The Marvel Formula, Applied to Isekai
The argument comes from Yūsuke Ōnuki (大貫佑介), president of Bushiroad Move, a director at Bushiroad Works, and president of the games-industry news outlet GameBiz, all part of the Bushiroad Group behind BanG Dream! and Cardfight!! Vanguard. In a book excerpt published by PRESIDENT Online, the web edition of the Japanese business magazine PRESIDENT, Ōnuki lays out his theory for why isekai battle anime keeps outperforming abroad. He is upfront that this is a working producer's gut read, not confirmed data.
His reference point is Hollywood, specifically Marvel Studios and the Avengers films. Big enemies, overwhelming power, flashy battles, clear-cut good and evil, a satisfying win. Ōnuki compresses the formula into the onomatopoeic shorthand "dōn, bān, gōn, love": something explodes, people fight, somebody wins, and the ending lands an emotional beat. That structure travels across cultures without much explanation, and he argues the catharsis of beating a powerful enemy is an especially strong draw in overseas markets, particularly North America.
Isekai battle stories check every one of those boxes. A weak protagonist lands in another world, becomes the strongest, and overturns unfairness through sheer power. The premise takes one sentence to explain, and that simplicity is precisely what sells.
Earlier in the same excerpt, the book places NARUTO, BLEACH, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Dandadan in the tier of titles with genuine worldwide popularity. It also notes that keywords like "another world," "reincarnation," "strongest," "banished," "villainess," and "Level 999" have become reliable signals in successful titles, and that most of the top-ranked novels on Shōsetsuka ni Narou, the Japanese web novel platform where much of the genre originates, have already received anime adaptations.
A ¥3 Billion Show for a $1.8 Million License
The second half of Ōnuki's argument is about how streaming platforms make decisions. When a platform produces its own tentpole film, budgets run into the tens of millions of dollars, and there is no guarantee of a hit. A flop means an enormous write-down, which makes original blockbusters a high-risk, high-reward bet.
Japanese anime sits at the opposite end of that risk curve. Ōnuki puts the going rate at roughly $100,000 to $150,000 per episode, so licensing a full 12-to-13-episode season costs a platform around $1.8 million, or about ¥290 million. The shows themselves carry total production costs of ¥2 billion to ¥3 billion (roughly $13 million to $20 million). By his math, a platform locks up billions of yen worth of finished content for a few hundred million yen. That is a bargain no in-house production can match.
Rom-Coms Are a Harder Sell
The excerpt's blunter observation is that romantic comedies are hard to price in overseas markets. In the third part of the article, Ōnuki writes that rom-coms resonate deeply with the fans who love them, but whether they rack up mass worldwide streams is a separate question. Action-forward series in the NARUTO and Jujutsu Kaisen mold command high licensing fees; quieter genres do not.
That pricing gap is already shaping what gets made. According to the excerpt, producers increasingly judge projects at the planning stage by how much overseas platforms are likely to pay, which means global streaming value, not just domestic appeal, now drives which anime get greenlit.
Looking Ahead
The excerpt comes from Anime Business (アニメビジネス 漫画・小説・アニメが100倍おもしろくなるアニメの教養), Ōnuki's book on the industry's inner workings, released in Japan on August 12 through GameBiz, a Bushiroad Group company. The book covers production, distribution, merchandising, and overseas expansion. No English edition has been announced, so for now the PRESIDENT Online serialization is the most accessible way to read his analysis. For international fans, the numbers explain a lot about the current streaming catalog: as long as a full isekai season costs less than two percent of a blockbuster movie, platforms have every reason to keep buying them.