Audio streaming service Spotify revealed to the BBC this month that listeners under the age of 29 accounted for nearly 70% of global anime music consumption. This follows Spotify and Crunchyroll’s 2024 report, revealing that global Spotify anime music streams increased by 395% since 2021, with 6.7 million user-generated anime playlists created. The BBC reports that this is now up to 7.2 million. What constitutes an anime playlist wasn’t confirmed.
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The increasing access to anime through subscription services and FAST channels, along with its ability to resonate with younger audiences, continues to provide a window for overseas fans to access Japanese music. Anime opening and ending themes with catchy hooks or dance sequences designed for virality regularly rack up millions of views on social media platforms.
A standout recent success is naturally YOASOBI’s “Idol,” which recently made Apple Music’s all-time top 500 most-streamed songs list and became just the fifth song in modern history to top the list back-to-back for the most royalties received by JASRAC, Japan’s largest copyright management organization. While Japan has historically had a strong domestic music industry, anime music appears to be among the primary paths to expand Japan’s whole music industry globally, a direction which Ado’s manager, Takuya Chigira, raised warning alarms against earlier this year.
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Nevertheless, as seen with “Idol,” praised for its catchiness and alignment with Oshi no Ko‘s worldview, music’s further integration into anime is a tactic that anime companies are eager to replicate. In an interview this month with Manabu Otsuka, the CEO of MAPPA (Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, Attack on Titan: The Final Season), he spoke about the formation of the company’s new mappa records label, adding that they aimed to tailor their anime to their commissioned music, e.g., by revising storyboards or adding scenes.
MAPPA will also consider music’s role in marketing at the anime planning stage, as well as live shows and performances that utilize IP. You can read the full interview here.
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Source: BBC
©︎2024 Shinichiro Nariie/ KADOKAWA / See You Tomorrow at the Food Court Production Committee © Aka Akasaka x Mengo Yokoyari/Shueisha, “OSHI NO KO” Partners ©Kanehito Yamada, Tsukasa Abe/Shogakukan/”Frieren” Project
