The 2010s are the streaming decade. Crunchyroll's growth, Netflix's increasing investment in anime co-production, and the eventual Sony acquisition of Crunchyroll in 2021 restructured how anime reaches its international audience. Production volume grew steadily; the isekai light-novel boom dominated the back half of the decade; and several individual works β Madoka, Attack on Titan, Your Name β defined the period's commercial peaks.
2011 β Madoka and the deconstruction wave
Studio Shaft's Puella Magi Madoka Magica, written by Gen Urobuchi, broadcast in early 2011 and became the most-discussed anime of the year. Its taking the magical-girl form seriously rather than ironically launched a wider wave of deconstructive treatments of genre conventions in the following years.
2013 β Attack on Titan
Hajime Isayama's Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan), animated by Wit Studio in 2013 and continued by MAPPA from 2020, became the defining shΕnen-equivalent anime of the decade. Its international audience approached and in some markets exceeded the long-running Shueisha properties.
2016 β Your Name and the international feature boom
Makoto Shinkai's Your Name released in August 2016 and became the highest-grossing anime film in history at the time. Its international success β particularly in China, where it was the highest-grossing Japanese film ever released β demonstrated a feature-anime audience outside the established Ghibli market.
The isekai boom
From the mid-2010s onward, light-novel adaptations of ShΕsetsuka ni NarΕ web novels dominated TV anime production. Sword Art Online (2012), KonoSuba (2016), Re:Zero (2016), and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime (2018) defined the genre's mainstream. By the end of the decade more than one new isekai TV adaptation was airing in most seasons.
Other landmark works
- Steins;Gate (2011), Mawaru Penguindrum (2011).
- Psycho-Pass (2012).
- Kill la Kill (2013).
- One Punch Man (Season 1, 2015).
- A Silent Voice (2016, film).
- Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba begins (2019).