Anime takes the form of all different shapes, sizes, styles, and genres. One of my friends has said, "There is an anime out there for everyone!" But no matter the differences, one thing that they all have in common though is...
Opening and Ending songs!
Now as much as I would love to sit down and rank all the openings from the animes I've seen, that will have to wait for another day (or full week.) For now, I'll just share a couple of songs and playlists with you. Most people really love the openings, endings, or both from shows that are close to their hearts. There is just something about those first beats hitting that really brings back the memories and emotions of seasons of a show or a show itself (Attack on Titan openings anyone?).
For those of you who are new to anime, an opening song is an intro that usually displays some information about the show/season, sometimes through an artistic expression of the themes of the show or through actual clips from episodes coming up in that arc/season. (Some openings that hit home for me are Op 1 of Fullmetal Alchemist and OP 2 of Bleach.)
An ending song on the other hand is quite often in the category of artistic expression and usually (although not always) is much softer and laid-back. (One of my favorites is the ending to Jujutsu Kaisen) On occasion, the song doesn't even have singing or lyrics at all. Sometimes it's just instrumental over top of some fantastic visuals. (Good examples of this are Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, and Megalobox NOMAD)
Most of the time each season of an anime will have its own opening/ending (or possibly two depending on the length of the season) or possibly a specific arc will have its own opening/ending (for example the show One Piece follows this as it doesn't have classic Seasons but is more of just an extremely long on-going show, over 1000 episodes!)
Whatever way they come it's fun to watch the openings, at least once and sometimes every time! Here on 3DTAA we're mixed on what we do. I will usually watch the opening at least once, and possibly more if I really like it. Ben will listen to them but avoid the visuals in order to avoid possible hints and spoils for the season. Kolb watches both the opening and ending, every single time (he's hardcore about it).
However whatever you do just do whatever allows you to enjoy the show more!
While I'm not doing any rankings or listings of my favorites, I have included below all the opening and ending songs from the shows we have covered on our podcast. Feel free to give it a follow to remember those fun tunes!
Now if you are like me then this is only the beginning. I was looking back through my Japanese music playlist and it looks like I started it up back in 2018. Basically, as I listened to the openings (not as big of an endings guy) I found myself liking the style and certain bands more and more. So I found the full-length versions of the songs, then I would get suggestions from Spotify for other songs and bands and before I knew it I was listening to bands who had never been on an anime!
Below is my playlist of some of my regular lists, either on shuffle or picking and choosing. Two of my favorite artists at present are EVE (who I found a while back and just recently got their own anime opening, they did the first opening for Jujutsu Kaisen) and TK from Ling Tosite Sigure (Ling Tosite Sigure did most of the openings for Psycho-Pass and then TK branched out on his own and has done a few openings for other animes, the most commonly known one was the first opening for Tokyo Ghoul, he also did a song for the Japanese release of Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse.)
I hope this pushes you over the edge into your Japanese music listening experience and that you discover some new tunes. Even if you don't, try making an OP and ED playlist from your favorite animes, it'll keep those nostalgia hits coming for days on end!
- Chest
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