10 Popular Anime Openings of 2025
For many listeners around the world, anime is often the first doorway into the diverse world of J-Pop. Below, I highlight 10 of the year’s popular anime songs, drawing on publicly available data from Spotify and YouTube Music.
Check out the 2024 year‑end and 2025 mid-year collections!
Disclaimer: “Popular” is a subjective term, and publicly available streaming data captures only part of the overall picture. Many factors, including an artist or anime’s existing popularity, influence why certain tracks perform better than others. The songs discussed here are not ranked intentionally, and I explain more about the selection process at the end of the article.
IRIS OUT – From Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc
Artist: Kenshi Yonezu
Film Release: September (Japan & Asia) October 2025 (Worldwide)
If 2024 was the year of Creepy Nuts in anime, then 2025 has been the year of Kenshi Yonezu. You’ll see a lot of him in this article, as he’s released multiple anime tracks that became major hits this year.
I don’t typically include movies in these articles, in part because they’re typically not classified as anime “openings.” But I don’t think anyone would have issues with this one. To begin with, this track was featured at the opening of the movie, accompanied by its own fully animated sequence. And two, because its streaming numbers have dominated 2025, despite its release much later in the year. I’ve written more this track in my newsletter post here.
Like many of the global hit tracks coming out of the J-pop space, there was an instinctive feeling that this was going to be a really big one upon first listen. But candidly, since movie tracks tend to be less popular internationally than their TV counterparts, I still underestimated just how globally successful “IRIS OUT” would become, which has continued to chart on the Billboard Global 500 as the year comes to a close.
Kaiju – From Orb: On the Movements of the Earth
Artist: sakanaction
Japanese title: 怪獣
Season: Fall 2024, Winter 2025
As Sakanaction’s first release in three years, “Kaiju” quickly became the most-streamed songs on its digital release day on Spotify Japan (a record surpassed by the track above). Yet, the numbers feel secondary to the story behind it. “Kaiju” resonates far more deeply once you understand what it represents for vocalist Ichiro Yamaguchi.
Yamaguchi has shared that the song marked the beginning of a new musical chapter for him: learning how to create while coexisting with depression. During this period, he immersed himself in the anime’s historical setting and even in astrophysics, weaving those ideas into the music while managing his condition.
The track took two full years to complete and was released just two days before the band began their tour. Even when it aired as the theme for the first cour of 2024, the song itself was not yet fully finished. Yet, that long, arduous process ultimately shaped one of the biggest anime songs of the year.
On The Way – From Dandadan
Artist: AiNA THE END
Japanese title: 革命道中
Season: Summer 2025
In the past couple of years, we’ve seen many moments when long stretches of work finally meet the right conditions for global fame. And in this year of J-pop, AiNA THE END feels like one of the strongest cases.
After nearly a decade of steady dedication, shaped by her days in BiSH, she’s arrived at a moment where the world is beginning to catch up. I wrote more about her journey on the way to global stardom below.
The international success of Dandadan helped make this moment a reality. The song topped Billboard JAPAN’s Global Songs Excl. Japan chart and introduced AiNA to listeners far beyond Japan. She made her European debut at Manga Barcelona, and with her first international music release,in the new year, it’ll be exciting to see how far she’ll continue to go.
KUSUSHIKI – From The Apothecary Diaries
Artist: Mrs. GREEN APPLE
Japanese title: クスシキ
Season: Spring 2025
Though their international presence has been considerably smaller compared to the other names on this list thus far, anyone in Japan (or who’s keeping an eye on the country’s music charts) knows that Mrs. GREEN APPLE still remains the country’s most popular group – and they’ll be starting Phase 3 of their journey in the new year.
Last year’s anime opening, “Lilac,” for Oblivion Battery, has continued to be a hit in Japan. And as their chart dominance shows, it’s no surprise that their opening for the hit series The Apothecary Diaries is featured in this list.
Written around the theme of “love that transcends this life and remains unchanged, even into the next,” the song’s title is inspired by the etymology of the Japanese word for medicine, kusuri (薬), which traces back to kusushi (奇し).
ReawakeR (feat. Felix of Stray Kids) – From Solo Leveling
Artist: LiSA, Felix of Stray Kids
Season: Winter 2025
If “Kusushiki” shows Mrs. GREEN APPLE’s pull within Japan, Reawaker moves in the opposite direction. Like the anime adaptation Solo Leveling itself, the song connected more strongly with listeners overseas.
Part of its global success comes down to the powerhouse trio behind it. When LiSA was selected to perform the opening theme for season two of Solo Leveling, she reached out to collaborators she had worked closely with before. One was composer Hiroyuki Sawano, whom she has worked with through his [nZk] project. She’s said she was drawn to his season one opening, “LEveL,” with TXT.
