Anime is one of the wherewithal that has grown the most in recent years. The number of series that have been released have managed to please the fans, attracting the attention of those most alien to the world. And although it would seem that everything focused on the anime would be good things, there is a statistic that has turned on the alarms. We refer to the sale of Blu-rays, a market which is being heavily punished, mainly in Japan. And it is that the figures delivered from the last spring 2025 season attest to this, with the most striking titles not selling more than 3,200 copies.
Blu-ray suffers strongly in Japan
Thanks to the Internet and the different streaming on demand platforms, the Anime It suffered a giant increase in popularity. Millions of people began to enter this world, with titles that have already become part of popular culture as Demon Slayer or Jujutsu Kaisen. And although every time we talk about this medium things seem only to grow, there is an underworld which is suffering a lot. This is that of the Blu-rays, which are mainly sold in Japan. According to the latest statistics, it is suffering a very alarming drop in sales.
The figures cover until the month of July 2025, more precisely on the 30th and the drop in sales can be clearly seen. The title that had the best reception was Wind Breaker Season 2 (vol. 1 of 6), who sold 3116 Blu-rays. a very low number, although much greater than the second list, Hibi Wa Sugiredo Meshi Umashi (Vol. 1 of 6), with 1752 copies sold. even works with a great renown like Dr. Stone: Science Future or Watchman: My Hero Academia Illegals They did not achieve a large sum. the latter even sold only 120 copies throughout Japan.
The debate of the fans of the anime was immediate
And it is that before the news, the Japanese forums specialized in Anime They were filled with comments of all kinds. In particular, what was sought is to find the main reason for the drop in sales of the Blu-rays. One of the most repeated points is how streaming on demand platforms have become the main source for watching anime. In the past, when these did not exist, the numbers were much higher, since it was one of the few ways to watch anime and at the highest quality. Today Blu-rays are becoming obsolete, even in Japan.
On the other hand, several see this as an alarm, but not as the end of the Blu-rays, and it is that they still have an advantage over the platforms: censorship. The versions of many animes in this format go on sale without the censorship seen in their version of platforms. This makes several series rebound in sales, especially those with much more “sensitive” content.
cases like the Mahou Shoujo ni Akogarete account for this, and several hope that, when the Blu-ray version of Nukitashi the Animation, the numbers increase. Now it only remains to wait for the year to end to know the final figures of 2025 and see how bad the Blu-ray market is.
