This Isn't About Solo Leveling

Article at a glance:
Solo Leveling was the anime of 2025—massive hype, mainstream success, and everyone was talking about it.
But the studio behind it, A-1 Pictures, somehow ended the year in a financial loss.
This isn’t about Solo Leveling anymore—this is about how the anime industry is built to bleed studios dry, no matter how successful the show is.

If I were to ask you, what has been THE most successful anime of 2025? And I mean successful, as in something that got insane mainstream attention. Without any argument, the answer to that would be Solo Leveling. After Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen, Solo Leveling has become the new thing normal people associate with anime because of just how much attention the series got. The recent Crunchyroll Awards provided sufficient proof of that. So what if I told you that the studio that made Solo Leveling, A1 Pictures, has been having financial troubles?

Sounds absurd, right? How could a studio handling such a massively successful IP be having financial issues? However, it is true that A1 Pictures ended its financial year, which closed in March 2025, with a 178 million Yen loss (source: GameBiz). That’s about 1.2 million USD, sure, that’s not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but the thing is, how does a studio handling such a massive IP STILL end up in a LOSS, the SAME year? This is like saying From Software (Or Bandai Namco) ended FY22-23 in a loss despite the success of Elden Ring; that just does not make sense.

So yes, this article isn’t about Solo Leveling, this article is about the rot festering in the anime industry and how whatever we spend rarely reaches the studio staff and the creators of the media we like. Today, I’d like to be a bit serious and discuss the A1 Pictures financial troubles.

About A1 Pictures

Before getting into the commentary part, let’s take a look at A1 Pictures in general and see what they’ve been up to recently.

So A1 Pictures is part of Aniplex, and Aniplex itself is a part of Sony. Yeah, if you didn’t know, Sony is basically everywhere. This is the reason why people feared for Kadokawa being acquired by Sony. They didn’t acquire Kadokawa, but they still bought a good chunk of their shares. So as things stand, any money coming to the company has to go through at least 2 layers as is. This will slowly get worse, don’t worry.

In 2025 alone, they have released Solo Leveling Season 2 and the Lycoris Recoil spin-off. Not much, but both of those are popular IPs, especially Solo Leveling. But let’s take a look at their 2024 major releases: Solo Leveling Season 1, Too Many Losing Heroines, Mashle Season 2, NieR Automata 1.1a Part 2, AND they STILL had Fate/Strange FAKE on top of all that. Even putting Solo Leveling aside, that is a great lineup right there; all of them surely made a whole bunch of money, right?

Last year, they made a profit of 24 million Yen, not a lot, but at least they were in the green. So, where is all that money going despite handling all these massive IPs??

Where is the Money Going?

What I am about to describe is a problem that’s not exclusive to the anime industry. It happens in all kinds of different media industries. Certain video game companies have the same issues.

Whatever money A1 Pictures makes is cut down at least 3 times, this is one of the main causes of their financial troubles. And in fact, in practice, the money is probably cut down more than 3 times. How? Well, let’s use Solo Leveling as an example:

First of all, Crunchyroll takes its platform fee for streaming and hosting the anime. Whatever TV channel the name is broadcast on in Japan will also take a similar cut from the revenue.
Then, Animplex, being the distributor, will take its cut from the revenue for getting the anime to the TV channels and Crunchyroll. I am pretty sure it is Aniplex that looks after IP licenses as well.
And then finally, Sony gets a chunk of the revenue as well, because of course they do.

This is just a barebones example, but it is very clear that despite the massive success of the shows A1 Pictures handles, they are only seeing tiddly winks of that revenue. Most of that money is going to Sony, Crunchyroll, and Aniplex. And then combine this with the effort and budget it takes to make an anime like Solo Leveling, and everything starts to fall into place.

Is this loss a big deal in the grand scheme of things? Not really, it’s not a huge loss or anything. But here’s the thing, why is an iconic studio like A1 Picture running at a loss in the first place??? This is something that does not make sense, and this should not happen, but here we are. Crazy how despite fan support, the people who made the anime only see chunks of change. It honestly saddens me.

But again, in the corporate world, this is nothing new; just compare how much an average CEO makes compared to an average employee, and you’ll see who the company profits are really benefiting.

That is all for now

I know this article was a bit of a downer, but this is an important thing, and it deserves public attention. A studio like A1 Picture should be swimming in money, not having financial troubles. But that is not the world we live in. This is why it is important to honor companies that actually care for their employees, few and far between they may be, but it is necessary to support them. But yeah, that’s it from my side. I am off to play more Elden Ring. See ya.

Check out my thoughts on Grand Blue Season 2 here if you need something to cheer you up after this read.