Anime

IG Port Reports Weaker Profits as Anime Production Costs and Delays Hit the Business

Production I.G and Wit Studio’s parent company saw higher video production revenue, but losses widened as industry expenses kept rising.

Sebastián MamaniSebastián Mamani· 3 min read 0 comments

IG Port has closed its fiscal year ended May 2026 with a result that looks uneven from the outside, because you can see growth in one part of the business, yet the broader picture still ends up softer than expected. The company, which is the parent of Production I.G and Wit Studio, reported declining overall revenue and profit margins, while operating profit fell 46.3% year-on-year and landed nearly 57% below what the company had originally projected. Ya pues, that kind of gap usually tells you the execution on the ground was more complicated than the topline number suggests.

In its animation production division, IG Port did manage to post 10.7% more revenue compared with the previous year, which on paper sounds chévere, but the money side did not follow the same path. The segment ended up with a wider operating loss of roughly $8.22 million USD, and that is the point where growth stops looking healthy and starts looking expensive. Titles tied to this work included Devil’s Crest, Eren the Southpaw, Agents of the Four Seasons, HAIKYU!! VS the Little Giant, and The One Piece, so you can already sense the scale and pressure of keeping several major productions moving at once.

What Went Wrong in the Production Side

IG Port pointed to production delays as one of the main reasons behind the weaker result, and that lines up with what many people in anime have been seeing for years now: schedules can slide, teams get stretched, and the final bill keeps climbing while delivery keeps getting pushed. The company also mentioned rising expenses tied to personnel, CG production, and outsourcing, which means the cost structure became heavier at the same time the workload stayed intense.

There was also another accounting factor that mattered a lot, because IG Port recorded provisions for anticipated losses on orders. In practical terms, that usually means the company looked at certain ongoing projects and concluded that the production cost might end up higher than the revenue those projects would bring in. If you follow anime business news closely, you know that this kind of adjustment is not just a technical detail; it often shows how tight margins have become in modern animation production.

Other Segments Held Up Better

Not everything inside IG Port moved in the same direction, and that is important to keep in view. The company’s publishing and licensing businesses performed strongly and even came in above expectations, which helped soften the blow from the animation side. Still, when one core division absorbs this much pressure, the overall mood of the report becomes more cautious, even if some parts of the company are doing better than others.

For the next fiscal year, IG Port is already expecting operating profit to decline by another 24.3%, which suggests management is not treating this as a temporary hiccup. Instead, the outlook implies that the company is bracing for a period where production economics remain tough and the gap between revenue and real profit stays difficult to close. If you work in anime, watch anime business trends, or simply follow studio output, this is the kind of report that makes the current situation feel very clear, boludo: demand is still there, but profitability is another story.

The broader takeaway is pretty direct. Even with recognizable titles and solid activity across multiple projects, the animation business can still struggle when schedules slip and costs rise faster than expected. IG Port’s latest numbers show that, and they also fit into a wider pattern across the industry where output keeps moving, but profits do not always keep pace. If you want to keep tracking how studios are handling this pressure, stay alert to future earnings reports, because they usually reveal more than the final broadcast lineup ever does.

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