Anify: music, idol and stage anime, and where to watch them

The Anify design

The design is measured from the archived anify.cc home page, captured in February 2025. That site was built on a popular Blogger theme known to anime fans for its clean, dark layout, and much of its content was loaded by scripts, so the archive keeps the style sheets rather than every poster. The colours come straight from those rules. The page is a deep charcoal, #1C1C1C, and the panels that hold cards, sidebars and help boxes are a shade lighter, #202020. The search bar is darker still, #141414, framed by a thin #3A3A3A border that also draws the rules under each section heading.

The accent is a calm steel blue, #95B6D0. It colours the section headings, the tabs, the links and the Watch now buttons. A lighter blue, #B1C9DD, is kept for titles in the slider and the sidebar, and a medium blue, #79A3C3, lights up buttons when you point at them. The small chips on each card are two greys, #494949 and #343434, and quieter text such as rank numbers and years uses #868686.

The original used Lexend Deca, a friendly, open font designed to make reading easier, and Anify keeps it for every word on the page. The original logo was simply the site name in white, so the Anify wordmark is set in white Lexend Deca, followed by a small steel-blue dot and a pair of eighth notes that point to the new musical focus. The favicon shows the same notes on a charcoal tile.

The header and the slider

The header stays at the top of the screen as you scroll. On the left sits the wordmark, and beside it a long search bar with a small grey Filter button that opens the A to Z index, just as the original's Filtro button opened its filter page. On wide screens the site-wide links follow: Home, Series, Films, Idols, Browse and About. On the right, an account icon opens My List. On phones and tablets the links and search fold into a menu button.

The body of the home page has two columns. On the left, the slider presents five featured titles: ZOMBIE LAND SAGA, BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!!, Those Snow White Notes, Love Live! The School Idol Movie and Vivo. Each slide shows the poster on the left and the story on the right, over a softly blurred version of the title's artwork, just as on the original. The title appears in light blue, followed by the type, the year and the score, three lines of the story and two buttons: a steel-blue Watch now and a grey Details. Two small square arrows in the corner move between the slides, and on a phone you can swipe.

Under the slider, a short heading block introduces the site with the main heading of the page, a line of well-known titles and two buttons for the idol and band shelves.

The Update grid, the sidebar and the footer

Next comes the Update section. Its heading is steel blue with a thin grey rule beneath it, and on the right sit three tabs, All, Series and Films, styled like the original's tabs for every title, dubbed titles and subtitled titles. Below them runs a grid of cards, six to a row on a computer, four on a tablet and two on a phone. Each card shows the poster, fading gently into the grey panel at the bottom. Over the fade sit two small chips, one with the number of episodes, marked EP, and one with the number of seasons, or a single chip reading Film for a film, and the year sits on the right in grey. The title follows in plain white text. A small dark score badge sits in the top corner of the poster.

After the Update grid come themed sections for idol groups, boy groups, bands, classical and traditional music, stage and comedy, world music films and the top-rated titles, each with a View all tab that opens the full shelf.

The right-hand sidebar holds two panels. The first, Popular, has three tabs, Series, Films and Top, echoing the original's weekly, monthly and all-time tabs, and a ranked list of the ten most popular titles, each with a small poster, a grey rank number, the title in light blue and the type and year. The second panel, New, lists the newest titles in the guide. At the bottom of the page, a grid of help cards leads to each guide, followed by this article and a plain footer with the copyright on the left, the links on the right and a short note centred beneath.

Idol groups

The idol is one of the great institutions of Japanese pop culture: a young performer who sings, dances, hosts television shows and meets fans, and who is loved as much for hard work and sincerity as for talent. Idol anime turns that world into stories about friendship, practice and the thrill of the stage. The Idol groups shelf gathers more than forty titles, and the idol guide suggests where to begin.

The Love Live! franchise is built on school idols, students who form groups to save or promote their schools. Love Live! The School Idol Movie brings the story of μ's to a bittersweet close with a trip to New York, and Love Live! Sunshine!! The School Idol Movie: Over the Rainbow follows Aqours after their victory. LoveLive! Superstar!! starts again at a brand-new school between Harajuku and Aoyama, where a girl who once froze on stage finds her voice. Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club tries a fresh idea: each member of the club performs as a solo idol, and its story continues in Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club: Next Sky and the Final Chapter films.

