Introduction
These past few years, Anime songs (also called Anison) have drastically risen in popularity. Never before has Japanese pop and rock been this well-known on a global scale. Alongside this upsurge, we also see that Anime in general has never been as popular and mainstream as we can call it now. The explanation for this rise in popularity is very complex and can't be traced back to a single reason, but it did raise a question: Due to the rapid spread of music through social media and streaming services such as Spotify, to what extent have Anime songs influenced the popularity of Anime, and vice-versa?
Our research is divided into a qualitative and quantitative section. In our qualitative research, we briefly discuss the history of Anime music and its rise in popularity throughout the past few decades. Next, we discuss the importance of Anime songs for Anime, to explain their connection and the way they could influence each other. Our quantitative research thus focuses on two databases: one containing data of the most popular Anime songs (from Spotify), and one containing that of Anime (from myanimelist.net). By combining these two databases we can analyze the connection between a certain Anime and their music, and search for a potential link in popularity.
Status quaestionis
During our research, it became quickly clear that this specific topic has been researched very little, as the sources that were available to us only seemed to analyze the phenomenon of Anime or Anime music and their respective rise in popularity, without linking the two together nor discussing the connection they have. Consequently, our research has sadly become characterized by a lack of significant sources, but we tried to make up for it by carefully analyzing what we could work with and providing our own insights extensively in our quantitative research.
Qualitative research
Anime music is a fundamental element of Japanese animation. It has been an integral part of the anime industry for decades, contributing to the growth and popularity of anime as a whole. Anime music, also known as anime soundtracks, generally includes opening and ending themes, background music, and insert songs.
The roots of Anime music
Anime music can trace its roots back to the early days of Japanese animation. During the early days of anime, music was primarily used as a background noise to complement the visual storytelling and it was not yet considered a genre in itself. At the time, anime music was heavily influenced by the popular music of the era, including rock, pop, and jazz.
One of the earliest examples of anime music as we know it today can be found in the opening theme for "Astro boy" in the early 1960s. The show's theme song, "Astro Boy no Uta" became a hit and marked the beginning of anime music as a distinct genre. Soon after, other anime series began to incorporate music as an essential part of their storytelling, and anime music began to evolve.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsIv3Se1eLo
The rise of Anime music
[As anime continued to grow in popularity, so did the demand for anime music. In the 1970s, anime music became more diverse and included a wider range of genres. The popular anime series "Space Battleship Yamato" featured a rock-inspired soundtrack, which became a defining characteristic of anime music. This opened up a new avenue for anime music and paved the way for more experimental and diverse genres]{.mark}
One of the key factors in the rise of anime music was the emergence of idol groups such as Candies, Pink Lady, and Onyanko Club. These groups were popular among young people in Japan and often performed theme songs for anime series, helping to popularize both the music and the shows themselves.
Another factor was the growth of anime conventions, which provided a space for fans to gather and share their love of anime and anime music. The first anime convention in Japan, Comiket, was held in 1975 and has since grown into one of the largest fan conventions in the world. Other conventions, such as Anime Expo in the United States and Anime Festival Asia in Singapore, have also helped to promote anime music to a global audience.
The golden age of Anime music
In the 1980s and 1990s, anime music experienced a golden age. The increasing popularity of anime both in Japan and abroad led to a boom of new series and an increase of new music.
During this period, anime music became more diverse and experimental, with a wider range of genres and styles represented. Some of the most memorable anime music of the era includes "A Cruel Angel\'s Thesis" from "Neon Genesis Evangelion," [which featured a mix of orchestral pieces, rock music, and even some Gregorian chants ,]{.mark}"Tank!" from "Cowboy Bebop," and "Moonlight Densetsu" from "Sailor Moon."
Modern Anime music
In the 2000s, anime music began to take on a more prominent role in the industry, with many popular shows featuring songs that became hits in their own right. One of the most famous examples of this was the opening theme song for the anime series, Attack on Titan, which became a massive hit in Japan and around the world.
Today, anime music continues to be a vital part of the industry, with many popular shows featuring memorable theme songs and soundtracks that have become iconic in their own right. Additionally, many anime music concerts and events are held around the world, allowing fans to experience the music of their favorite shows live in concert.
The rise of streaming services like Crunchyroll and Funimation has made anime more accessible than ever before, leading to a renewed interest in anime music among fans both in Japan and around the world.
One of the most significant trends in modern anime music is the increasing use of collaborations between anime studios and popular music artists.
