On March 24th, 2017, a new music streaming service was released in Japan called ANiUTa. What makes this streaming service so unique is how it’s the first to specialize in anime song streaming.
As many anime fans know, the intro and ending songs to a series, in addition to its overall musical score, are often integral parts of the viewing experience. A number of popular seiyu like Aya Hirano, Nana Mizuki, and Aoi Yuki are also accomplished singers whose music is commonly featured in the anime they provide their voices for. Given the ever increasing popularity of live concert performances of anime music, there’s a large, expanding market that ANiUTa is looking to tap into.
The current library of songs consists of over 50,000 titles from music labels including Kadokawa, Toei Animation Music Publishing, Sunrise Music Publishing, Capcom, and major international companies like Universal and Warner Bros.
A fully paid subscription will run you 600 yen (about $5.30 at the time of this writing) and can be accessed via the Japanese Google Play Store and Apple App Store. As an added bonus, an ANiUTa subscription entitles subscribers to other benefits including potential access to anime concert ticket pre-orders, pre-release streams of music from new series, and access to an online merchandise shop.
While no date has been set for an international release, ANiUTa is aiming to be available outside of Japan by the end of 2017.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NVXn94BPZQ
This service comes as a much needed music source for anime fans. Music labels issuing take down notices for their content resulted in the removal of a tremendous amount of anime music from YouTube in late 2015. This, coupled with a change in terms and policy with the release of YouTube Red on October 15th of that year, resulted in even more songs being rendered unplayable outside of Japan. Consequently, it’s been increasingly more difficult for music fans to get their J-Pop or J-Rock fix; ANiUTa would go a long ways towards remedying that.
Sources: Official ANiUTa wepage, ANiUTa Press Release