THE iDOLM@STER, first a video game about producing idols, has grown into a huge family of series. THE iDOLM@STER follows thirteen girls at the small 765 Production agency, THE iDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls moves to the grand 346 Production, THE IDOLM@STER CINDERELLA GIRLS U149 follows its youngest members, all twelve or under, and THE iDOLM@STER SHINY COLORS and The iDOLM@STER Million Live! introduce new units. The THE iDOLM@STER Side M series brings the same care to a group of male idols who used to have other careers.

Some idol stories take a darker or stranger turn. ZOMBIE LAND SAGA brings seven girls from different eras of Japanese history back from the dead to form an idol group that promotes Saga prefecture, and it is by turns hilarious and deeply moving; Zombie Land Saga: Yumeginga Paradise continues their adventures. Superb Song of the Valkyries: Symphogear turns songs into weapons, as idol singers fight alien monsters in armour powered by music. AKB0048 imagines a future where entertainment is banned and an idol group performs as a band of outlaws. Idoly Pride follows a group formed in memory of a young idol who died, and Tokyo 7th Sisters looks back at a legendary unit that suddenly vanished.

The shelf also covers the business side of idol life. If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die is a warm comedy about a devoted fan of an underground group, Wake Up, Girls! follows a tiny agency in Sendai, 22/7 recruits girls chosen by a mysterious letter, SHINEPOST follows a struggling group and their unusual manager, and Trapezium follows a high school girl who plans her path to idol stardom with remarkable determination. Selection Project, Phantom of the Idol, Lapis Re:LiGHTs, Re:Stage! Dream Days♪, Million Doll, Idolls! and Healer Girl round out the modern idol scene.

The older titles are a joy for anyone curious about the history of the genre. Magical Idol Pastel Yumi and Legendary Idol Eriko come from the late 1980s, when idol singers ruled Japanese television, and Idol Angel Yokoso Yoko follows a country girl who moves to Shibuya. Kirarin Revolution, a long-running series from 2006, follows a schoolgirl who becomes an idol to get close to a boy she admires, and Full Moon is the moving story of a girl with a serious illness who is given the chance to sing on stage in the body of a sixteen-year-old.

Boy groups and stage troupes

Male idol groups have their own devoted following, and the Boy groups shelf gathers close to thirty series and films about them. The Prince-sama series is the classic: a young composer enrols at a performing arts academy and writes songs for a group of would-be stars, who become the unit ST☆RISH. Its concert film Utano Princesama Maji LOVE Kingdom turns the series into a full stage show, with three units sharing one spectacular night.

IDOLiSH7 is admired for its storytelling, following seven young men who debut under an agency owned by the heroine's father, with rivals and setbacks that feel real; IDOLiSH7 Movie: LIVE 4bit - BEYOND THE PERiOD brings four groups together in one concert. Ensemble Stars! is set at an academy for male idols, B-PROJECT follows a recording-company newcomer assigned to a big group, TsukiPro the Animation follows four units at one agency and Starmyu follows a boy who dreams of joining the musical theatre course at his school.

Several series add a twist. Eternal Boys is about a group of men in their thirties and forties who get a second chance at idol stardom. KING OF PRISM -Shiny Seven Stars- and its films put the idols on ice skates, performing spectacular jumps that burst into dazzling visions. Paradox Live THE ANIMATION is a hip-hop battle series, ARP Backstage Pass follows a group created with augmented reality, and UniteUp! follows a boy who loves to sing and is scouted by a new agency. Bakumatsu Rock and Shine On! Bakumatsu Bad Boys! take famous historical figures of the 1860s and put them on stage, and Magic-Kyun! Renaissance imagines a school where art is a kind of magic.

Other series follow singing in less glamorous forms. Shounen Hollywood is set in a small Harajuku theatre where a new group of boys learns the craft. DYNAMIC CHORD, I★Chu: Halfway Through the Idol and Visual Prison complete the shelf.

Bands and DJs

For many fans, the sound of a live band is the best sound in the world. The Bands shelf gathers close to forty titles about guitars, drums, basslines and DJ decks, and the band guide suggests where to begin.

