• Sony’s Soneium blockchain and Animoca Brands have partnered to integrate anime culture into Web3, starting with Anime ID, a decentralized identity layer.
  • The partnership enables seamless engagement for anime fans by incorporating Moca Network’s AIR SDK into Soneium, allowing users to maintain unique digital identities.
  • The first initiative under this collaboration is the Anime Art Festival, featuring globally recognized anime IPs like Solo Leveling in partnership with Otherworld.

Sony’s blockchain initiative, Soneium, has partnered with Animoca Brands to integrate anime culture into Web3 by incorporating anime artwork into decentralized digital identities.

As part of the partnership, Animoca’s Moca Network will establish an identity layer on the Soneium blockchain, starting with Anime ID—a decentralized identifier and reputation system developed by San FranTokyo. This initiative seeks to merge traditional anime and manga culture with decentralized technologies.

The integration will see Moca Network’s Account, Identity, and Reputation Software Development Kit (AIR SDK) embedded into the Soneium blockchain. This will allow users to maintain unique digital identities and credentials across various decentralized applications (DApps) within the network.

San FranTokyo’s Anime ID will be the first to adopt the AIR SDK, enabling seamless engagement for anime fans. Additionally, San FranTokyo and Animoca Brands will collaborate on anime-themed cultural campaigns designed to onboard anime enthusiasts into the Soneium ecosystem.

San FranTokyo head David Taing emphasized how Anime ID simplifies user interaction in Web3, telling Cointelegraph:

"Currently, navigating the Web3 space can be overwhelming due to the need for multiple wallets, platforms, and accounts. Anime ID simplifies this experience by offering fans one simple identity to use across all aspects of their fandom.”

The first initiative under this partnership will be the Anime Art Festival on Soneium, which will highlight anime-focused intellectual properties, creators, and Web3 projects. Taing revealed that the event will launch with the globally recognized Solo Leveling in collaboration with the Otherworld team.

Moca Network project lead Kenneth Shek noted that anime plays a significant role in modern entertainment, stating:

"Starting with anime, we foresee many other entertainment-related applications to participate in the network and further enrich the user-owned identity and data.”

Sony Block Solutions Labs (Sony BSL) launched Soneium’s public testnet on August 28, 2024, as a Layer-2 network designed to foster a creator-centric fan community. The blockchain’s mainnet went live on January 14, 2025, though it faced criticism from some community members over restrictions on certain memecoins.

In a related trend, the intersection of anime and crypto continues to grow. On March 25, OpenAI’s launch of image generation for its ChatGPT-4o mode led to a wave of Studio Ghibli-style AI-generated images.

This surge coincided with a Ghibli-inspired memecoin reaching a $20 million market capitalization, sparking the creation of at least 20 similar tokens.

While Web3 integration offers new opportunities for anime fans, anime and crypto may not always be perceived favorably in social settings. A survey on August 26 ranked anime as the third-most unattractive hobby for men, with crypto taking the second spot.

Edited by Harshajit Sarmah