Highlights
- Anime transcended its niche status in 2025, becoming a foundational pillar of global entertainment.
- Japan’s ABEMA data reveals a split between nostalgic family comedies for total volume and modern mysteries for per-episode engagement.
- The Apothecary Diaries emerged as the undisputed 2025 MVP, uniquely sweeping both viewership and critical rankings.
Japan's streaming platform ABEMA released its 2025 anime rankings this week, and the results reveal a split audience: viewers who marathon classic family comedies and those who watch every new episode of modern mystery series the moment it drops.
The platform tracks two separate metrics. The first is 'Total views' that measures raw watch time accumulated over the year. The other is 'Average views per episode' that measures how many people tuned in on a consistent weekly basis — a better indicator of devoted fans.
ABEMA's Most-Watched Anime of 2025
In total views, the top spot went to Atashin'chi, a slice-of-life comedy adapted from Eiko Kera's 1994 manga. The series follows the Tachibana family — a stoic, beer-loving father and a frugal, detail-oriented mother raising two teenagers — across more than 330 episodes, making it an easy candidate for passive, repeat viewing. The Apothecary Diaries Season 2 came in second, followed by Crayon Shin-chan in third, boosted by the theatrical release of Crayon Shin-chan: The Movie: Super Hot! The Spicy Kasukabe Dancers. The Apothecary Diaries Season 1 placed fourth, and classic culinary series Oishinbo fifth, according to Oricon.
ABEMA's Top 5 Anime of 2025 by 'Total Views'
- Atashin'chi
- The Apothecary Diaries Season 2
- Crayon Shin-chan: The Movie
- The Apothecary Diaries Season 1
- Oishinbo
The per-episode rankings looked different. The Apothecary Diaries took the top two spots — Season 2 first, Season 1 second — making it the only franchise to appear on both lists. Bogus Skill Fruitmaster placed third, The Brilliant Healer's New Life in the Shadows fourth, and Even Given the Worthless 'Appraiser' Class, I'm Actually the Strongest fifth.
ABEMA's Top 5 Anime of 2025 by 'Average Views'
- The Apothecary Diaries Season 2
- The Apothecary Diaries Season 1
- Bogus Skill Fruitmaster
- The Brilliant Healer's New Life in the Shadows
- Even Given the Worthless 'Appraiser' Class, I'm Actually the Strongest
Why 'The Apothecary Diaries' Dominated Both Lists
It is rare for a single intellectual property to dominate both viewing habits so thoroughly, but The Apothecary Diaries did exactly that, becoming the only franchise to earn spots on both of ABEMA's lists. Inspired by Natsu Hyuga’s light novel, the series follows Maomao, an 18-year-old apothecary in a fictional nation inspired by Imperial-era China.
After being sold as a servant to the Emperor's concubines, her deductive skills and herbal knowledge help her unravel palace mysteries. Its artful blend of philosophy, romance, and mystery has made it a critical darling; U-Next even crowned it the number one anime of 2025, and a recent fan survey for the "Reiwa-Era's Top 20 Best Modern Anime" awarded it second place overall, per CBR.
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Anime on Netflix
Outside Japan, anime's foothold on global streaming continued to grow. On Netflix, anime made up over 4% of all viewing in the second half of 2025, with Dan Da Dan — a series mixing aliens and supernatural horror — leading the platform's global numbers.
The ABEMA data suggests the medium's domestic audience is not a monolith. The same viewers who clock hours on a 30-year-old family comedy will also watch a palace mystery episode by episode, week after week.
