Waifus are eating the world.
Mihoyo made $3.8B in revenue last year (PocketGamer), nearly half of Activision Blizzard. Here's why anime games / culture are taking over🧵
1/ The Rise of Anime
69% of GenZ watch anime, up from 57% of millennials and only 23% of baby boomers. What was once a niche genre has now gone mainstream!
There's a reason why Mihoyo's motto is "tech otakus can save the world."
Distribution has grown. More than half of Netflix's subscribers have watched anime on their platform, while Funimation and Crunchyroll continue to grow as anime-dedicated platforms. No longer do we have to wait for neon fansubs of our favorite anime to come out.
Anime is a universally known art style, now appreciated worldwide. The best part is, the list of classics only grows. Of course we have the FMAs, NGEs, and Cowboy Bebops of old. But now we can add Attack on Titan, Jujutsu Kaisen, Mob Psycho, and more to that list.
And this is an extremely passionate fanbase. There's tons of ways to express your fandom, and players/people are loyal to the IP. Average otakus in Japan spent over $700 per year on anime-related merch.
2/ Gacha Games
Anime fandom has translated to insanely successful hero-collector RPG games, called gacha games. F/GO, Genshin Impact, and Honkai have all grossed billions in this genre.
The core game is a fun combat / progression / collection loop, where the goal is to collect the five star waifus / husbandos. Not only are they the coolest looking, but they also offer the best stats for your team comp.
Roll for gacha, get the team, progress the story.
Normies may ask: why care so much about 2D sprites? For the romance!
Gacha games draw from JRPGs like Fire Emblem and visual novels. These are fleshed out stories with compelling characters. Imagine being able to date Tony Stark, Batman, or Black Widow!
The most important piece though is the quality of the game and the IP itself. F/GO succeeded off a collectible RPG with decent depth and great IP on a new mobile platform, while Mihoyo created the fully cross-platform, live operated, Zelda BotW.
There are games that do take the monetization too far and go whale hunting with very low drop rates (<1%). Luckily Mihoyo has added pity systems and higher earn rates to make this more player friendly.
reddit.com/r/gachagaming/…
3/ VTubing
VTubing was a relatively niche genre that started with @hatsunemiko, and has since become mainstream with cheaper rigs, streaming platforms, and the creator economy. VTubers create a facial tracking rig, overlay an anime character, and sing/game/chat in character.
VShojo, VStream, Hololive, and Nijisani are just a few of the companies servicing this nascent growing. And there are quite a few streamers that have risen to prominence like @codemiko and @pekora.
My colleague Olivia has a great thread on it here:
I'm excited for this industry to grow and excited to invest more into it. Multiple of our portfolio companies are building in this space, and if you want to realize your anime dreams, you should apply to SPEEDRUN.
speedrun.a16z.com
I just hope in the future we'll have bigger venues for our expos :')
None of the above should be considered investment advice, see for more informationa16z.com/disclosures
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