BanG Dream! is the biggest band franchise here. BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!! follows a transfer student who decides that the best way to fit in at her new school is to start a band, only to find herself caught between old friends and broken promises. Its companion, Ave Mujica - The Die Is Cast -, follows a former bandmate who builds a dramatic masked band after losing everything in one night. The films, such as BanG Dream! Episode of Roselia I: Promise, BanG Dream! Poppin'Dream! and BanG Dream! FILM LIVE, bring the franchise's many bands to the big screen, and the short GANSO! BanG Dream Chan and BanG Dream! Girls Band Party!☆PICO are light, silly treats.

Rock Is a Lady's Modesty is one of the most fun band series of recent years: a girl who gave up the guitar when her mother married into wealth meets a proper young lady who secretly plays drums, and the two unleash their love of hard rock in secret after school. Show by Rock!! sends a girl into a colourful game world where bands fight monsters with music, and Ya Boy Kongming! Road to Summer Sonia continues the tale of an ancient Chinese strategist who becomes a singer's manager in modern Tokyo. The two given the Movie: To the Sea and given the Movie: Hiiragi Mix films follow a young band finding its voice after grief.

The DJ booth has its own stars. D4DJ follows a girl who returns to Japan and discovers the joy of DJing with friends, W'z follows a young house-music DJ drawn into a strange conflict, and Tonkatsu DJ Agetarō is a quirky comedy about a boy from a pork-cutlet restaurant who discovers that DJing and frying have a lot in common. A Few Moments of Cheers is a sweet film about a boy who makes music videos and the singer whose voice stops him in his tracks.

The classic era of Japanese rock is here too. TO-Y follows an alternative band whose singer is offered a pop contract, and Ziggy: Soreyuke! R&R Band sends the real rock band Ziggy to London. Macross Dynamite 7 follows the singer Basara of Fire Bomber on a solo journey, and Chage & Aska: On Your Mark is Hayao Miyazaki's wordless music video for a Japanese pop duo, a short film about two police officers who rescue a winged girl.

Aikatsu!, PriPara and the kids' idol stage

For younger fans, idol anime is often tied to arcade card games, where children collect outfits on cards and watch their characters perform. Aikatsu!, PriPara and Pretty Rhythm grew out of that world, and the Aikatsu! and PriPara shelf gathers their series and films.

Aikatsu! follows girls at idol academies who learn to sing, dance and design their own stage outfits. Aikatsu! The Movie follows Ichigo as she aims to become the top idol, Aikatsu Stars! The Movie takes the students of Four Star Academy to a southern island, and Aikatsu! 10th Story: Starway to the Future reunites Ichigo and Akari for the franchise's tenth anniversary. Aikatsu on Parade! brings generations of characters together, and Aikatsu Planet! lets its heroines perform as avatars in a virtual world.

PriPara takes place in a magical theme park where girls transform into idols with a special ticket, and its films, such as PriPara: Everyone Shine! Sparkling☆Star Live, send the characters on tours around the solar system. Waccha Primagi! is the next chapter of the same family. Pretty Rhythm: Aurora Dream puts its idols on ice skates, performing on a popular ice show, and the KING OF PRISM series described above grew out of it. Pretty Cure All Stars DX the Dance Live♥: Miracle Dance Stage e Youkoso is a short 3D dance show starring the Pretty Cure heroines.

Classical and traditional music

Music anime reaches far beyond pop. The Classical and traditional shelf gathers orchestras, pianos, a cappella groups, shamisen players and ballet, and the classical guide suggests where to begin.

Gauche the Cellist is a treasure from 1982, directed by Isao Takahata and based on a story by the poet Kenji Miyazawa. Gauche is the weakest player in a small-town orchestra preparing Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, and every night an animal from the forest knocks on his door and asks him to play, teaching him something new each time. The film is gentle, funny and beautifully drawn, and the music is at its heart. Swan Lake, from Toei Animation in 1981, tells Tchaikovsky's ballet story with the full score.

Those Snow White Notes follows Setsu, a young shamisen player from Aomori who leaves for Tokyo after the death of his grandfather, a legendary player, in search of his own sound. Its concert scenes, performed on the powerful Tsugaru shamisen, are some of the most exciting music scenes in recent anime. Piano: The Melody of a Young Girl's Heart is a quiet series about a shy fourteen-year-old pianist, and La Corda d'Oro: Primo Passo follows a girl who is given a magic violin and enters a school music competition.

