I notice that most of my favorite Anime series also have fantastic opening credits. The ones I disliked also had opening sequences that I disliked. Was it that the (lack of) quality in the show also applied to the opening? Or, did my feelings for a show simply extend to the opening musc? Or vice versa? I don’t know, exacty. I know there are very few shows that I liked which had openings I didn’t and I’ve never seen a show I hated which had music I loved. Hmmmm.
Let’s take a look at my highly subjective list:
The Best
Haibane Renmei was perfect. Music: Perfect. Visuals: Just right. It set the mood of the series, and even captured the spirit of each of the main characters with just a few seconds of screen time apiece. Masterfully done.
Serial Expierments Lain facinates me because the opening is in plain English. The visuals and the music combine to impart a sense of mystery. The images of the birds are quite striking. In some ways I think the intro exceeded the show itself.
Kino’s Jouney does an excellent job of setting the mood of this series with a sense of discovery and wanderlust.
Sugar, A Little Snow Fairy will MAKE you love it with the fun visuals and irresistible tune. They characters have miles of charm, and it comes through in the little glimpses we get of them here.
Ghost in the Shell, Stand Alone Complex has an interesting intro. It’s techo, with a potent Japanese Russian aria. Just my sort of music. The other interesting thing is that for the most part they don’t (re)use visuals from the show. The show itself is mostly standard animation, but the intro is done in cgi.
The good and the mediocre
Chobits has a very, very catchy song. The visuals are a bit plain though. Still, gotta love that song.
Cowboy Bebop is a bit overrated in my book, but it’s still a fine opening and it does a fine job of setting the mood. I got a bit tired of it, and by the end of the series I was skipping the intro.
Ai Yori Aoshi didn’t quite work for me. I like the series, but the intro never seemed to fit. The series could be at times tense, touching, wild, or silly. None of those were really captured in the overly sappy intro.
Mahoromatic‘s intro struck me the same way Ai Yori Aoshi’s did: I just didn’t fit the feel of the show for me. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t right.
The worst
Blue Gender was forgettable, much like the show. Meh.
Outlaw Star has an intro song that sounds like a late 80’s leather-pants-and-big-hair rock band. Sort of a Japanese Motley Crue. I don’t care for that sort of music, and this song made me cringe.
Big O. Sigh. Where to start? The lyrics are the name of the show repeated over and over. The visuals are no picnic either, with black shapes spinning on a red / orange background. The whole thing looks like a parody. Good grief.
If I were to organize the above based on how much I liked the show overall, it the list would be almost exactly the same. I think I’d move Ai Yori Aoshi into the first group (I really liked it) and move Lain down into merely “good”. Still, the correlation between openings I like and shows I like is quite strong. Interesting.
You’re annoyed. I can feel it. I’ve slagged something you love. Or perhaps I’ve praised something that you deeply hate. This is unavoidable. The comments link is below if you feel the need to let me know just how wrong I am.
Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.
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