Another significant development in modern anime music is that [it made its way into the mainstream, with popular anime songs like "Gurenge" from Demon Slayer and "Unlasting" from Sword Art Online becoming hits on streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.]{.mark} This has made it easier for fans to discover and purchase anime music, leading to a wider audience for the genre.
The importance of the opening and ending song
The opening song shows the viewer what they can expect from the anime, by reflecting the tone of the anime in the music. While the ending song leaves the viewer wanting more and encourages them to watch another episode.
Throughout the anime, the opening or ending song might change to reflect the current plot or character development. This is certainly true in the case of the anime "Attack on Titan". At the beginning of the anime, the opening "Guren No Yumiya" is used. The artist, Linked Horizon, made a mix of rock and fantastical beats with dramatic melodies that create a very powerful song that makes the viewer excited to watch the anime.
The fourth opening used in the anime is "Red Swan" by Yoshiki. This opening song conveys a completely different feeling. It is very emotional and a lot less overwhelming compared to the first opening. The song reflects the plot which now focuses on tragic events and past trauma.
By constantly creating new opening and ending songs that reflect the current story of the anime, the anime itself can stay relevant to viewers. Since the songs and the story are so closely connected, it is possible that people become interested in the anime after discovering the music via music videos, spotify, social media etc., and thus getting a taste of the tone and story. In this way, the opening and ending could influence the anime's popularity by drawing in more viewers through catchy melodies and the storytelling in their lyrics (and graphics in the case of music videos).
Quantitative research
First and foremost we need to acknowledge that finding a concrete connection between the Anime and the opening song of said Anime is quite a difficult task to put into actual data. It is quite common to see certain Anime having great popularity alongside their song yet there are many examples of less well known Anime that have an opening song that is incredibly popular. On the other hand there are also famous Anime that are accompanied by a not so popular song.
What also needs to be clarified is that there is Anime with a song that is popular within the Anime community but are not songs that you will not find within the top 200 songs of Japan. With this said it is time to dive into our quantitative research:
The data collection
Music data
For quantitative research it is important that you have a universal way of collecting data during your research. To achieve this, we had to find the most effective and the best way of collecting said data.
The data for the songs all come from Spotify, which is the biggest streaming platform for music. Within Spotify there are certain playlists, made by Spotify based upon the most popular songs of a certain time period within a certain genre, country,... Whilst scrolling through these charts we found the Top 200 of Japan for a month which included the most popular songs being played in Japan within a month. It included all genres which limited our research as there were many other genres such as (English Pop, Korean Pop,...) yet it added a new dimension to our research. It shows how big Anime actually is, with some Anime opening songs having loads of plays and being in the top 200 playlist of Japan for more than one week.
We found a database of 26 000 000 columns, with each column having 7 rows including the title, the rank, the date, the artist, the region (for our research, Japan), the chart and the amount of streams. If we would have based our research upon rank we would have had rogue data, we went for streams as it also tells a more detailed story than only the rank.
It is important to note that the timespan of the database that we used is from 1-1-2017 until 31-12-2021 which is a significant timespan to analyze how popular Anime and their respective opening songs were during that specific time.
The database, which was a CSV-file, was imported into Excel for both the data analysis as well as the visualization. We used Pivots for the analysis of the data and used these Pivots as a base for our Pivot Graphs to visualize our data.
Anime data
With the popularity of music sorted we had to shift our attention to the popularity of the Anime itself.
There are way more databases for Anime due to the many sites that can be used as databases for your research. In the end we chose myanimelist.net as it is one of, if not the biggest website when it comes to rating Anime. We found a really recent database with the top 250 Anime of 2023 which was updated lastly on 8-3-2023. We chose a recent dataset as it was impossible to find a dataset that was from the same timespan as our music database. Yet, the surplus is that it shows a more complete story as the opening songs that can be seen in the 2017-2021 database are mostly songs that connect with Anime that withstood the test of time as they are still within the top 250 Anime in 2023.
This database was a CSV-file that we imported to Excel and later connected it with the music database to combine the popularity of the Anime and the opening song.
The up- and downsides of said databases
The databases give a clear overlook of the popularity of both Anime and its music during a certain timespan. This timespan is certainly big enough to actually make conclusions that will not be devaluing over time. The myanimelist.net database was with its 250 columns a super easy database to work with and to combine with our massive 26 000 000 columns database of Spotify.
Finding a universal way to handle this data was also quite easy due to Excel which handles both data analysis and data visualization well. This meant that starting our data analysis started fairly quickly.