Some titles bring classical music into the present with a smile. ClassicaLoid follows two teenagers whose house fills up with living versions of Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and other composers, whose musical powers can turn a town upside down. Classic★Stars imagines famous composers as students at a glittering academy. Harmony of Mille-Feuille follows an eccentric a cappella club, and Let's Go Karaoke! is a comic short series about a school choir leader who is persuaded to give singing lessons to a tone-deaf gangster.

Stage, comedy and voice

Music is only one of the performing arts. The Stage and comedy shelf gathers stories about actors, storytellers, comedians, dancers and voice actors, and the stage guide picks a few to start with.

Glass Mask is one of the great stage stories. Maya, a shy girl from a poor family, is discovered by a legendary actress who sees in her a rare, fierce talent, and the two set out to win the right to play a famous role. The 1984 series captures the drama of rehearsals, auditions and rivalries with real intensity. A3! follows a young woman who inherits a struggling theatre company and rebuilds its four troupes, one for each season, and Starmyu follows students who dream of joining a school's musical theatre course.

Rakugo is a traditional Japanese art in which a single storyteller, kneeling on a cushion with only a fan and a small cloth, performs every character in a comic or moving tale. Akane-banashi follows a high school girl who sets out to become a master of rakugo after seeing her father's career ended at a crucial exam, and it shows how much skill lies behind each performance. Another series on the shelf follows a tanuki girl in the early twentieth century who studies rakugo with a stylish fox teacher. Manzai, the Japanese comedy double act, is at the centre of Teppen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Laughing 'til You Cry, a lively series about a comedy fan who finds herself competing against professional-level students.

Voice and radio have their own stories. Seiyu's Life! follows three rookie voice actresses learning the trade, Wave, Listen to Me! follows a young woman in Sapporo whose late-night rant on the phone ends up on the radio and launches an unexpected career, and Gekidol follows a theatre troupe that uses holographic technology after a mysterious disaster. Toei's Nadja series is a colourful adventure about an orphan girl who joins a travelling troupe of dancers and performers in early twentieth-century Europe, and Muteking the Dancing Hero reimagines a 1980s superhero as a disco-dancing hero in a stylish seaside city.

A few lighter titles round out the shelf. Nerima Daikon Brothers is a wild musical comedy about a struggling trio who break into song at every turn, Kakushigoto Theatrical Edition follows a manga artist who hides his job from his beloved daughter, and Tamayura: Graduation Photo Part 4 - Ashita closes a gentle series about a girl who loves photography.

Music films from around the world

The original Anify served viewers in Brazil and Portugal, where animated musicals from every country are family favourites, and the new Anify keeps a shelf for them. The World music films shelf gathers close to thirty animated music films from the United States, Britain, Ireland, China, Poland and beyond, and the world music guide picks a few favourites.

Vivo follows a music-loving kinkajou in Havana who sets out on a journey to Miami to deliver a love song that his old partner wrote decades before, with songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Strange Magic sets a fairy tale about a love potion to classic pop and rock songs, and Rock Dog follows a Tibetan mastiff who leaves his mountain village to become a rock musician, with Rock Dog 2: Rock Around the Park taking his band on tour. UglyDolls celebrates being different with bright songs, Piece by Piece tells the life of the musician and producer Pharrell Williams in the style of a toy-brick animation, and Riverdance: The Animated Adventure turns Irish dance into a magical quest.

The classic era of the animated musical appears in Rock-A-Doodle, about a rooster who believes his crowing raises the sun, Animaniacs: Wakko's Wish, a fairy-tale musical starring the Warner siblings, and The King and I, an animated version of the famous stage musical. Family favourites such as My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks, Barbie in Rock 'N Royals, Monster High: Boo York, Boo York and Bratz: Rock Angelz turn their characters into rock stars for an afternoon.

