ANiUTa, a flat-rate all-you-can-listen-to-anime-song service, enters the U.S. market! The service starts at $4.99/month.

ANiUTa," a flat-rate all-you-can-listen-to-anime-song service, launched its service in the U.S. on August 1, 2012.

ANiUTa" is Japan's first flat-rate music distribution service that offers unlimited access to over 50,000 songs, including the latest anime songs, 2.5D musicals, and games, for 600 yen per month (tax not included). The service was established by 10 major companies with anime song labels, and currently more than 30 labels are participating.

As part of its long-announced overseas expansion, the service has finally been launched in the United States. For a monthly fee of $4.99, more than 10,000 songs will be available, including Shinkage no Kyojin Season 3, Violet Evergarden, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and Takagi the Teasing Teacher. The application is available for Android/iOS and allows title search, lyrics display, playlist creation (up to 1,000 songs), and high quality playback (320 kbps).

According to a report from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the U.S. music market in 2017 was $8.7 billion, up 16.5% year over year in retail market size. Driving this growth are streaming services such as Spotify and Amazon, which account for 2/3 of sales. In the U.S., where streaming services are at their peak, ANiUTa is probably the only music distribution service that specializes in Japanese anime songs. It will be interesting to see what kind of rapid progress they will make.