The database concerning the music was a super heavy, messy database that we had to clean by hand as it included all the top 200 from every country in the world for a month from 2017-2021 which a normal computer could never handle. As we did not have the resources to analyze the whole database we were limited to only Japan as it would otherwise crash. The upside with choosing Japan is that Anime and Anime music in itself is the most popular in Japan for a number of reasons. Yet, our database for the popularity of Anime is based upon a mostly English-speaking website where there are more western people than Japanese. This in itself is not a bad thing but the popularity of some Anime in the west is way more significant than in Japan which could result in a small difference of outcome compared to a Japanese speaking forum or website.
The main thing that we were looking for is correlations with the popularity of Anime and their opening songs. It also is the only thing that we could find as we chose the top 250 Anime and the top 200 songs from a certain era. Finding not so popular Anime with their popular song or vice versa is due to the limit of the database.
This being said, one of the problems that our database from Myanimelist.net has is that our database is focusing on the rank and not the current popularity of the Anime which is good as otherwise we would not be able to use our music database but it also limits our possibility of finding opening songs that matches with an Anime from this time as for example Cowboy Bebop is also within the top 250 (rank 39) but is an Anime produced too long ago to have a shot at being in the Top 200 songs in Japan.
The Data analysis
We analyzed many opening songs and their Anime to show a certain connection between the popularity of the two and will now list the most important findings within our quantitative research:
We will start off with the Anime Yakusoku no Neverland (The Promised Neverland) that started airing on 10-1-2019 with its song 'Touch Off' by 'UVERworld' releasing on 27-2-2019. Yakusoku no Neverland was rank 116 and popularity 38 out of 250. It's song was super popular during 2019 as seen in the table below:
What we can see from the graph above is that the song was popular even before the anime was released yet we can not conclude that it is not partially due to the Anime as there must have been marketing surrounding this Anime. Besides that the popularity of the song increased with large numbers in March when said Anime was released. Although the song tumbles of the top 200 songs in Japan, it does not mean that the song is not popular currently, it just shows how the song has had a big impact on music in Japan as to be on this list it has to be within the top 200 of any song, any genre, in Japan.
If we look at this graph closely and take into consideration that this Anime was quite popular as well, we can conclude that there is a certain connotation in their popularity respectively.
Now, we come to an example that will not show up on myanimelist.net as a popular Anime but it certainly is as Doraemon in Japan is one of the most popular Anime for children. Doraemon the Movie 41: Nobita no Little Star Wars on myanimelist.net is ranked 3981 and popularity is 9901. We can not conclude that this anime is not popular as Doraemon is a staple mark for Japanese culture as a whole. The song "Universe" by "Official HIGE DANdism" is the outro of this movie. We should take into account that the movie does not have an intro song. The popularity of the outro song can be seen in the chart below:
What is interesting is that the movie aired on 4-3-2022 which does not correlate with the popularity of the song at all. The song 'Universe' was released on 24-2-2021. It might've been on Spotify already before that date but there is no official data that corresponds to that.
This is an example of the popularity of the Anime corresponding with the song but having no direct influence on one another. Due to the song dropping off the chart In November we can assume that it is not due to the reach of our database but more so because it genuinely fell off. It is an interesting phenomenon as there is no direct connection between the popularity of the two. This stands in contrast to what we are trying to show here but it is important to realize that not all the famous Anime and their opening songs are connected due to them both being popular. This example also shows the complexity of our research as it is almost impossible to find an exact correlation between the song and the Anime.
Now we are taking a look at one of the most popular Anime on myanimelist.net with rank 27 and popularity 11 it is certainly one of the most watched Anime. Kimi no na ha is a movie with both an opening and an ending song that are influential such as the Anime. The Anime was released in 2016 which is one year before the timeframe of our research. The Anime got recognition right away with its LAFCA Animation Award in 2016 and the Best Animated Film in 2017 by Mainichi Film Awards. The music, especially the outro song (Nandemonaiya), which is a super popular song, was in the top 200 in 2017 for three months and reappeared in January 2018 again but would not reach its peak until May 2020. This may be due to so many influences but it might be an interesting assumption that this happened due to the influx of Anime viewers due to COVID-19.
The Opening song which is less well known compared to the ending song also gained popularity during May 2020. All the songs for this specific movie were made by Radwimps which is a well known band within and outside of Japan. Most of their popular songs (including zenzenzense) were made for the movie Kimi no na ha. The popularity of the movie skyrocketed the career of Radwimps, who were a popular band even before this, even more.
