Two numbers define 2026 so far for global entertainment IP. One comes from Toho's April 14 earnings release. The other comes from the regional demand heat map that ipranking.io aggregates across 86 countries. Read together, they describe a structural shift that Western trade publications have so far narrated only in fragments.
Toho reported record consolidated revenue of JPY 360.7 billion (+15.2% year over year) and net income attributable to owners of the parent of JPY 51.8 billion (+19.4%). The topline is historic. But the disclosure itself is the more consequential signal. Starting with this fiscal year, Toho separated its IP- and anime-related businesses from the 'Film' segment and began reporting them as a standalone operating segment : a direct consequence of the 'Medium-Term Management Plan 2028' it published in April 2025. The accounting change is not cosmetic. It is a message to the capital markets: IP is no longer a downstream business of film. It is a principal business.
The segment-level numbers substantiate the repositioning. The newly disclosed IP & Anime segment posted revenue of JPY 75.3 billion (+8.5%). The largest line item was 'licensing of video content,' at JPY 34.1 billion (+24.9%), reflecting streaming distribution fees from TOHO animation titles including Jujutsu Kaisen, SPY×FAMILY, and HAIKYU!!. Merchandise licensing grew more modestly at JPY 15.9 billion (+9.0%). Direct product sales, by contrast, contracted to JPY 18.1 billion (-18.2%). The pattern is characteristic of mature IP owners: licensing revenue expands, direct physical-goods revenue plateaus or declines.
The long-term guidance is where the strategic reorientation becomes unambiguous. Toho's 2032 (centennial-year) consolidated operating income target is JPY 75 billion to 100 billion. Within that, the IP & Anime segment alone is targeted to more than double from the FY2025 base of JPY 22.2 billion, to JPY 44.4 billion or higher. The segment's operating margin target is approximately 32%, materially above the current margin structure of the company's film-production business. The strategic architecture is clear: IP is being positioned as the capital-efficient growth engine of the enterprise.
Execution is already visible. Toho established a European hub during the fiscal year, acquired UK anime distributor Anime Limited, and plans to expand overseas headcount from 174 (end of February 2026) to approximately 250 by 2027 : a 44% increase. The stated target for overseas revenue share by 2032 is 30%.
The strategic bet becomes considerably more legible when overlaid against actual demand data. In the two-week window ending April 21, 2026, ipranking.io observed the following average Google Trends demand scores (aggregated across active IPs): North America (3 countries) 33.8; ASEAN (6 countries) 32.7; European Union (6 countries) 20.6. The gap between ASEAN and the EU exceeds 50%. The long-standing industry assumption : that anime demand is concentrated in North America and Western Europe : is, at the demand-side level, no longer accurate.
One Piece is the starkest single-IP illustration. In the same period, its country-level Google Trends demand scores were: Philippines 100, Myanmar 90, France 82, Italy 73, Singapore 68, Thailand 62, United States 58. The US placed seventh in a top-15 list dominated by Southeast Asia. Across the 278 IPs that ipranking.io currently tracks, the ASEAN region registered measurable demand for 246 of them, narrowly ahead of North America at 236 and the EU at 229.
The convergence of these data points : Toho's capital allocation, and the geographic distribution of demand : is not coincidental. Toho's decision to accelerate European acquisition, establish a Southeast Asian go-to-market capability, and restructure its disclosure around IP reflects what the demand data already shows: the gravitational center of the global anime-IP economy is moving, and existing trade infrastructure (Western-distributor-led licensing, US-centric ratings firms) has not kept up.
The open question for 2026 is not whether other Japanese IP holders will follow Toho's repositioning. It is how quickly. Toei Animation, KADOKAWA, Bandai Namco Holdings, Shueisha, and Sanrio each face similar pressure from capital markets to unbundle their IP economics from distribution relationships and report them as standalone strategic assets. The firms that disclose earliest will have an informational advantage in capital allocation conversations.
ipranking.io will track quarterly changes in segment-level disclosures against country-level CVS movements in subsequent issues. In a year when the capital market is learning to price IP ownership as an asset class : rather than as a residual of distribution deals : the firms that move first, and disclose most clearly, will define the benchmark.