CD culture in Japan is a unique phenomenon, driven by domestic superfandom (oshi-katsu), the bundling of perks like in-person meet-and-greets, and elaborate obi strip-adorned packaging that can turn releases into valuable collectables. Even in 2026, CDs and other physical formats still account for the majority of music sales in the world’s second-biggest music market (second only to the US), with physical music production totalling an extraordinary ¥52.8 billion ($330 million USD) in Q1 2026 alone, according to the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ). 

“It's a collector’s item, you can't replace it with something else—it's merchandise that will last forever,” offers Erika Ogawa-Arai, managing director of Believe Japan (launched in 2023), the Japanese branch of the industry-leading Paris-based digital music company that distributes and markets independent music globally. Yes, the physical still carries weight, and the CD reigns supreme in this country of around 122.5 million people. But, as Ogawa-Arai points out, the past three years have seen the streaming revolution continue to gather pace. The RIAJ Yearbook 2025 noted a “record high” for digital music sales, logging growth for the 11th consecutive year and amassing ¥123.3 billion; a 6% increase from the previous year. “ … The younger generations listen to streaming; they don't have a device to listen to CDs, so it's the natural organic transition that the market is asking the industry to change,” confirms Ogawa-Arai. And the artists powering those statistics are increasingly looking beyond Japan’s borders. 

J-pop Artists Achieve Superstar Status

In terms of music consumption, Japan’s music industry has long maintained a typically strong, self-sufficient domestic market—2023 data from Believe reported a roughly 90% domestic versus 10% international split on physical sales. But as streaming continues to gain more ground, an increasing number of Japanese artists are reaping larger international fanbases. Last year, Spotify—which launched in Japan back in 2016, significantly later than in many European countries—highlighted that nearly 50% of royalties from Japanese artists were earned outside Japan in 2024. On Chartmetric, the representation of Japanese artists among global superstars (top ~2.5k artists) tripled from 2024 to 2025.

Mrs. Green Apple, who are currently at the Superstar stage of their career and rank in the Top 150 among all artists globally on Chartmetric, experienced a breakthrough around the release of their 2023 ANTENNA album, which continues to experience an upward trajectory on Spotify. Meanwhile, their 2024 single “ライラック” (“Lilac") generated the highest copyright royalties in Japan in 2025, earning the Gold Award from the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC). A snapshot of Mrs. Green Apple’s June 2026 audience demographics on Chartmetric shows the US as their fourth-biggest audience share (at 2.31%), although Japan still holds the majority. As well as tallying around 7.41 million monthly listeners on Spotify (for comparison, Paramore—who have been around since 2004—count around 34.2 million equivalent monthly listeners), over on YouTube, Mrs. Green Apple’s international viewers take 32.6% share of the pie, with one million viewers from the US and Indonesia coming in second at 2.6 million—numbers that reflect a growing international fanbase.

Japanese Artists on the International Stage 

What’s interesting about Mrs. Green’s Apple’s international uptick is that it’s all playing out online—they have yet to play any live performances outside of Asia, and still their non-Japanese audience is already there. Meanwhile, Kenshi Yonezu—whose megahit “Iris Out” has a Chartmetric score of 98.2 and appears on 38 of Spotify’s editorial playlists—is a clear example of a Japanese artist who has broken out onto the global stage, selling out New York’s Radio City Hall and London’s Eventim Apollo last year. He is currently classed as a Superstar by Chartmetric (a tier occupied by fewer than 1% of artists on the platform). However, for Yonezu, the streaming figures match up too. An analysis of Yonezu’s Spotify data using Chartmetric shows his monthly listeners sat around 3.5 million in mid-2021 before almost doubling in the fall of 2022, no doubt driven by his score for award-nominated 2025 Japanese animated film Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc. His listeners spiked again in late 2025 to 10.8 million, coinciding with the arrival of his aforementioned world tour. Even more tellingly, looking at his audience data, you can see that while Japan still dominates at 60% of his overall audience, 40% of his audience is now international, which also mirrors Spotify’s report about royalties being earned outside of Japan.

Other Japanese artists who have been growing their international profile are YOASOBI, currently at the Superstar stage of their career and who hit the jackpot in 2023 with “Idol”, the opening theme song for the first season of the popular anime series Oshi no Ko. In 2023, they performed in the US for the first time, at Head in the Clouds in LA, and then in 2024 returned to play Coachella. In June 2025, they became the first Japanese artist to perform on the main stage at Primavera Sound Barcelona. Their Chartmetric audience statistics reflect their growing international popularity, where only under 35% of their audience share can be attributed to Japan, meaning 65% of their audience is now outside of Japan; their top two international markets are the US (9.6%) and Indonesia (9.4%). 