She also reconnected with Stray Kids’ team, following her great experience working with them on “Social Path” in 2023; this ultimately led to Felix joining the track.
In an official comment, LiSA described “ReawakeR (feat. Felix of Stray Kids)” as expressing “the determination of carving out destiny given to those who have been reborn.”
Plazma – From Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX
Artist: Kenshi Yonezu
Season: Spring 2025
As promised, all three of Kenshi Yonezu’s anime openings appear on this list. While “IRIS OUT” ultimately became the year’s breakout, “Plazma,” written for the Gundam series, was also a clear commercial success.
“When creating this song, I placed at its core the imagination of possibilities that might have existed and options that were not chosen. Though he’s content with his current life, the process brought him back to paths he didn’t take, including his early ambition to become a manga artist.
Still, “Plazma” doesn’t linger there. As Yonezu put it, it looks back at what wasn’t chosen while continuing to move forward regardless.
BOW AND ARROW – From Medalist
Artist: Kenshi Yonezu
Season: Winter 2025
By this point, it’s hard to miss just how busy Kenshi Yonezu has been. In a television interview, he shared that over the past two years, he’s written more than twenty songs, many of them for his 2024 album LOST CORNER.
Even so, when he learned that Medalist would be receiving an anime adaptation, he reached out directly to the production team, asking if he could write a song for the series.
Positioned as a thematic extension of his My Hero Academia opening “Peace Sign,” the shift in perspective is deliberate. Where “Peace Sign” centers on heroes pushing forward, “BOW AND ARROW,” in Yonezu’s words, is written “from the perspective of those who support them and push them forward.”
In Bloom – From The Apothecary Diaries
Artist: Lilas (Lilas Ikuta)
Japanese title: 百花繚乱
Season: Winter 2025
Known globally as ikura from YOASOBI, Lilas (also known as Lilas Ikuta) also had a defining year as a solo artist. She released her album, Laugh, and to close out 2025, she entered a wider spotlight with “DUET,” her collaboration song with K-pop hitmaker ZICO.
In Japan, her song “Koi Kaze,” written as the theme for a popular Japanese dating reality show, became a breakout hit and her fastest track to surpass 100 million streams. But internationally, it was her anime work continued to draw attention. “In Bloom” (also released as “Hyakka Ryouran”) served as the first opening for season two of The Apothecary Diaries, and became one of the Lilas’ most-streamed tracks.
While she’s already appeared on global stages with YOASOBI, next year marks a new step: Lilas will embark on her first solo tour, including her first international stop in Korea.
Kekka Orai – My Hero Academia: Vigilantes
Artist: Kocchi no Kento
Japanese title: けっかおーらい
Season: Spring 2025
Kocchi no Kento broke out virally last year with “Hai Yorokonde.” This year, he returns with another catchy track tied to My Hero Academia: Vigilantes.
“Kekka Orai” became both the series’ first opening theme and Kento’s first anime opening, who also shared that he had long been a fan of the original work.
When he tried to distill the character’s journey into the song, he realized it closely mirrored his own experiences throughout 2024, and the wins and losses that had led him to this point. In the end, he felt that things turned out “all right in the end,” a phrase that gave the song its Japanese title.
Mirage – From Call of The Night
Artist: Creepy Nuts
Season: Summer 2025
Creepy Nuts is no stranger to hits, but this release still caught much of the online community by surprise. Drawing from Afrobeats, drill, and Latin influences, the track became their third anime song for a series named after one of their own songs.
The duo shared that after pouring everything into their major album earlier in February, they were left feeling empty. From there, R-Shitei began exploring a wide range of genres until the melody for “Mirage” took shape.
“Mirage” stood out to me for another reason: it’s the only track on this list, where I noticed Spotify outpacing YouTube streams (around 34 million compared to 24 million). This suggests a stronger overseas listenership.
With a Coachella set on the books for next year, the song feels like a strong signal of where Creepy Nuts’ global reach continues to head next.
Curating this collection
Here is a breakdown of the process I used to create this collection. Feedback is always welcome!
Initial review: I reviewed 2025’s weekly rankings for the following music charts: Billboard JAPAN (Japan Hot 100, Hot Animation, Global Japan Songs Excl. Japan, Heatseekers), Spotify (Anime Hits, Top 50 – Japan), Apple Music (Top 100: Japan)
Selection Criteria: I pulled streaming data from Spotify and YouTube Music, starting from each anime opening’s release through December 29, 2025.
Two metrics were used:
- Total Streams: Combined play counts from both platforms.
- Daily Average Streams: Total streams divided by the number of days since digital release.
Songs were ranked equally on both metrics to balance long-term and recent popularity, and 10 songs were selected for this list. (Still, I did notice this year’s list became rather frontloaded, so I may consider changing some parts of the process in the future.)
Check out the 2024 year end list, and other anime song lists on utatune.
