How much does it cost to make a 12-episode anime show? Explained

With more and more anime getting released each season, production studios are going beyond their capability to release multiple series one after another in a single year. That being said producing an anime isn't cheap as millions of dollars are invested into a single project.

In addition to that, a studio must also market the series through advertising, merchandising, and events, only after which most of them could generate a profit. With this in mind, one cannot help but wonder how much it costs to make a 12-episode anime show.

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It costs about $140,000 to $180,000 to make an anime episode, depending on the techniques used

Mayuri, Rintarou, and Kurisu as seen in the 2011 series Steins;Gate (Image via White Fox)

In the November 5 issue of Shūkan Tōyō Keizai in 2011, there was a special report looking at the costs in the Japanese entertainment industry. In the anime section of the same, the report broke down the expenses associated with producing a TV anime series.

The investigation by Media Development Research Institute Inc. in 2010 stated that a 30-minute episode of a TV anime totalled 11 million yen, which was about US $145,214 as per the exchange rate of 2011. This meant that, in 2011, a 12-episode series would have cost a studio about 132 million yen or $1.7 million.

Still from Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation (Image via Studio Bind)

However, there has been a notable increase in the cost over the years. In 2015, Masamune Sakaki, a CG creator from the industry stated that an average 13-episode season costs around 250 million yen to produce, which was about $2 million in 2015. Masamune Sakaki later went on to work on the popular Studio Bind series Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation.

A similar amount was observed when Takayuki Nagatani, a producer of Shirobako claimed that his show cost 500 million yen, which was about $4 million, for 24 episodes.

Still from the Shirobako series (Image via P.A.Works)

Another veteran animator, Shinji Takamatsu, also stated a figure of somewhere around 150 to 200 million yen, which was about $1.2 to $1.6 million, to produce an anime. The animator has worked on several series, such as Gintama, The Daily Lives of High School Boys, Grand Blue, etc.

With that said, it is quite evident that a series, be that be produced in 2010 or 2015, costs about $2 million. The industry is quite rigid in its ways, considering that as per reports, it used to cost less than $3 to produce a single frame back in 2011, and the same hadn't changed much in 30 years.

Legoshi and Haru as seen in the 2019 CG series Beastars (Image via Orange)

Thus, it is to be believed that producing a series with 12 episodes would cost around $2 million in 2023 as well.

However, there could be a rise in the cost due to new techniques that are being used in the industry, such as CG animation. While CG saves time for a production company, it also costs much more, which could have a significant impact on the full cost of producing a series.

Therefore, it can be said that one episode could cost about $140,000 to $180,000, depending on what techniques are used for animation.