Gundam just beat Dragon Ball and One Piece in new Bandai Namco report

Of all the notable anime franchises under the Bandai Namco umbrella, you might be surprised by which one generated the most revenue over the past year. In its financial highlights released on Wednesday, Bandai Namco revealed that the Gundam franchise has generated more revenue than both One Piece and Dragon Ball, raking in approximately 254.3 billion yen (about $1.6 million).

Gundam’s revenue is staggering in the face of two shonen giants, with One Piece securing just 139.3 billion yen and Dragon Ball accumulating 138.0 billion yen. This also marks the highest revenue made by Gundam ever and is the highest-performing Bandai Namco IP in company history. But these numbers aren’t too surprising when you understand how much Bandai Namco has invested in Gundam, as you have to remember this isn’t a measurement of total worldwide franchise revenue across every company. Bandai Namco owns the rights for the Dragon Ball video games, and for the One Piece video games, merchandise, and TCG. For Gundam, instead, Bandai Namco fully owns the franchise and IP, including anime, merchandise, and toys/collectibles.

Looking back at FY2025, Gundam generated 153.5 billion yen, adding roughly 100 billion yen year-over-year (or around 65% growth), which is impressive for an over 45-year-old franchise. This shows how Gundam massively accelerated while other globally recognized anime brands plateaued or cooled specifically under Bandai Namco’s operations.

The catalyst for Gundam’s massive success? Last year’s Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX anime series, which was released right at the start of FY2026 in April. During Q1 FY2026 alone, Gundam revenue hit 65.4 billion yen, up 81.2% year-over-year, making that single quarter one of Gundam’s all-time highs. Expectedly, Gundam toys were also a major factor, with Gunpla and hobby sales carrying Bandai’s entire Toys and Hobby division to a record high.

Bandai has repeatedly stated its company strategy as being built around “IP synergy.” It’s the company’s new golden rule, a term that’s constantly repeated throughout Bandai’s financial highlights report, noting that every part of the company contributes to Gundam through anime, games, arcades, exhibitions, model kits, licensing, streaming, card games, and much more. Bandai even specifically highlights the Gundam Next Future Pavilion held in Osaka as one key contributor to the surge in revenue.

What about One Piece and Dragon Ball? While One Piece largely stayed flat year-over-year with a FY2025 revenue of 139.5 billion yen, Dragon Ball experienced a significant drop of around 50 billion yen, from 190.6 billion yen in FY2025 to 138.0 billion yen. So, it’s less about Gundam edging ahead of Dragon Ball and One Piece, and more about Gundam suddenly entering an entirely different commercial tier under Bandai. The increase in Gundam’s revenue alone (100.8 billion yen) was almost as large as One Piece’s entire yearly revenue.

But let’s not forget this is all under Bandai Namco Holdings. Both Dragon Ball and One Piece have revenue spread across multiple corporate partners, publishers, and merchandise stakeholders, while Gundam is fully a Bandai Namco franchise, which means the franchise’s revenue reflects an enormous amount of vertically integrated revenue flowing through one ecosystem.