Delicious in Dungeon becomes Kadokawa’s top-earning IP after anime adaptation’s premiere
The Japanese media conglomerate Kadokawa Corporation recently revealed their top sales by IP for the first quarter of the fiscal year (April 1 to June 30, 2024). The Delicious in Dungeon franchise topped the quarterly sales chart by a long margin, earning at least over 2 billion yen (over $13 million USD) in revenue (source: GameBiz), although a specific figure was not disclosed.
Delicious in Dungeon (Dungeon Meshi) is a manga series written and illustrated by Ryoko Kui. Kadokawa began publishing volumes of the manga in 2015. In 2024, the Delicious in Dungeon anime began airing, earning the high fantasy seinen franchise even more fans and popularity. According to Kadokawa’s results for the first quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2025, Dungeon Meshi was the top earner across two major categories- IP creation/publishing (e.g. manga and art books) category and the anime/live action film category. The breakdown of these categories revealed that the anime was the top earner for Delicious in Dungeon, followed by sales of print publications.
Kadokawa’s second most profitable franchise was KonoSuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World!, which earned around 1 billion yen, with the majority of the revenue coming from the anime. This is less than half of Delicious in Dungeon’s total sales for the period. The third most profitable franchise was the Oshi no Ko anime (sales of the manga were not included as the rights are owned by a different company).
Kadokawa’s top earning IP Delicious in Dungeon has also acquired a dedicated fan following outside Japan as well. A recent interview with creator Ryoko Kui went viral among overseas fans on social media, as it touched on many fandom-related topics. The English version of the manga is published by Yen Press, which is co-owned by Kadokawa.
The Kadokawa Group is one of Japan’s biggest media conglomerates, and its group companies are responsible for the publication of many well-known anime, manga and video games. Despite suffering a cyberattack on its Dwango subsidiary earlier this year, Kadokawa has experienced major sales growth.
