Anime licenses were up from last year. The difference between anime and manga licenses was still significant (anime: ~120, manga: ~190) but less crazy than in 2017. With Sentai Filmworks and Discotek leading the charge; picking up around 80 of those 120 anime licenses of 2018 between them.

We had some additions to the manga publishers this year: Denpa and Sol Press, plus J-Novel added manga to their line-up. Also there’s been an expanded line of digital-only titles for purchase from all over the map. That really showed in Kodansha’s list which exceeded 60 titles this year, many of which were exclusively digital.

As a reminder, this list does not include streaming-only anime and manga. And as always, let us know if we missed anything.

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There were more than twice the amount of manga licensed compared to anime this year. A whopping 240+ manga licenses were announced! That is surprising since the amount of titles picked up in 2016 had dropped from 2015 and were hovering closer to the low-100s. Even more shocking was that more than 70 of the 2017 titles were licensed by Seven Seas alone.

Anime licenses were hovering around 100 which is a little lower than last year. The big takeaway from this year was how little Funimation licensed with a mere 12 titles. Just 4 Aniplex licenses and none from Pony Canyon as well. Light novel licenses were about the same. And crowdfunding campaigns continued to increase but more on the creation side rather than the licensing side.

As a reminder, this list does not include streaming-only anime and manga. And as always, let us know if we missed anything.

Continue reading →