The Anime Connection

Mrs. Green Apple's “Lilac”, YOASOBI's Oshi no Ko theme, Kenshi Yonezu's Chainsaw Man tie-in—it's arguably no coincidence that the Japanese artists resonating with international markets are the ones soundtracking anime, a billion-dollar global industry valued at USD 35.2 billion in 2025. “I think anime has played a big role recently,” reflect CHAMELEON LIME WHOOPIE (CLWP), a solo unit founded by Chi-, which also includes two other members: Whoopies No.1 and Whoopies No.2. Since releasing their first single in 2019, CLWP—who are at the Developing stage of their career with a solid social media footprint—have been making their own moves outside of Japan, playing at SXSW in 2023, and offer their thoughts on the world’s ever-growing love affair with Japanese pop. 

“Japan is an island nation, so it has developed a very unique culture and atmosphere, while also being surprisingly free and open-minded in some ways. I find that really interesting, and maybe that uniqueness is part of why Japanese pop music is being embraced around the world,” they say. They suggest that there’s a “distinctly Japanese melodic sensibility” imbued in J-pop, which not only gives it its unique character but may also be why it connects so well with the mainstream audience in Japan. “Japanese music has its own characteristic melodies and rhythms, so rather than focusing purely on groove, it often moves people emotionally through the lyrics,” they told Chartmetric over email.

Nowhere is that cultural distinctiveness more palpable than in anime, and the theme music that is integral to it. Western popstars like self-described anime fan the Weeknd—who last month presented the Crunchyroll Anime Awards in Tokyo and commented that his career-defining 2011 mixtape House of Balloons “simply wouldn't exist” without the Japanese cultural phenomenon—and Billie Eilish, whose 2020 track “my future" (2020) was inspired by Studio Ghibli, are introducing the Japanese art form to new audiences. And the relationship works both ways: British artist YUNGBLUD was hired to perform the opening theme "Abyss" for 2024 anime Kaiju No. 8 while US group OneRepublic performed the ending theme "Nobody". The fact that Western artists are now being commissioned to write for anime, rather than simply drawing inspiration from it, is proof of the wider music industry recognizing the global pull of J-pop and shows the extent to which the worlds are merging. However, for many Japanese artists, there is quite often no grand cross-cultural ambition behind the expansion of their global reach.

Japanese Pop Qualities Go Global

CLWP say people from outside of Japan have been listening to their music since they first emerged in the late 2010s, and that they believe their international audience is growing. However, at the same time they’re not considering their profile in such calculated international terms. “We don’t consciously think about a global audience when creating music. But because the three of us are Japanese and make everything ourselves, I think a natural sense of “Japaneseness” comes through in the music anyway … What we often hear is that our music mixes lots of different elements together in a chaotic way, and that this blend feels both “Japanese” and uniquely like CHAMELEON LIME WHOOPIEPIE.” The live data also reflects this growing international presence. According to Chartmetric's tracked concert and festival listings, Japanese artists headlined 1,488 performances outside Japan in 2025, up from 1,072 in 2019 (+39%), while the number of artists touring internationally grew from 340 to 380 (+12%). Although these figures are limited to venues and festivals tracked by Chartmetric rather than the entire global live market, they nonetheless indicate a steady expansion of Japanese artists' overseas footprint.

The World Is Listening

Although many of today’s biggest J-pop artists weave English phrases into their lyrics, similar to the K-pop approach, they largely sing in Japanese—and it isn’t holding them back. YOASOBI’s "Idol" became a massive international streaming hit in Japanese, as did Kenshi Yonezu's Chainsaw Man theme similarly. CLWP also sing in Japanese, and feel no pressure to concede to English-language accessibility. “Just like I can enjoy and dance to Western music without fully understanding the lyrics, I believe Japanese lyrics can make people dance too. If English helps create the right groove, we’ll use it—but the same goes for Japanese. Groove is always the most important thing for us,” they note.

J-pop may be distinctly Japanese in many ways, but its mixed-genre sounds are ripe for international travel. However, even the most resolutely Japanese music needs international online infrastructure to reach global ears. Ogawa-Arai doesn’t foresee any huge decline in physical media happening any time soon, but says that Japan’s digital music landscape is catching up. In recent years, labels have begun to think more digitally, with many physical-only Japanese releases being gradually added to streaming platforms for the first time. "There are so many treasures, so many precious songs that are unheard, which will be new songs and releases to this market. It's really my passion job that I want to get this out into the world."

If the past few years are anything to go by, the world is ready to listen to these treasures. J-pop isn’t going global by trying to become something else. It’s going global by staying exactly what it is.