Increasing Anime Censorship

As a result of Japan’s deteriorating relations with China, the number of Chinese fans of Japanese animation is shrinking.

Before the current suspension, Mainland China averaged 13 new licensed anime titles per season from 2023 to 2026 on Bilibili. Staggeringly, that’s half of the average of 26 series from 2020 to 2023. Summer 2025 had 21 new Japanese anime titles in Mainland China—the highest in a three year period—with titles like SAKAMOTO DAYS, DAN DA DAN and The Summer Hikaru Died.

Winter 2026 matched the frigid relationship between Japan and China as there was a significant retraction in the series following Prime Minister Takaichi’s statement about Taiwan in November 2025. Witch Hat Atelier and Daemons of the Shadow Realm are receiving high praise in the West, but are absent from Mainland China’s roster.

Even fan-organized events haven’t been spared as China’s largest comic convention, Comicup, enforced a blanket ban on all Japanese content less than a week before the event was set to begin. Yet, event attendees and participating artists moved along as if nothing was amiss.

A flood of Chinese original literature, animation and gaming IP immediately took over the vacuum left by the ban, leading to a booming celebration of domestic culture. The lack of Japanese IP was barely noticeable as booths selling fan merchandise from series such as Arknights, Honkai: Star Rail, The Legend of Luo Xiaohei, The King’s Avatar and Love and Deepspace generated over 1 billion yuan (or $147 million).

An Evolved Domestic Animation Market

Arguably, the declining Chinese domestic interest could be traced back to as early as 2006, when the government enforced regulations to protect China’s fledgling animation studios. After nearly two decades of censorship in the name of cultural protectionism, younger generations have grown up with a matured Chinese animation industry, providing them with shows that contain the Japanese anime aesthetic with domestic storytelling and sensibilities.

Comparing three leading anime franchises (Dragon Ball, ONE PIECE and Detective Conan) to domestic IP (The Legend of Luo Xiaohei, Lord of Mysteries and A Record of Mortal’s Journey to Immortality) using Baidu Index—a tool similar to Google Trends for China’s largest search engine—there’s a paradigm shift in the overall declining search average volume for the Japanese titles from 2019 to 2020.

As an additional note, the Baidu Index data for April 2026 shows the aforementioned franchises from Japan and China skew heavily male and primarily in their 30s, but three Chinese titles lean older for audiences aged 40 and above. This could be due to China’s policies to censor anime that it deemed violent, as well as limiting children’s video game screentime in 2021.

During these 10 years, the logical assumption is that children born in this era would have grown up in a time where Japanese anime was under more scrutiny and lessened in popularity.

JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization) released a report in 2024 listing Detective Conan as the highest-viewed anime title on Bilibili at a total of 1.03 billion views across 31 seasons. But that pales in comparison to A Record of Mortal’s Journey to Immortality’s near-2 billion views on China’s biggest platform for anime. However, even the quick-witted Conan couldn’t avoid being the latest target of an online crackdown sparked by a seemingly innocuous collaboration between it and My Hero Academia.

Now, China is using this politically tumultuous time as an opportunity to further weaken domestic interest and dependence on the Japanese anime industry as it looks to promote its own animation and games franchises domestically and overseas. If Japan wishes to continue its goal of expanding its anime endeavors in the overseas market from one trillion to six trillion yen ($38 billion) by 2033, Japanese companies will need to make a concerted effort in order to promote anime in the United States.

An Underestimated U.S. Anime Market

A recent Nielsen report touts anime as a mainstream medium in the United States. With over 5.3 billion minutes viewed within the first two months of 2026, this shouldn’t be taken for granted. Over 150 anime titles were available on U.S. streaming services last year, yet very few caught a viewer’s attention in such a crowded market, even amongst anime fans.

Some Japanese companies are expanding at breakneck speed to push recognizable IPs—ONE PIECE, Dragon Ball, Demon Slayer, Gundam and the like—with always-on marketing: from flashy activations to sports team collaborations.

But with cultural misalignment between Japanese companies and U.S. consumers, there’s a hump that companies can’t overcome just through marketing. Last year should have been a wake-up call for Japanese production committees, studios and licensors as domestic popularity failed to carry over into the U.S. market.

Simply put, an anime franchise can’t succeed abroad without marketing dollars or strategy, even if it’s put on a wide-reaching streaming platform.

The best example of this fallacy would be Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX, which won Best TV Series at the Tokyo Anime Award Festival 2026, but it barely moved the needle in the West. Bogged down by the weight of the Gundam franchise, new fans had too much existing knowledge to ingest before they could catch up to the average Japanese viewer. Easing in a viewer with auxiliary material would’ve made the task of starting at GQuuuuuuX less daunting.

Last year was also a strong box office year for anime movies from the Demon Slayer and Chainsaw Man franchises, but the Hollywood award season has proven otherwise. The lack of accolades and fanfare should’ve been a learning moment for Japanese corporations: Box office grosses don’t naturally lead to wins, let alone nominations.

Despite garnering an impressive $137 million in the U.S., Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba The Movie: Infinity Castle failed to gain momentum this awards season. Several factors dashed Demon Slayer’s potential as an awards contender, largely being overshadowed by KPop Demon Hunters. Infinity Castle is a sequel movie that lacks a self-contained plot. Combined with its anime-style writing and story beats, the movie was in a poor position for any category nomination.

Yes, the Sony Animation movie had the Netflix marketing machine behind it, but it followed a tried-and-true playbook crafted for awards. The film’s Westernized storytelling made it familiar for Academy members while it topped music charts with “Golden.” Undeniably, it became a cultural breakthrough in American mainstream media, whereas the Japanese-produced Demon Slayer failed to be a part of the zeitgeist.

Looking ahead, Japanese companies will need to build and navigate relationships with fans and media before expecting stratospheric popularity. Relying on the broad reach of American streaming platforms will not generate interest in the anime genre outside of its core audience.