The Pokémon anime is the part of the franchise most people met first, and by now it is one of the smallest parts of the business. We estimate it brings The Pokémon Company about ¥4.5bn a year, well under one per cent of its revenue. Its weekly slot was in the Tokyo area’s top ten anime in 40 weeks of 2017 and in a single week of 2025, yet the group grew six to eight times over roughly the same stretch. Where the show is still watched in huge numbers is on free video, above all in South Asia, where five official YouTube channels drew 1.85bn views in a year and there is almost nothing official to buy.
Seven companies share the rights, and what they share is small
Every dated copyright credit on the series and its films from 2003 to 2026 carries the same seven names: Nintendo, Creatures, Game Freak, TV Tokyo, ShoPro, JR Kikaku and Pokémon. This is a production committee, the usual Japanese way of dividing a show’s cost and rights among the companies that expect to profit from it.
One member’s accounts set a limit on the rest. TV Tokyo, the broadcaster, publishes the sales of its whole anime business and the rank of each title within it. Pokémon has ranked fourth in each of the last three years, so it can have brought TV Tokyo at most ¥6.8bn in the year to March 2026. That ceiling is 0.65–0.67% of what the Pokémon group took in. It stood at ¥4.5bn four years earlier and has risen only because TV Tokyo’s anime business grew by half; Pokémon’s rank did not improve.
The Pokémon Company’s share is of the same order. Working outward from TV Tokyo’s slice, our estimate of about ¥4.5bn sits in a range of ¥1.2–14.2bn, and even the top of that range is under three per cent of the Tokyo company’s revenue. The cinema used to add to it. Pokémon films took an average of ¥4.97bn each at the Japanese box office from 1998 to 2002 and ¥2.76bn from 2016 to 2020, and no film has opened since. Fig. 1 shows the broadcaster’s ceiling year by year.
Pokémon can bring TV Tokyo at most ¥6.8bn a year, under 1% of what the Pokémon group takes in
The most Pokémon can have contributed to TV Tokyo’s anime sales, given its published rank among the broadcaster’s titles. ¥ billion, years to March 2022 to 2026.
Show the numbers
| Year to March | The most Pokémon can have brought TV Tokyo, ¥bn | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | ||
| 2023 | ||
| 2024 | ||
| 2025 | ||
| 2026 |
The most Pokémon can have brought TV Tokyo. A ceiling, not an estimate of the actual figure. TV Tokyo publishes the sales of its whole anime business and where each title ranks; Pokémon ranked fourth in every year but the one to March 2023, when it ranked fifth, so it cannot exceed a quarter (or a fifth) of the total. The ceiling rose because the whole business grew; Pokémon’s rank did not improve. The 2026 ceiling is 0.65–0.67% of the Pokémon group’s revenue.
The broadcast audience at home has thinned
Video Research’s weekly tables for the Tokyo area list the ten highest-rated anime. A regular Pokémon episode made that list in 21 of 52 weeks in 2015, 40 in 2017, 3 in 2019 and 1 in 2025. In the first 42 weeks of 2026 none did, though an hour-long special made it in March. In the weeks it was listed, its average household rating fell from 4.0% in 2015 to 1.3% in 2025.
Part of the fall is scheduling. The show left its Thursday evening slot for Sunday at 6pm in October 2018 and moved again, to Friday, in October 2020. The largest single drop, from 31 weeks to 3, follows the first move. The tables also switched from household to individual ratings during 2022, and the following year brought a recovery to 16 weeks that did not last. Fig. 2 colours each year by the slot the show held.
Pokémon made the Tokyo-area weekly anime top ten in 40 weeks of 2017 and in one week of 2025
Weeks each year in which a regular episode was among the ten highest-rated anime in the Tokyo area, by broadcast slot, 2015 to late October 2026. From Video Research’s weekly tables, which ranked on household ratings to 2021 and on individual ratings from 2023.
- Thursday evening slot
- Sunday 6pm, from October 2018
- Friday 6.55pm, from October 2020
Show the numbers
| Year | Thursday evening slot, weeks | Sunday 6pm, from October 2018, weeks | Friday 6.55pm, from October 2020, weeks | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | – | – | ||
| 2016 | – | – | ||
| 2017 | – | – | ||
| 2018 | – | – | ||
| 2019 | – | – | ||
| 2020 | – | – | ||
| 2021 | – | – | ||
| 2022 | – | – | ||
| 2023 | – | – | ||
| 2024 | – | – | ||
| 2025 | – | – | ||
| 2026 | – | – |
Thursday evening slot. Weeks in which a regular 30-minute episode was among the ten highest-rated anime in the Tokyo area, from Video Research’s weekly tables. The show moved to Sunday at 6pm in October 2018, so 2018 covers both slots.
