With the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) set to shine a light on movies in the capital, other art forms see an opportunity to siphon off some of the media glare.
Along with the Tokyo International Anime Festival and the film festival-related TiffCom, the Tokyo International Music Market (TIMM) hopes to showcase trends in the Japanese music industry with booths introducing record labels and, more importantly, three days of performances at Zepp DiverCity from Oct. 21 to 23.
With animation being a key theme at this year's TIFF, it makes sense that the first day of TIMM would follow suit. "Anison-Idol Night" includes musical acts that have written music for anime, or perform cover versions of songs from animated series. Anime songs, or anison, used to exist mainly to serve an obsessed otaku fanbase, but the genre has gained in popularity over the past few years. For example, the group Linked Horizon made it all the way to the stage of NHK's yearend "Kohaku Uta Gassen" program last year on the back of the success of its single "Jiyu e no Shingeki" ("March to Freedom"), the title track for popular anime series "Attack on Titan."
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