Anime is no longer a niche consumption. It has become one of the fastest-growing entertainment industries in the world. The global market reached a value of 37.7 billion dollars in 2025 and is projected to reach 41.7 billion dollars in 2026 and 77.2 billion in 2033, according to Grand View Research data. The main drivers of this growth are streaming platforms and the video game industry, two ecosystems where Generation Z has a dominant presence.
Mexico plays a relevant role in this global phenomenon. The Global State of Anime study, conducted by Crunchyroll and National Research Group, places the country among the seven strategic markets for global anime growth. The national market recorded a value of 1.027 billion dollars in 2025 and is projected to reach 2.218 billion dollars by 2035, according to Expert Reports. The National Survey of Audiovisual Content Consumption already placed anime among the top ten most viewed online content in the country, and among Generation Z, the phenomenon competes in popularity with the world's leading sports and music franchises.
What makes the anime ecosystem especially attractive to brands is not just its size, but the nature of its communities. Anime fans maintain levels of participation, conversation, and identity that few entertainment categories can match. Bruno Almeida, CEO of US Media, describes it precisely: people no longer gather around a platform, but around narrative universes that are part of their identity. Brands that understand this dynamic can build more lasting relationships with their consumers than those achieved with conventional advertising.
The most effective strategies to enter this ecosystem, according to US Media, include campaigns integrated into the stories of the anime universes themselves, limited edition product launches, experiences for fan communities, and content adapted to each digital platform. The goal is for the brand's presence to stop being perceived as an interruption and to become part of the experience that the user is already looking for.
Fandom is one of the most relevant players within this ecosystem. The platform specializing in communities of video games, cinema, series, pop culture, and anime brings together 350 million monthly users globally, of which 28 million are in Latin America and almost 7 million in Mexico. It concentrates more than 45 million pages of content and around 250,000 communities created by the users themselves, becoming one of the most attractive spaces for brands to develop campaigns aimed at highly segmented audiences.
From next+'s analysis, the growth of anime as an industry confirms a broader trend that brands cannot ignore: Generation Z builds its identity around narrative universes, not around products. This radically changes the logic of marketing aimed at this segment. Campaigns that interrupt lose relevance compared to those that participate organically within the universes that this audience has already chosen as their own. For marketing and brand strategy teams looking to connect with Gen Z in Mexico and Latin America, anime is not just a growing entertainment category, it is a territory for identity construction with highly organized communities, willing to spend, and with very little tolerance for brands that enter without understanding the ecosystem.