Next up we are taking a look at an Anime that was produced during the timespan of our Spotify list named Boku No Hero Academia season 2 that premiered on 1-4-2017. The Anime in itself is super popular as it is rank 434 but has a popularity of 14. The interesting part that we will see again is that the popularity of the song on the Top 200 chart of Japan is way later than the release of the Anime as it once again appeared during 2020 but this time in August.
Judging by the plays Peace Sign was and still is a super popular song and was on the Top 200 chart of Japan for over one year which is impressive. Peace Sign was made by Kenshi Yonezu, who is one of the most influential Pop artists within Japan to date. Although once again it is hard to conclude that the popularity of the Anime and the opening song have a direct link the thing that can be noticed is that they correlate as both of them were popular. Boku no Hero Academia is one of the more influential Anime of this era and if we look at all the seasons and this song we can see that both of them are popular. Only looking at the second season would limit the scope of influence that this Anime had.
Now, we take a look at Uchiage Hanabi which should ring a bell if you like Japanese music. Uchiage Hanabi is also the title of a movie for which this song was made. The movie in itself is not popular at all with it being rank 8402 and popularity 1095.
The song on the other hand is one of the most popular songs of the most popular artist in the Pop music industry in Japan, named Kenshi Yonezu. Just by looking at the graph itself we can already see by the amount of plays and the amount of time that it was on the chart that this song was a big hit on the Top 200 chart of Japan.
It is an understatement to call this song merely popular and overlook the fact that 2 years after its release it was still in the chart. It tells a story about how big Kenshi Yonezu as an artist is and how influential this song is. Sadly enough, the popularity of the Anime once again does not tell the whole story of the popularity of this song. The Anime was released on 18-8-2017 whilst the song also gained popularity during that time, there is a massive peak during January 2018. It seems as if anything Kenshi Yonezu lays his hands upon, turns into gold.
Now we will talk about one of the most influential Anime of all time: Demon Slayer. With also one of the most influential Japanese Anime songs: Gurenge by Lisa. Demon Slayer aired on 6-4-2019. Demon Slayer is currently rank 122 with popularity rank 7 on myanimelist.net. Rank 7 is, for an anime released in 2019, super high as more well established Anime fill up the rest of the top 10 such as Death Note (released 2010), Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (released 2009), Naruto (released 2002),...
Demon Slayer became a staple in the Anime world rather quickly with its opening song Gurenge also following in the footsteps of its success. There is a correlation again when it comes to the popularity of both the Anime and its opening song with the timing of their popularity increasing being quite close to each other. Gurenge stayed on the top 200 chart of Japan for over 2 years with a lot of streams. It once again shows the impact Anime and their respective opening songs have in the world of music in Japan.
Last but not least we will look at Jujutsu Kaisen with its opening Kaikai Kitan by Eve. Jujutsu Kaisen is the newest Anime that we took to analyze and is rank 66 with popularity 17. Jujutsu Kaisen was released on 3-10-2020 and got a trophy for Anime of the year at the 2022 Tokyo Anime Award Festival (TAAF). This goes to show how popular this Anime actually is.
The song Kaikai Kitan by Eve immediately came into the top 200 chart of Japan after the Anime got released. Both the song and the Anime were released on the same date which further links both the song and the Anime together. In our opinion Jujutsu Kaisen and Kaikai kitan is a clear example of where the Anime and the song's popularity not only correlate but also have a clear connection. Both the Anime and the song were clearly popular for a certain amount of time and supported each other\'s vibe. The song is clearly made for the Anime and gives a certain feeling to the viewer before the Anime begins that corresponds to the vibe that the Anime is trying to pursue.
In this table you can see that the popularity of both the Anime and the song have some sort of correlation besides for Doraemon with Universe and Uchiage Hanabi with the song Uchiage Hanabi. It is important to know that due to the movie being about Doraemon we should look at the bigger picture than only this movie. Thus we can conclude that the popularity of Doraemon does correlate with the popularity of the song Universe. It is quite interesting to see that the popularity of both the song and the Anime is this high. It is possible that the popularity of one of the two, the Anime or the song boosted the popularity of the other.
Conclusion
Our data findings prove that it's difficult to produce one clear answer to our research question. It is without a doubt that Anime and Anime songs are correlated, but one's popularity can't solely be explained by the other, and a lot of external factors (such as the marketing for the Anime, the notability of the music artist, the order in which the Anime and it's music were released and the circumstances of its release, etc.) also have to be taken into account. We can thus conclude that our own research currently doesn't suffice, and that further research on this topic is necessary to provide clearer answers and better understand the link between Anime and Anime songs.
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