix’s anime director “Anime is one of the cornerstones of our investment in Japan, watched by nearly 90% of our members here last year. At the same time, interest in anime has grown worldwide, and more than half of our members globally tuned into it last year.”

According to Nerdist, “In Japan, the number of Netflix’s anime viewers seems astronomical. But globally, the percentage is no slouch either. Over 50% of global viewers engaged with anime in the last year. And that number only seems to be on the rise. This means millions of people watch anime worldwide—something we definitely love to hear.”

But forget Netflix. Many serious anime fans would be on one or both of the dedicated anime anime streaming services, Crunchyroll and Funimation.

As of August 2021, Crunchyroll made an announcement that they hit 5 million paid subscribers! But they also have over 120 Million people who use their free services. Paying for a subscription is a lot better and safer than risking the virus and ad filled websites on the net.

Do note though, that while Crunchyroll is ‘available’ in Japan, the collection is limited since they don’t have distribution rights there. Most Japanese fans will be watching on TV or via another service, thus these numbers don’t include the Japanese population, which we will go into later.

Funimation, which is not as popular, still has about half the subscribers with 2.5 million. Regardless, for streaming sites only dedicated to anime, you have to admit, that’s quite impressive!

Subscribers On Websites

Let’s start with Reddit. A free platform that many join to share and discuss their interests with others. Let’s look at some anime threads and see how many members they have!

The general anime subreddit has 3.5 million members. Then there are some subreddits for specific animes that are also ranking high, such as Boku no Hero Academia with 1 million and Pokemon with 3.8 million! There are other subreddits like One Piece and Attack on Titan also nearing the 1 million mark.

Let’s check out Facebook as well! How big are the groups? Well, first off, there are over 50 groups dedicated to anime, and quite a few have over 10K members, some even reaching 100K and even 600K+

Let’s also look at MAL (My Anime List). This is probably the most popular website for anime fans to find and leave reviews for animes and see what’s worth watching. Under their forum statistics, as of February 2022, they have almost 12.5 Million users!

Anime Conventions Attendance

Obviously, there are a lot of fans. And due to the numbers of fans, there are actually a lot of anime conventions. In fact, Wikipedia has a list of over 100 noteable anime conventions from around the world. Quite a few were started in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but new cons are still popping up each year.

Not to mention, anime is now a part of other cons, such as superhero, comic, and gaming conventions. There are card games and video games made from anime series, manga is a form of comics, and if you like heroes, anime has many of them!

Japan Expo in France has an attendance of over 252,000, Manga Barcelona in Spain has over 150,000, Anime Festival Asia hosted in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia has 120,000, and the biggest con, Comiket in Japan, has an attendance of 750,000! (Source).

There are of course many smaller conventions, usually averaging 10-50,000 attendees. Anime North in Toronto, Canada has about 34,590 attendees, but considering it always sells out, you can be sure there are way more fans around.

However, one thing to note is that, not every anime fan attends conventions. Not everyone cares to be around these kinds of places, and other’s can afford to. Some may want to attend, but they don’t have a friend to go with. Thus the number of fans in a city will always be way higher than those who attend such events. Organizers wouldn’t host a convention in such a big space, even occupying nearby hotels, if they didn’t think there would be a big turn out.

Youtube Subscriptions & Views

We can also look at some anime Youtubers for example. Some of the biggest or most recognizable being The Anime Man and Akidearest. The Anime Man currently has 3.2 Million subscribers and Akidearest has 2.89 Million subscribers.

Just like with conventions, not everyone who likes anime will subscribe to channels. And like most channels, the number of subscribers are a small fraction compared to those who actually subscribe.

Outside of anime content, there are other views that can give us a bigger insight into how big the fandom is since it’s free and more easily accessible to everyone. Every view counts, even if you don’t have an account.

Down below are some of the well known anime songs. Including God Knows which has a combination of 115 Million views between two videos.

Unravel has 94 Million between three videos, but there have been countless countless covers which have millions each as well, such as Jonathan Young’s which has 39 Million! Crossing Field’s original video has 94 Million as well.

I could go on and on about songs and MVs which almost hit or has hit over 100 Million views. And unlike Kpop fans who will stream daily to support their favs and beat records, these are genuine views from those who enjoy the song and/or the music video. With Spotify, a lot of additional listens will be over there as well!

Japan’s Anime Population

Of course if we’re counting numbers, we can’t ignore the country where it originated from. In Japan, all cartoons or animated series are an anime, which means the majority of the population would have grown up watching anime, such as Doraemon, Pokemon, Yokai Watch and Crayon Shin-Chan. There are also some ongoing shows like Detective Conan which continues to be a hit amongst the population.

However, just because it’s popular and widely accessible, doesn’t mean everyone considers themselves an anime fan. Just like over here, real anime fans or ‘otaku’ are considered the geeks and sometimes ‘losers’ of their population, and some hardcore fans and their lifestyles can be unattractive to others.

In 2019, people were asked if they often read manga or watched anime, and about 33%, 1/3 of the population said yes (Source). Japan has a population of 125 Million. Thus, if 1/3 watch anime regularly, that’s at least 41.6 Million dedicated fans! I assume the 26% who said ‘neither ‘mean they don’t watch it “often” but they don’t avoid it completely, making them casual fans.

Moving on, Demon Slayer has beat out Spirited Away for the highest grossing film in Japanese history (source). While both are animes, Demon Slayer is a series, whereas Spirited Away is just a movie. People would only watch the movie if they were already invested in the series.

According to Sportskeeda, 19% of all Japanese households watch Demon Slayer on a weekly basis. Can you imagine 10% of any population all watching the same show? That’s crazy!

CONCLUSION

So how many anime fans are there? It’s a really hard question to answer as there are so many factors. Due to popular sites, we know for sure there are over 10 Million fans. The sites and channels we looked at above only catered to an English audience, but some countries like the Philippians and Saudi Arabia have some of the biggest anime communities as well.

And, what is an ‘anime fan’ persay? There are many casual and mainstream fans who do like anime, but they aren’t one to join online discussion groups or pay to attend a convention. Many people have watched anime as a kid but have yet to realize that they are actual animes. Same with parents who may have watched Sailormoon or Dragonball Z with their kids and liked them. Are they fans too?

Crunchyroll has over 120 Million accounts, which is amazing! It’s definitely a better, safer place to watch anime than the spam filled sites online. However, we don’t know how many of those are duplicate accounts for premium trails or forgotten passwords. Some users may have only used it to watch a mainstream series or two, but don’t care to dig deeper into anime.

So considering all this, and knowing that only a fraction of fans will join certain groups, sites, and conventions, it’s safe to say there’s at least 60 Million Committed Anime Fans worldwide, and over 100 Million Casual Fans and Watchers.

Thanks to the ease of access for anime across streaming platforms, along with social media spreading the love proudly, anime is only gaining more fans every year <3