Doug Montgomery

Coming up... I absolutely think it's possible to hit peak anime.

Well, it's wonderful to be here.

Thank you for having me.

2025 should be hitting new highs once again.

I think the anime business is absolutely on a roll right now.

And nothing's going to stop it in the near future.

I think there's a number of reasons.

One reason is the bump that anime got during COVID.

everybody was at home so anime kind of got a first view from many people and you know those anime fans have stuck around and you know they're reaching deeper into the catalog and they're happy with what they see so they're continuing their viewing and purchases of anime and anime goods the big hit this year was the film Demon Slayer Infinity Castle which of course I saw in 4DX for what it's worth what does the success of that movie in particular tell us about the industry

I think the overall picture is that the mainstream has now come to anime.

And, you know, where anime was discussed in, you know, quiet corners for decades because I was in those corners.

You know, now it's really hitting the mainstream, you know, with fans, but even more, you know, quite frankly, the industry press.

On the other hand, you know, traditional Hollywood and, you know, particularly the box office has been shrinking.

So with anime growing and the regular box, the traditional box office shrinking, you know, the gap between the two is, you know, much smaller than it was.

which quite frankly has created a lot of headlines, whether they're truly representative of what's going on or not is another story.

I think if you look at, you know, kind of the demographic range of who watches it, let's say it's, you know, 15 to 35, roughly.

You know, a lot of those people probably first started watching anime in the 90s when, you know, cable kind of boomed and there was this black hole of airtime that needed to be filled.

And, you know, anime was sitting there able to fill it at a rather low price.

And, you know, those people kind of grew up with anime, you know, Toonami, Cartoon Network and those things.

And as they've watched one anime, they've kind of worked their way into other animes as they've gotten older.