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Every year, new anime hit our screens and, with them, a host of fresh anime opening songs to wiggle their way into our ears and our hearts. Creating an iconic anime opening song can help catapult a group to new areas of success, to the point where anime is now seen as a driver of the US’ growing love of J-pop.

A study published by Luminate shows the increasing appetite for Asian music in the US. The largest winner here is K-pop, thanks to mega groups like BTS and Blackpink, as well as movies like KPop Demon Hunters, which gave many new fans their first taste of Korean music. Part of this, according to the study, is because K-pop is often produced to export the music to other nations. This isn’t the case for J-pop, which has a large enough domestic market that it doesn't have to focus on foreign markets.

This changes when an artist becomes attached to a popular anime. The study uses Ado, an anonymous Japanese pop star who has become one of the country’s biggest international stars, as an example. In 2022, her song, New Genesis, was used as the theme song for One Piece Film: Red. In 2023, her song Kura Kura was the opening song for Spy x Family season 2 opening theme. Both have resulted in huge spikes in streams and downloads of Ado’s music, which, in turn, led to her being the most-streamed Japanese artist in the US in 2025.

Another example of this would be J-pop artist LISA, who has contributed opening songs for anime like Sword Art Online and Demon Slayer. In 2026, she is embarking on her first European tour off the back of this increased exposure.

The grip that anime has gained on pop culture can’t be overstated or ignored, and it looks like an unexpected benefit is that we’re all getting to know the incredible Japanese music scene at the same time. 

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

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