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The anime industry is booming, and it is only getting bigger, but that doesn’t mean that all the studios that make anime are profiting. Despite having three hit anime in 2025, CloverWorks, the studio behind Spy x Family Season 3, My Dress-Up Darling Season 2, and The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity, reported that it lost money in the past two financial years.

All three of the aforementioned anime were hits for CloverWorks, giving the studio a reputation for producing high-quality shows in a variety of genres. Despite that success, they reported a loss of 38 million Yen ($235,000) in the financial year ending in March 2026. This is an even greater loss than they posted the previous year, when the company reportedly lost 24 million Yen ($148,000).

This disclosure is somewhat shocking considering how prolific and well-regarded CloverWorks has become among anime fans, but it isn’t, by itself, a sign that the studio is in trouble. CloverWorks is owned by Aniplex, which is, in turn, owned by Sony Music Entertainment, which gives the company a significant financial safety net to help navigate lean years. A loss of less than $400,000 across two years is not insurmountable when you’re looking at a company of this size.

It is, however, worrying that, in a year where CloverWorks released three hit anime, they couldn’t pull a profit. You’d think that the combination of Spy x Family, My Dress-Up Darling, and The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity would be enough to offset their operating costs, but that doesn’t appear to be the case here.

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

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