We’ve previously written about how a growing interest in Anime is acting as a gateway to Japanese music globally.
This week, Spotify has shared a couple of stats that highlight the rise of Anime music on its platform.
According to Spotify, global streams of anime music have surged by 395% on its platform since 2021.
Spotify also reported that there are 6.7 million user-generated Anime playlists on the platform.
The new stats arrive alongside the announcement that Spotify is teaming up with anime streaming platform Crunchyroll to bring custom-curated playlists to Spotify’s dedicated Anime hub.
Crunchyroll will also have a dedicated shelf of content within the hub, including the brand’s recently released podcast Crunchyroll Presents: The Anime Effect. This podcast delves into the latest anime headlines and features guest stars like rapper Denzel Curry and J-Pop star LiSA.
The company was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in Los Angeles, Tokyo, Paris, and other cities.
Crunchyroll has been getting closer to the music industry in recent years. Last year, Sony Music Entertainment Japan teamed up with Crunchyroll to license its music content outside of Japan on Crunchyroll’s own music and content hub.
Crunchyroll is owned by Sony Group, which acquired the anime streaming platform from AT&T for over $1 billion in 2021.
Sony bought Crunchyroll via Funimation Global Group, LLC., a joint venture between SPE and Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc.’s subsidiary, Aniplex. The agreement was first announced in December 2020.
More recently in the global anime business, just last month, Universal Music Group-owned Virgin Music Group teamed up with Tokyo-based Frontier Works to release anime music projects.
Founded in 2022, Frontier Works specializes in anime-related content including music, books, games, film distribution for TV, theatrical anime/stage productions, 3DCG live performances, merchandise, radio, and various events.
Another sign of Anime’s global expansion arrived when J-pop star ADO, the artist and singer behind the score and theme song for hit anime movie One Piece Film: Red, signed a deal with Geffen Records at the end of 2022.
“On Spotify, global streams of anime have surged over the past few years, and we hope the Anime hub will become an indispensable part of anime culture.”
Kyota Onishi, Spotify
“We are thrilled to partner with Crunchyroll to bring listeners a new curation of anime music to explore,” shared Kyota Onishi, Head of Music in Japan at Spotify.
“On Spotify, global streams of anime have surged over the past few years, and we hope the Anime hub will become an indispensable part of anime culture.”
Anime revenue from outside Japan grew 111.1% YoY in 2022, according to the most recent Anime Industry Report from the Association of Japanese Animators (AJA).
The report also estimated that Japan’s domestic animation industry reached a market size of USD $20.57 billion in 2022, up 106.8% YoY.
Japanese-language music was cited by Luminate in January as the only language other than Hindi that saw its share of the world’s Top 10,000 on-demand streaming tracks increase in 2023.
According to Luminate’s 2023 Year End report, Hindi-language music’s market share of the world’s Top 10,000 streaming tracks (on-demand streams, inclusive of audio + video) more than doubled between 2021 (3.8%) and 2023 (7.8%).
Japanese-language music, meanwhile, saw its market share of the world’s Top 10,000 streaming tracks increase from 1.3% in 2022 to 2.1% in 2023.Music Business Worldwide