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NetEase, Japan’s Studio Ghibli team up to stream music from some of Hayao Miyazaki’s anime films

  • The Japanese film studio’s music catalogue will be available online in China via NetEase Cloud Music
  • The online streaming service has the biggest community for Japanese music fans in China

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The albums and soundtracks from popular anime films directed by Hayao Miyazaki, co-founder of Studio Ghibli and one of Japan's greatest animators, will be available online in China via music streaming service NetEase Cloud Music. Photo: Indie Wire
Iris Deng
Chinese internet giant NetEase has landed the domestic digital distribution rights for the music catalogue of Studio Ghibli, home of widely acclaimed Japanese animated feature films directed by co-founder Hayao Miyazaki.
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NetEase Cloud Music, the Nasdaq-traded company’s on-demand streaming service, will make the catalogue – including albums and soundtracks from films such as My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle and Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea – available to subscribers in the world’s second largest economy, according to a NetEase announcement on Friday.

“The cooperation with Studio Ghibli further strengthens NetEase Cloud Music’s competitive edge as a go-to platform for high-quality international music,” the company said in a statement. It declined to provide further details about the deal with the Tokyo-based animation film studio.

The new partnership comes as NetEase continues to step up efforts to attract and keep users on its platform against that of bigger rival Tencent Holdings in China’s highly competitive music streaming market.
The Beijing head office of internet company NetEase is located at Phase II of the Zhongguancun Software Park, in the Haidian District of the Chinese capital. Photo: Shutterstock
The Beijing head office of internet company NetEase is located at Phase II of the Zhongguancun Software Park, in the Haidian District of the Chinese capital. Photo: Shutterstock
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The stakes are high for both NetEase and Tencent in the country’s growing music streaming market, which research portal Statista has projected to be worth US$1.2 billion by 2024 from an estimated US$917 million this year.

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