Do you remember way back in spring 2017 when ANiUTa was announced? It was a huge announcement: for 600 yen a month (a little over $5 American), users could stream music from a large selection of anime-related and other Japanese media-inspired songs. It include a large list of labels including Avex, Exit Tunes, Kadokawa, Toei Music, and Warner Brothers.
Like most similar ventures, ANiUTa was region-locked, although the service hoped to launch an international version by the end of the year. That deadline came and went with no news.
Finally, though, ANiUTa has announced that the service will go live in August for the US. Apps will be available on iOS and Google Play.
The Abundance of Questions
Unfortunately, even with their first major update, there’s a lot we don’t know. The price has been established at $4.99 a month, although as they make clear on the main page, “Future prices may vary.”
First of all, while it does say that Japan and the US will have simultaneous release, will all the labels available on ANiUTa Japan be available on ANiUTa US? I would think so, but we’ve all experienced a book, game, or anime that left out or changed things because of issues with rights or other reasons. FUNimation’s Kodocha DVDs couldn’t use its original opening, Art of Persona 5 is missing pages from the Japanese release, mobile games like Kingdom Hearts and Uta no Prince-sama often run on different schedules. We can’t assume that the two ANiUTa services will be clones of each other. It only mentions the latest anime themes in this regard, so could the back catalog be different?
The pre-launch contest only covers the United States, so will our neighbors to the north and south be left out of ANiUTa? What about Europe, Africa, Australia? Will they be completely left out of the picture?
I’m also a bit concerned about the search. Will titles be translated or in romaji? What system of romanization? For instance, at the Japanese store HMV recently, I was looking for the Full Moon o Sagashite final soundtrack. I couldn’t find it until I searched for the artist, as it was listed as Full Moon Wo Sagasite. I could see other series having these same type of issues if the search isn’t sophisticated enough on ANiUTa. Will ANiUTa know that “Fuwa Fuwa Time” (which has almost 100,000 hits under that name on Google) is the same as “Fuwafuwa Time” (under 30,000 and which Google suggests “Fuwa Fuwa Time”)?
Like, I don’t know if they actually have music from this series, but take a certain popular magical girl series. Would it be listed as Precure or Pretty Cure, and will it be smart enough to bring up results if visitors use the alternative name? What about songs from Smile! Precure — would it be named as that or Glitter Force? This may be an extreme example, but if you read some of the comments here and here, the Japanese version’s search engine isn’t exactly great either.
Plus, it’s not exactly comforting when the current page has an “Engrish” feel to it. The dollar sign is behind the price (4.99$), they advertise “over 10,000 song”, etc.
I am also disappointed by what appears to be a lack of a web player. I know we often think of listening to music while traveling to work or school, but I mostly listen to my anisongs while on the computer. I can always use my phone, yes, but since I’m on the computer anyway, it would just be easier and more convenient. Not to mention saving the phone battery.
Reaching Out to International Fans
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Japanese labels need to put their music up on places like iTunes in the West. Piracy is always going to be a concern, but I’d be willing to bet if they were going to illegally download albums anyway, they would do so even without it being available on international venues. An average anime fan is not going to import the single of every song they like when a 4-track CD is going to cost $15-20 or more to get, but they may spend the $1-2 for a digital version of the opening/ending song or $5 for the full single.
This is especially going to be true with ANiUTa launching. Listeners are going to hear a particular tune they like and want to be able to listen to it offline. But if it’s not available to buy, most likely, the artists and the labels are going to be missing out on extra revenue.
It’s also worth noting that ANiUTa is missing some major labels. Columbia, Sony, and King Records have not signed on to the service. That means fans won’t be able to listen to music from My Hero Academia, KonoSuba, and Uta no Prince-sama, among many others. ANiUTa is not to blame if these companies won’t put their artists on the service, but this means that there are some major gaps in the Japanese music fandom. Considering ANiUTa must be doing well enough to push forward with their original plans to expand outside Japan, hopefully these companies will join in at some point in the near future.
Final Thoughts
So whether I’ll subscribe or not probably won’t be answered until launch. I don’t keep up on a lot of the modern series, so I’m hoping there will be a healthy dose of older anisongs. Some of these questions though I hope ANiUTa will address sooner rather than later. I’d hate to see what could be an exciting launch muddled by a lot of confusion.