Anime production company Production I.G reported a significant decline in profits for the fiscal year ending May 2026. As reported by Game Biz, the company’s ordinary profit went down by 74.8% year-over-year, while net profit went down by 71.1% year-over-year. Compared to the previous fiscal period, revenue dropped by 14.2%. Some of the company’s prominent work during this fiscal period includes Eren the Southpaw and the second season of Kaiju No. 8.
Last month, Production I.G’s parent company IG Port announced its consolidated financial results for the fiscal year ending May 2026, reporting an operating loss of roughly $8.22 million in its anime business. The company cited growing revenue, which was outpaced by ballooning anime production costs, specifically expenses related to manpower, CGI and outsourcing as the main reasons behind this deficit, and it can be presumed that Production I.G accounts for a big chunk of its losses.
Recently, multiple other major anime companies and production houses have been making similar reports, with Kadokawa recording an operating loss of $4.14 million for the first quarter of this fiscal year despite strong global and domestic performance of titles like Re:Zero. Likewise, My Dress Up Darling and Spy x Family studio CloverWorks has been suffering from widening financial losses for the past two consecutive years, and Silver Link, the production company behind Watamote, has been in the red for the past three.
Industry analysts have recognized this downwards trend as the “profitless boom” phenomenon, which has been silently creeping upon the anime industry for the past several years. Despite the medium growing increasingly successful and in-demand, especially overseas, the expenses of making it seem to leave production companies with declining profit margins or even losses.
