Since the Covid-19 pandemic, music from Japanese animations is booming on Spotify and at gigs and club nights – especially among young people, who are drawn to its bold hooks and big emotions.

Around 20,000 rapturous fans have packed out London's O2 Arena on a summer night. Pulsing light sticks pierce the electrified air; on the stage, the enigmatic J-pop diva Ado (who performs in shadowy silhouette) launches into a song that the entire crowd knows: Kura Kura, taken from the Japanese animation series Spy x Family. The track is stylistically unpredictable yet immediately catchy: it ricochets between a 1960s-style pop groove, jazzy riffs and hyper-dramatic rock opera – a modern example of an anime music anthem, in a scene that is increasingly taking on a life of its own.

Japanese animation, or anime, has a legacy that stretches back to the early 20th Century, and a creative scope that spans seemingly endless stories and styles, from pirate sagas to sci-fi warfare; sorcery to sports action; martial arts mythology to star-crossed romance. The music used to soundtrack it is similarly adventurous. Songs vary significantly in their genres and tempos (often shape-shifting within a single track), but they also share common qualities: they elevate the visual action and deeply seal our bond with it. In the digital age, vividly evocative, insistently snappy themes are key to the viral impact of iconic Japanese animated series/films/manga comic adaptations – One Piece, Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, Dragon Ball Z, Cowboy Bebop, Attack On Titan and Naruto, to name a few. "Anisongs", as they are known, are now a major musical force, particularly among younger people.

According to a recent study by anime streaming platform Crunchyroll and the National Research Group, anime is almost as big as Beyoncé with Gen Z-ers, with 54% of them globally being anime fans. Meanwhile Spotify reported a 395% increase in global streams of anime music between 2021 and 2024, as well as 7.2 million user-generated anime playlists on its site (at the time of writing). A Spotify spokesperson also tells the BBC that users under the age of 29 account for nearly 70% of global anime music consumption.

"Anime music has evolved into a global cultural force and Gen Z is really at the heart of that movement on Spotify," Sulinna Ong, Spotify's Global Head of Editorial, tells the BBC. "We're seeing fans connect with the music beyond the screen as the shows offer listeners a window into musical styles they may not otherwise have discovered. Our editors' curated playlists are built to help fans discover the full range of anime-inspired sounds. And as more artists take influence from the space, the sound is continuing to grow in bold and unexpected ways."

This global boom isn't limited to 21st-Century releases; as it's now easy to tune into anime's expansive catalogue, decades-old anthems – like the original rousing theme to pirate fantasy One Piece, called We Are! and sung by Hiroshi Kitadani – are winning new devotees. Anime music's hooks are composed for enduring effect; the melodies and lyrics (easily translated online, or released in multilingual versions) typically spark a tantalising headrush of sensations: affinity with favourite characters or narratives; adrenaline;........

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