J-Pop + DRM-free = Happy Ninjeff

My love affair with the iTunes Store continues.

As I mentioned last summer, iTunes contains a very nice selection of major Japanese music from artists like Utada Hikaru and Hamasaki Ayumi. But sometime in the last several months the store has expanded its selection of this music to include the likes of Morning Musume, Kumi Koda, BoA, Ami Suzuki, and KOTOKO, among others. Last night, I went through the store and purchase about a dozen songs from a variety of artists, making my music collection one step closer to being completely legal (music from Japan is the only hole I have left). My only complaint is the lack of major J-Rock bands like Asian Kung-Fu Generation. The Pillows are in the store, but the available catalog leaves much to be desired.

As if that weren’t good enough, a lot of the music is completely DRM-free, thanks to the iTunes plus initiative.

I really hope iTunes continues to add Japanese artists and their catalogs to the store. I would always prefer to simply paying a small fee and downloading a song from a legitimate provider rather than spending 10 minutes searching for and then downloading a torrent for a single song. This is particularly true when I learn about a new single from someone like YUI or Utada Hikaru. Utada just recently released a new English single, and it was super simple to boot up iTunes, search for her artist page, and download the new song. The convenience is totally for the price, and besides, I’m always willing to support artists I enjoy.