Some of the finest music animation comes in short form. One Man Band, from Pixar, is a wordless duel between two street musicians competing for a little girl's coin. Boundin' tells a rhyming tale of a proud sheep and a wise jackalope. Destino, begun by Walt Disney and Salvador Dalí in 1945 and finished in 2003, is a surreal dance of love set to a Mexican ballad. Peter & the Wolf, a Polish and British stop-motion film, tells Prokofiev's musical tale entirely through music and pictures and won an Academy Award. Lorenzo follows a cat whose tail starts dancing the tango, and The Maker is a haunting little film about a creature racing against time. When Billie Met Lisa brings Billie Eilish and FINNEAS to Springfield to jam with Lisa Simpson, and Sing: Thriller, Far Far Away Idol and Heavy Metal Mater are playful musical extras starring favourite characters.

Music for the whole family

Music is one of the easiest ways to share animation with children, and the Family music shelf gathers close to fifty titles for every age. For the youngest, the Aikatsu! and PriPara films are bright, cheerful and full of catchy songs, and Waccha Primagi! adds a touch of magic. ClassicaLoid introduces the great composers through slapstick comedy, and Gauche the Cellist makes a perfect first classical film for curious children.

Older children will enjoy Vivo, Rock Dog, UglyDolls and Riverdance: The Animated Adventure, and the short films, such as One Man Band and Boundin', make lovely surprises before bedtime. Healer Girl follows three students who learn to heal people with song, a gentle idea with lovely harmonies. The Nadja series and Muteking the Dancing Hero mix music with adventure and comedy.

Each official service shows its own age rating after you press Watch now, and many offer children's profiles with age limits. Watching the first episode together is a good way to see whether a series suits your family.

Every shelf on Anify

The full list of shelves lives on the collections page. All titles holds the complete library on one page, Series gathers the television and web series and Films gathers the feature films, concert films and short films.

The themed shelves follow the many kinds of performance: Idol groups, Boy groups, Bands, Aikatsu! and PriPara, Classical and traditional, Stage and comedy, World music films and Family music.

The era shelves divide the history of music animation into three chapters. Before 2010 reaches back to Swan Lake, Gauche the Cellist, Glass Mask and the magical idols of the 1980s. 2010 to 2019 covers the great idol boom of Love Live!, THE iDOLM@STER and ZOMBIE LAND SAGA. 2020 onward brings the story up to the band boom of BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!!, Ave Mujica and Rock Is a Lady's Modesty. Finally, Top rated lists the titles with the highest audience scores.

Watching a title, step by step

Anify is a guide, and every title page leads to the official services that carry it. The how to watch guide walks through the steps. Choose a title from the slider, the Update grid, the Popular list or the search. Read its page, which shows the story, the studio, the voice cast and, for series, every episode with its air date. Then choose your country and press Watch now, and JustWatch lists every official service that carries it, including subscription platforms, rental shops and free channels with adverts.

The finding a title guide explains how search works with English titles, Japanese titles and episode numbers, so you can jump straight to the episode with your favourite song. The subtitles and dubs guide explains how to choose between Japanese audio with subtitles and a dubbed track, and why many services translate the song lyrics as well as the dialogue. The free music anime guide explains how to find titles that stream at zero cost with adverts, and the where Anify titles stream guide gives a short overview of the official services.

The apps and devices guide covers phones, tablets, computers and televisions, which matters for concert episodes that sound best through good speakers. The streaming safely guide is a short checklist for accounts and passwords. The official site guide shows how to recognise Anify, and the site status guide lists quick fixes when a page looks odd, which usually means a reload. The My List guide explains how to save titles, tick off episodes and move your list between devices.

Listening routes

Music anime is a big world, and a route helps. Here are a few, each built from titles on Anify.

The idol route starts with ZOMBIE LAND SAGA, which surprises even viewers who think idol anime is for someone else, then moves to THE iDOLM@STER for a classic agency story and LoveLive! Superstar!! for a school idol tale. If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die shows the same world from the fans' side, with great warmth and humour.

The band route starts with Rock Is a Lady's Modesty for pure fun, moves to BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!! and Ave Mujica - The Die Is Cast - for high drama and ends with D4DJ for a party behind the decks.

The classical route starts with Gauche the Cellist, continues with Those Snow White Notes and Piano: The Melody of a Young Girl's Heart and closes with ClassicaLoid for laughs.

The stage route pairs Glass Mask with A3! for acting, Akane-banashi for rakugo and Teppen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Laughing 'til You Cry for comedy, with Wave, Listen to Me! as a late-night encore.