Sunday 6pm, from October 2018. The show moved again, to Friday at 6.55pm, in October 2020, so 2020 covers both slots.
Friday 6.55pm, from October 2020. The table ranked on household ratings to 2021, on both household and individual ratings in 2022 and on individual ratings from 2023, so the years either side of 2022 are not on one basis. 2026 covers 42 weeks to late October: no regular episode made the list, and one hour-long special did, in March.
Pokémon had lost ground with children before the show lost its slot. In Bandai’s yearly survey of parents, Pokémon was children’s second or third favourite character in nine of the ten years from 2004 to 2013. In 2014, the year Yo-kai Watch entered the list in second place, Pokémon fell to eighth. It had not returned to the top three by 2018, the last year the survey was published, when it stood outside the top ten. Fig. 3 gives the rank for each year.
Children ranked Pokémon 2nd or 3rd most years to 2013 and never that high once Yo-kai Watch arrived
Pokémon’s rank as children’s favourite character in Bandai’s yearly survey of parents, 2003 to 2018. No survey was published after 2018.
A newer panel suggests the affection has come back without the ratings. Among Tokyo-area children aged three to twelve, the share who like the television series rose from 44.0% in 2017 to 53.1% in 2025, while the ceiling on its household rating fell by more than half. Children still like the show. Fewer of them watch it at the hour it is broadcast.
New screen work is being made outside the committee
The committee keeps the weekly series, whose 2023 relaunch carries all seven names. The newest work does not. Pokémon Concierge, the Netflix series of 2023, carries a copyright line naming only Pokémon and the three founders. So does Wild Card, the film due in 2027 and the first since 2020. TV Tokyo, ShoPro and JR Kikaku are absent from its credit, and it is made by a new production vehicle with a different animation studio. Fig. 4 sets the five credits side by side.
The newest Pokémon film and Netflix series drop TV Tokyo, ShoPro and JR Kikaku from the copyright line
Which of the three partners outside the founding group is named in the copyright line of five screen works, 2003 to 2027. Every credit also names Pokémon, Nintendo, Creatures and Game Freak.
Filled dot = named.
Of 14 screen works announced for 2016 to 2027, 3 show a copyright line of their own, and none of those names TV Tokyo or ShoPro. The others show no line we could find, so that count is a minimum.
Built from and .Distribution is going the same way. In August 2026 Disney+ signed a global distribution deal with The Pokémon Company’s Western arm that includes a stop-motion series from Aardman, due worldwide in 2027, on undisclosed terms. With so little income at stake, the likelier motive is control of new characters and formats. The old partners could still be investors in the Wild Card vehicle without appearing on its credit.
The largest free audience is where Pokémon sells least
The paid audience is smaller than it was. Netflix’s own reports put worldwide Pokémon viewing at 483m hours in 2023 and 417m in 2025, and the first half of 2026 ran 15% below the first half of 2025. The new Horizons seasons fill part of the gap left by the older library, which has lost close to half its hours in three years.
Free video is where the numbers grow. The Pokémon Company’s eleven official YouTube channels drew 4.47bn views in the twelve months to October 2026. The five South Asian channels, in Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu and English, took 41.5% of them, against 0.74bn for the global English children’s channel and 1.19bn for the same five a year earlier, when one of them was still new.
The shelf runs in the opposite order. India is absent from the official card game’s list of Asian markets, and the company’s own guide to Pokémon in India lists free anime and apps with no cards, consoles or stores. Indonesia, with its own edition of the card game since 2019, drew 0.41bn views. Thailand has its own card edition, official consoles and a Pokémon Center opening in December 2026, and drew 0.09bn. Fig. 5 ranks the channels.
Pokémon’s five South Asian channels draw twice the views of its main English one, and India has no official cards, consoles or store
Estimated views on The Pokémon Company’s official YouTube channels, billions, twelve months to October 2026. An analytics vendor’s estimates; language stands in for country.
Show the numbers
| Official YouTube channels | Views, twelve months to October 2026 (vendor estimate), bn views | Source |
|---|---|---|
| South Asia: Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, English | ||
| Main English channel | ||
| Kids TV, English | ||
| Indonesia | ||
| Kids TV, Japanese | ||
| Thailand |
Views, twelve months to October 2026 (vendor estimate). An analytics vendor’s estimates for The Pokémon Company’s own channels; YouTube does not publish where viewers live, so language stands in for country. India has no official card game, console or Pokémon store. Indonesia has had its own edition of the card game since 2019 and gets official consoles in December 2026. Thailand has its own edition of the cards and a Pokémon Center opening in December 2026. An Asia English channel is left out.
What it adds up to
The next film, Wild Card, opens in 2027, and its credits will show which of the old partners are still involved.