Jujutsu Kaisen Lifts MAPPA to Top of Asia's Anime Stream

A new Media Partners Asia report says Jujutsu Kaisen propelled MAPPA past TMS, Toei and Aniplex to lead regional anime viewing in early 2026.

Media Partners Asia's new "The Anime Economy" report, covered by Variety and Advanced Television, finds that *Jujutsu Kaisen* ranked as the number-one anime in seven of eight Asian markets tracked in the first half of 2026. That single hit lifted studio MAPPA from 6.1% of regional anime hours in the second half of 2025 to 17.3% in the first half of 2026 — vaulting it just ahead of TMS Entertainment at 16.6%, with Toei Animation at 13% and Aniplex-mastered titles at 12%. For a devoted fanbase, the striking part is how quickly one franchise can rotate the entire studio leaderboard.

The report draws on MPA's ampd audience panels across eight Asian markets. Between July 2025 and August 2026, 31% to 47% of premium-VOD users in those markets watched anime in any given month, versus 26% to 34% for the average of the other seven genres tracked; in Japan the figures ran 45% to 59% against 24% to 36%. Netflix carried roughly half the region's anime viewing — 51% of hours in the second half of 2025 and 50% in the first half of 2026 — and in Japan, Netflix and Prime Video drew level at 42% each in early 2026, per MPA's measurement.

The most quotable number in the pack: MPA's classification of Netflix's own "What We Watched" disclosures shows Japanese anime viewing climbing from 3.33 billion hours in the first half of 2023 to 4.64 billion in the first half of 2026 — a 39% jump against just 4.5% growth for Netflix's total viewing, or nine times faster. Anime rose from 3.6% to 4.75% of all Netflix hours. MPA notes four-fifths of that viewing remains licensed library content, with Netflix's January 2026 MAPPA partnership flagged as the marker of a shift toward owned franchises.

MPA projects global anime spending will rise about 10% annually through 2030, led by Asia outside Japan and North America, with gains concentrated among franchise owners. It counts 21 anime deals since 2021, eleven in 2025–26, with Sony in seven — building the only end-to-end stack across Crunchyroll's 21 million subscribers, Aniplex, Sony Pictures and Sony Music, plus stakes in Kadokawa and Bandai Namco. MPA CEO Vivek Couto says "the constraint is capacity, not demand or capital," adding that "the companies that solve for capacity, and bring the animators with them, will be best placed for the next phase of growth."