Oshi-Katsu Trends of 2025: What the ¥3.9 Trillion Market Really Contains

The 2025 oshi-katsu market was reported at about ¥3.9 trillion (roughly $26 billion). But that is not just CDs and merchandise. It broadly covers spending on whatever people love, from live shows and the trips to see them to collaboration cafés, video streaming and even trades among fans.

A large market does not mean every fan spends the same way. The figure is a map that adds up fans' many ways of taking part, not a quota for each individual.

When looking at the market, separate behaviors as well as targets. Even among fans of the same work, spending means something different for someone who mainly streams, someone who goes to an event once a year and someone who uses small products in daily life. Rather than building an ideal customer from the average amount, it is more useful for planning to trace which touchpoint starts a relationship and where strain appears.

Time that never shows up as sales has value too: writing impressions, introducing a work to a friend, telling newcomers the rules of an event. These actions support the next purchase or visit, so contributions that sit outside the market should not be overlooked.

That the market size is being discussed at all is itself a change in this field. Before, it didn't show up in numbers and nobody knew its scale.

Once it becomes a number, it is treated as a business. Being made visible has both a good side and a stifling one.

The range of spending counted and the definition of who has an oshi both affect market size. When reading year-on-year changes, too, check whether the comparison uses the same questions and the same tabulation method. Numbers from different surveys need not be forced together; each can be read alongside what it measured.

The word oshi is no longer the exclusive property of idols. It now describes choosing for yourself who to cheer for: Chiikawa and Sanrio characters, J.League and pro baseball teams, stage actors, streamers and even local shops.

As the range of targets widened, so did the ways into oshi-katsu. People who found it hard to put their "like" into words can take part through the word oshi. More than market expansion, this is a widening of the culture's base.

Different genres mean different ways for support to arrive. For a team, it centers on attending games and local activities; for a character, on the work and its products; for a shop, on return visits and word of mouth. Rather than applying idol success stories as they are, working out what actions the target truly needs to keep going puts fans' goodwill to work.

Plenty of people have several oshi. Even when the closest one changes with the season, feelings for a former oshi don't vanish. Rather than trying to lock people in on the assumption that they "choose just one," companies can nurture longer relationships by creating touchpoints people can move between without strain in daily life.

The same behaviors existed before anyone called them oshi-katsu. They only started to appear in statistics once they had a name.

So part of the apparent rapid expansion is simply visibility. It wasn't newly born; it became visible.

A market-size figure multiplies the number of participants by the spending per person. Not everyone spends the same way.

That is why you need the breakdown. How you build a business changes depending on whether the total is pushed up by a few big spenders or spread widely and thinly.

A live show on site lets you feel the sound pressure, the lighting and the unity of the venue. Streaming and short videos, meanwhile, reach people far away and those who can't go because of health or work. In 2025, designs that combined on-site and online, rather than choosing one, stood out.

Make venue-only experiences, but also leave a record that can be watched later. Not treating people who couldn't take part as "not fans" protects a long relationship.

A hybrid design is not about showing the same video in two places. On site, use the reactions and atmosphere of the moment; in streaming, use camera angles that are easy to follow and supplementary information. Play to the strengths of each and let people come together afterward through photos and impressions, and they can share one event even when they took part in different ways.

In the breakdown of spending, tickets and travel take up a large share. Getting there often costs more than merchandise.

This burden is heavier for people who live outside the cities. There is a structure in which the same support costs different amounts depending on where you live.

The spread across generations has also become clear over the past few years. It is not a culture of the young alone; the same behavior can be seen in older generations.

Many people were doing the same thing before, just under a different name.

In 2025, projects pairing characters with companies, sports with IP and regions with works kept coming. Simply lining up logos gives fans little reason to spend their money and time.

What's needed is an experience that can only happen at that place, a common thread between the two partners and a story fans want to tell someone. A collaboration's value lies less in the rarity of limited items than in the meaning of taking part.

To judge compatibility, compare the values both fanbases care about rather than the size of the names. Does the world of the work conflict with the company's actions? Can newcomers move on to the original activity? What remains after it ends? Checking these three makes it easier to tell a project that merely borrowed a logo from one that widens relationships.

Even when availability is limited, it is better to state the run period, the sales method and whether restocks are planned than to rush people with a small quantity alone. The fairer the information, the less likely people who couldn't get an item are to distrust the project itself.

Related businesses have increased too: storage supplies, organizers, photography services. It is a market not for the support itself but for the products that back it up.

More companies entering has widened the choices, and the variation in quality has grown along with it.

With more cases to compare, fans quickly see through sloppy projects.

As products and events multiply, so does the joy of choosing. So does the fatigue of not keeping up with information, not being able to buy everything and losing lotteries again and again. To keep oshi-katsu going for the long term, a design that respects fans' budgets and time is indispensable.

Made-to-order production, clear prices and sizes, streaming archives and official rules that make exchanges easy. Being able to choose not to take part makes the culture more sustainable.

Operators need to feed more than sales into the next round: the content of inquiries, reasons for cancellations, imbalances in stock and satisfaction after taking part. Don't write off the points where fans struggled as their own responsibility; use them to improve guidance and sales methods. Reassurance comes not from more warnings but from a way to resolve problems when they arise.

Numbers also start to travel on their own. Often only the market size gets quoted and the breakdown is lost.

The widening of genres is much the same. Not only idols and anime but sports, companies, regions and even animals have become targets.

All they share is the structure of having someone to cheer for. You can see that the essence is the relationship, not the target.

With several ways to take part, fans can adjust their distance from their oshi as their lives change.

The ¥3.9 trillion oshi-katsu market is not one person's spending; it is the result of many people taking part, each at their own distance. To carry the 2025 trends forward, it matters more to add ways in that people who love something can return to over the long term than to make them compete on intensity.

More ways to take part is, at bottom, a good change. People who used to only watch now have a path to get involved.

But once participation becomes the assumption, people who only watch start to feel out of place. It is better to treat participation as an option, not a condition.

Participation design advanced a great deal this past year. There are now more ways to get involved, not just watch.