The short-film route is perfect for a single evening: One Man Band, Boundin', Destino, Peter & the Wolf and Chage & Aska: On Your Mark add up to less than two hours and show music animation at its most inventive. Save your picks in My List as you go.

Forty years of music on screen

Music has been part of Japanese animation from the start, but stories about performers took off in the 1980s, when real idol singers dominated television and record charts. Series such as Magical Idol Pastel Yumi and Legendary Idol Eriko mixed magic, romance and pop songs, and the Macross franchise, with its singing heroine Lynn Minmay, showed that a song could carry the climax of a science-fiction war. Studios began to release the songs from their shows as records, and the voice actors who sang them became stars in their own right.

The 1990s and 2000s brought rock, jazz and classical stories alongside idols. Macross Dynamite 7 followed the rock singer Basara, Full Moon and Kirarin Revolution carried idol stories to a new generation of young viewers, and Piano: The Melody of a Young Girl's Heart and La Corda d'Oro: Primo Passo turned to classical music. In the same years, arcade games such as Aikatsu! and Pretty Rhythm made idol performance something children could play at the shopping centre every weekend.

The 2010s were the decade of the great idol franchises. THE iDOLM@STER in 2011 and the Love Live! films and series proved that a group of animated characters could fill arenas, with their voice actors performing the songs live in costume. Boy groups followed, and franchises such as IDOLiSH7 and Ensemble Stars! built enormous audiences through mobile rhythm games. ZOMBIE LAND SAGA in 2018 showed how far the genre could stretch, combining idol stories with horror comedy and a surprising amount of heart.

Since 2020 the pendulum has swung toward bands. BanG Dream!, which reached television in 2017, reached new heights with BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!! and Ave Mujica - The Die Is Cast -, two dramatic series about the tangled friendships behind the music, and Rock Is a Lady's Modesty became a favourite band comedy of 2025. At the same time, series such as Those Snow White Notes, Akane-banashi and Teppen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Laughing 'til You Cry have opened the door to traditional arts and comedy, showing that any kind of performance can make a great story.

Voices, songs and live shows

One of the most unusual things about music anime is how the fiction spills into real life. In many franchises, the voice actors who play the characters also sing their songs, release albums under the characters' names and perform concerts in the characters' costumes, sometimes in front of tens of thousands of fans. The line between the animated group and the real one becomes wonderfully blurred.

BanG Dream! goes furthest. Several of its bands are real bands, whose voice actors learned to play their instruments and perform live, so when you watch BanG Dream! FILM LIVE or BanG Dream! FILM LIVE 2nd Stage, you are watching animated versions of groups that also tour in the real world. The Love Live! groups have performed at huge venues across Japan, and the concert films of the male idol franchises, such as IDOLiSH7 Movie: LIVE 4bit - BEYOND THE PERiOD, recreate a full arena show with animated performers, often with audiences waving glow sticks in the cinema.

Many of these franchises began as mobile rhythm games, where players tap along to the songs, collect cards of their favourite characters and follow a story told in short chapters. The anime series then bring the story to a wider audience. If you enjoy a series on Anify, it is worth looking up its songs: the soundtracks are often released in full, and the best songs from the idol and band shows have become hits in their own right.

Comedy franchises play with this too. GANSO! BanG Dream Chan and BanG Dream! Girls Band Party!☆PICO are short, silly spin-offs that poke fun at the drama of the main series, and Nijiyon Animation turns the Nijigasaki club into four-panel comic strips come to life.

How animators bring music to life

Animating a musical performance is one of the hardest jobs in animation. A guitarist's fingers must hit the right frets, a drummer's sticks must land on the beat and a dancer's steps must match the choreography of a song that may last four or five minutes. Studios have developed many ways to do it.

Some series animate every performance by hand, frame by frame, often with animators who play the instruments themselves or who study hours of video of real musicians. Those Snow White Notes is admired for the way it shows the force of a shamisen player's plectrum striking the strings, and Gauche the Cellist draws every bow stroke with care. Others use computer graphics for dance scenes, building three-dimensional models of the characters that can move through complicated choreography, sometimes recorded with motion capture from real dancers. The BanG Dream! series by Sanzigen and many idol concert scenes use this method, which lets the camera fly around the stage like a live concert broadcast.

