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The story
In financial results published on November 10, 2026, Bandai Namco revealed its ranking of licensing revenue by character IP. Gundam topped the list with ¥122.3 billion, followed by One Piece at ¥78.8 billion, Dragon Ball at ¥70 billion, Kamen Rider at ¥15.7 billion, Naruto at ¥13.8 billion, Anpanman at ¥6.1 billion, and Ultraman at ¥5.4 billion. On 5ch’s hardware/industry (“Geha”) board, posters expressed surprise that Gundam’s figure was disproportionately high relative to its general fame, and that Dragon Ball hadn’t grown as much as expected, citing the sheer scale of Gunpla (Gundam model kit) revenue and differences in royalty splits as explanations. One Piece’s trading card sales have been strong, and scalpers buying up stock also became a topic of discussion.
Pretty Cure: ¥4.4 billion
Super Sentai & Space Sheriff Gavan: ¥3.3 billion
Source: bandainamco.co.jp / original article here
What people said
Though One Piece will probably vanish once the series ends
Isn't Gavan probably just lumped into the Sentai figure?
Right now it's the trading cards driving sales
Guess that's because most of the big spenders are adults
Well, there's Gunpla and all that too
Ten years from now Bandai will probably still be turning a profit, but its presence in Japan will likely fade
It's a world where buying a model kit for tens of thousands of yen apiece is just normal
Even plenty of Japanese Gunpla buyers don't watch it
This year's movie didn't sell well overseas
Probably around ¥500 million or so
Maybe it's because he's red and gets mistaken for Sharivan, so old-school fans wrote him off as 'not the real deal'?
Isn't One Piece about the cards?
Was there a mobile gacha game raking it in too?
Ultraman relies more on overseas markets than domestic ones these days too
Chinese manufacturers besides Bandai are also getting official licenses to put out toys and figures
Bringing in space kaiju at this point basically feels like waving a white flag
Four years of drones dogfighting and terrorists slaughtering genocidal maniacs just isn't entertainment
The image of giant robots as nothing but drone targets has really taken hold
Gundam always worked, however far-fetched, on the romantic appeal of a boy piloting a giant robot into battle
For some reason it's exploded in China, and its annual sales are now said to be on par with Dragon Ball and One Piece
You'd think the Communist Party would take issue with the Destruction of Konoha arc, but since it was ultimately stopped, maybe that's fine
Sasuke's terrorism also seems like it'd raise eyebrows, but that got stopped too, so maybe it passes
Like, Gundam's up that high, and Dragon Ball's surprisingly not as big as you'd think
Dragon Ball has to pay out shares to Bird Studio, Shueisha, Toei, and the game developer Akatsuki, among others
With Gundam, Sunrise is in-house, and model kit sales make up almost all the revenue, so maybe there's just less to split
This year's Rider transforms using an egg
The theme this time is the Chinese zodiac
Is it actually fun as a card game?
I kind of figured it's purely an investment thing
It's not popular overseas, so that's a tough sell
I wonder how much gets skimmed off in royalties
Still, even just reselling someone else's IP and pulling in numbers like this is a goldmine
Pretty much all the rights sit with Bandai Namco — the rest is probably just the publishers running the manga serialization or the model-kit magazines
The TV shows have all been garbage, not even worth discussing
Seed Freedom was like a Dragon Ball movie — nothing but an 'it's my turn!' twist right at the very end (lol)
Hathaway's Flash was also 'the Gundam finally shows up' (lol) only in the last stretch, loaded with disappointing turns
Not the least bit interesting
Wait, am I gonna get called an old fart for saying this? lol
There's no recent Gundam that escaped the 'mediocre' verdict
Maybe except Seed Freedom, and only because even the haters didn't bother going to see it
Background and Key Points of This Topic
These figures come from the highlights of Bandai Namco’s financial results released on November 10, 2026, and represent an internal metric showing licensing and merchandising revenue by character — not a ranking of anime or manga popularity. Gundam’s high figure likely comes from the fact that most of its revenue is Gunpla, toys that Bandai itself manufactures and sells, leaving little that needs to be split with outside companies. Dragon Ball, by contrast, has to deduct shares paid out to the original creator’s side, Toei, and the game developer Akatsuki, among others, which tends to keep its total lower relative to its fame. One Piece’s trading card sales have grown strongly in recent years, and the thread also pointed out that scalpers have been buying up stock on release days to resell. Looking at the raw numbers alone, it’s easy to mistakenly conclude that “Gundam is the most popular,” but in reality these figures reflect differences in business model rather than viewership or circulation, and should be read with that caveat in mind.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch Hardware/Industry (“Geha”) board thread “Gundam ¥122.3B, One Piece ¥78.8B, DB ¥70B, Kamen Rider ¥15.7B, Naruto ¥13.8B, Anpanman ¥6.1B, Ultraman ¥5.4B.”
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