Anisong and J-pop fans got a bit of bad news recently: ANiUTa is shutting down.
ANiUTa, if you recall, launched in the US in August 2018 as an official streaming music service of anime-related music. It was based off the Japanese version of the service which debuted a little over a year prior. ANiUTa cost $4.99 a month, although it quickly formed partnerships with Tokyo Otaku Mode and Crunchyroll for discounted or bundled offers. Before ANiUTa premiered in English, I had some concerns, and they weren’t allayed when I tested it due to a limited catalog and very user-unfriendly search.
But now, ANiUTa will be discontinued in the US as of March 31st, 2020. The Japanese ANiUTa will continue, but international fans will not be able to switch to it if they want their anisong fix. In fact, users are the ones who must cancel their subscription; otherwise, subscribers will continue to be charged a monthly fee. Considering it’s a separate app, I don’t know why ANiUTa can’t put a stop to collecting money from their end. That should be automatic — if all the data is being deleted, so should receiving payments! Regardless, if you currently have ANiUTa, make sure you cancel in advance!
Of course, this leads to the issue of those users who have signed up in conjunction with Tokyo Otaku Mode or Crunchyroll. TOM Premium users will likely just need to switch their rewards to TOM Points instead of ANiUTa, but will something replace ANiUTa in the Super Fan Pack? It costs $5 a month more than the Fan Pack. That meant that if a Crunchyroll user wanted VRV and ANiUta, it was a no-brainer with some other perks. But now that ANiUTa is no longer included, I think the Super Fan Pack has too many one-time-only offers (free Munch Box, 10% Right Stuf coupon) to make the $5 extra worth it, unless you spend a lot at the Crunchyroll Store to get free shipping. That’s probably not a lot of people…
…But there probably weren’t a lot of US ANiUTa subscribers in the first place. As ANiUTa explains, “Given the challenges in creating and maintaining a successful service that meets our users’ expectations, we decided to sunset the US version of ANiUTa. We are committed to focusing on our enterprise efforts, and will continue the development of ANiUTa for our users in Japan.” No doubt this is partially due to the increased availability of anime songs to stream like on Spotify or to buy on platforms like iTunes. The lack of some of Japan’s biggest labels was obviously out of their control.
But ANiUTa really could have done more. I mean, wanting to listen to songs while on a computer isn’t THAT unusual and would not be too expensive to develop. But ANiUTa was limited to iOS and Android. For me, the lack of a web player was a dealbreaker. Plus, I don’t believe they ever added the ability to listen offline.
Not to mention the song titles. Yes, there is no perfect or singular, standard romaji system, and some frustration was bound to be built in since the song titles are likely in a foreign language. But to not decide from the very beginning about some basic guidelines surely didn’t help. I think they actually used just about every style of romanization for one song or another.
So really, I’m not surprised that ANiUTa is ending, although I thought maybe fans bundling with some other services would have helped keep it afloat. It’s too bad, as I liked the idea of a streaming music service that concentrated on Japanese music. But with the service missing key features and competition increasing, its ending was only a matter of time. To not make sure they aren’t going to be collecting money after they shut down though is a pretty sloppy note to go out though. Hopefully, everyone doesn’t have any problems on April 1st.