that's just how their women sound to us. cutesy anime girls are voiced by aunties over 30.

As an addendum: Japanese isn't as all-in on pitch having semantics as Chinese, but pitch is very important. Words have "pitch accent" rather than "stress" the way English has, and overall pitch is strongly politeness-coded.

Speaking higher is politer, and noticeably dropping your pitch is threatening. You probably would pitch-up when speaking to your boss, and people working in shops or restaurants nearly sing welcome/thank you for coming type things.

So are cartoon boys in the west.