Many series mix both approaches, using hand-drawn animation for the story and computer graphics for the big stage numbers. The KING OF PRISM films go further still, turning each performance into a riot of colour and fantasy, with skaters leaping into space and bursting into visual poems that audiences cheer in the cinema.

Short films often find the most inventive solutions. Peter & the Wolf used painstaking stop-motion puppets to match each instrument to a character, Destino let Salvador Dalí's surreal images flow with the melody and One Man Band built an entire story from the rivalry between two instruments. Watching with an ear for how picture and sound fit together is one of the great pleasures of the titles on Anify.

The many sounds of music anime

One of the joys of browsing Anify is hearing how many different kinds of music the titles cover. Idol series lean toward bright, polished pop, with big choruses, layered harmonies and choreography designed to be copied by fans. Boy-group series add rhythm and blues, dance pop and the occasional ballad, and the concert films often end with a slow song that the audience sings along to. Band series cover everything from cheerful pop punk to heavy metal, gothic rock and progressive rock, and the best of them write songs that suit each character's personality.

Hip-hop and club music have their own place. Paradox Live turns rap battles into a supernatural contest, D4DJ builds its story around remixes and mash-ups, and W'z draws on the house music its hero loves. Classical music appears in orchestras, piano recitals and violin competitions, but also in comedy, as the composers of ClassicaLoid turn their famous melodies into rock anthems and dance tracks. Traditional Japanese music appears in the powerful Tsugaru shamisen of Those Snow White Notes and the gentle festival songs that run through many series.

The world music films add even more. Vivo draws on Cuban son and salsa, Riverdance on Irish dance music, Destino on a Mexican bolero and Peter and the Wolf on Prokofiev's orchestral tale, while Strange Magic, UglyDolls and Rock Dog borrow from decades of pop and rock. Listening across the shelves is a little like travelling through a record shop, one aisle at a time.

A guide made for fans

Music anime has a special relationship with its fans. Idol stories often show the fans as much as the performers: the people who wave glow sticks at the front of the hall, buy every single and follow their favourite member from small gigs to the biggest stages. Series such as If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die and Phantom of the Idol treat that devotion with warmth and humour, and many viewers see themselves in these characters.

Anify tries to serve fans in the same spirit. Every title page lists the voice cast, so you can follow a favourite singer from one franchise to another, and every series page lists the episodes, so you can find the one with the concert you love. My List keeps your favourites together and remembers which episodes you have watched, and the shelves make it easy to move from one kind of music to the next. Whether you arrive for one song or stay for a whole season, the stage is yours.

Planning a music night

A music anime evening works best with a little planning. Start with something short and bright to warm up, such as an episode of a comedy spin-off or a Pixar short, then settle into the main feature, whether that is a concert film, a band drama or a classic like Gauche the Cellist. If you are watching with friends, pick a series where each of you can choose a favourite character or band member, and compare notes at the end of each episode.

Good sound makes a real difference. Concert scenes are mixed to be heard loud, with the crowd around you, so a pair of good headphones or a television connected to speakers brings them to life. Many services offer the original Japanese audio with subtitles, which lets you hear the singers as they recorded the songs, and the lyrics often carry clues to the story that are easy to miss.

Finally, give the series time. Idol and band stories often begin with small rehearsals and awkward first gigs, building slowly toward a big performance near the end of the season, and the payoff is worth the wait. Add the next titles to My List as you go, and your music night can become a regular event with friends and family.

For a themed night, pick one shelf and follow it from end to end. A classical evening might begin with Swan Lake, continue with Gauche the Cellist and close with the first episodes of Those Snow White Notes. A rock evening might pair the band episodes of Rock Is a Lady's Modesty with the late-1980s energy of TO-Y. A family evening might mix Vivo, Rock Dog and a handful of Pixar shorts, with popcorn and a chance for everyone to sing along to the choruses they remember.

A stage that stays open

Anify is built for anyone who loves music and performance on screen, whether you are a devoted idol fan, a guitarist looking for a band story, a classical music lover, a theatre enthusiast or a parent searching for a sing-along film. Every title has been chosen by hand, every page leads to official services and every shelf is designed to make the next choice a little easier. Start with the slider, follow a steel-blue heading that catches your eye and enjoy the show.

Questions