A long, long time again, in a blog post much removed from today’s, I talked a bit about how the OP of a show was something quite vital to the success of a show; maybe it was the show that made the OP, or the OP that made the show, but either way, if I liked one, I probably liked the other.

And usually the music side of not only this, but both bookends to a show, the opening and ending sequences, is focused on when reviewing these sections. It’s logical enough, given that, like many a person has learned from dating in real life, as pretty as something can look, if you can’t stand it when it opens it’s mouth, it’s a bad sign.

Unfortunately a lot of opening and ending sequences are pretty much the same as every other one in the history of the planet (or, perhaps, anime). Show a quick shot of all the characters in the show, perhaps hint at some plot spoilers to come, pan up to the sky, call it a wrap. For an action show, flash through some fight scenes; for a harem/visual-novel show, show a bunch of scenes of the heroines looking alternatively enthusiastic and pensive.

Usually, after the tenth or so iteration of the same thing over and over, it gets boring.

The end result tends to be that as much as I am willing to blast a song through in that animeophile fashion on my car stereo, that’s all that remains from it. It’s not worthy of skipping if it’s a good song, but it’ll probably just end up blaring in the background while I check my e-mail for a minute and a half.

Of course, there are exceptions.

Some studios, with some anime, like to mix things up a bit. Perhaps they’ll have a bit different presentation than just ’show characters, overlay credits’, or, my personal favorite, switch out the sequence every now and then to keep things entertaining.

The purpose of this post is to recognize some of the efforts made in some anime to keep things fresh by being innovative or creative in their OP / ED sequences. Of course, such a thing applies also to any show which changes themes halfway through the season, but here are some of the standouts.

To-Love-Ru OP [Forever we can make it!]
(Warning: Not-so-subtle fanservice in video.)

The most recent and the one that inspired this post, To-Love-Ru has only got one episode to date, but I’m all but smitten with the opening sequence (despite it being the only part of it I’ve seen of the show).

The way in it reveals the credits is unique, creative, and entertaining, panning slowly over an image of one of the main characters (or one of the girls, at any rate), then zooming in closer to reveal a credit written on the image somewhere - perhaps on a nametag, a car tire, a piece of paper that one of them is holding, or, of course, a swimsuit.

It’s a good way to integrate the credits without making them intrusive, and it can turn into a fun game of “spot the credits” as well. The song is quite catchy (if not generic) rock, so high marks all around … unless your family is watching.

Manabi Straight OP [A Happy Life]

Another founding father of the post was Manabi Straight’s OP, a similarly seamlessly integrated opening sequence, with none of the guilt.

Here the title credits are spray-painted all over random scenes, and you can even see the characters writing them at times. It’s the same idea of ‘hidden in the scene’, although there is arguably more production value involved here, since there are less still pans. There is, however, a lot of camera shaking, implying that this is a amateur video filmed by the characters themselves, in a show of the “Massugu GO!” school spirit. All in all, a bit disorientating due to this last aspect, but still very high on the cool-o-meter.

Aria the Animation OP [Undine]

You wanted seamless? Here’s your seamless.

Aria’s OP sequence, or lack thereof, is pretty much showing the logo, then singing the title song in the background while the characters go on with their ordinary life. Basically, there is no extra animation added to each episode - rather, the music is overlaid on whatever happened to be going on at the start.

You could probably say that usually it’s a peaceful intro, since the characters aren’t doing much while the music is playing (there is usually are a lot of silence and cuts), but it’s Aria for crying out loud. It’s always peaceful. In any case, it’s a perfect way to save money (in the short run), get more screentime, and impress random bloggers.

ef ~a tale of memories OP / ED [euphoric field (English) / Euphoric Field (Japanese) / Kizamu Kisetsu / I'm here]

ef ~a tale of memories, in typical Shaft style, impresses with not only a revolving wheel of ending themes, but also with a switch of the opening sequence as well.

We’ll start with the latter - euphoric field, the opening theme for the majority of the show (although it doubled for the ending in the second episode), is normally sung in mostly intact English, but in the last episode, the song is ‘dubbed’ into Japanese, with slightly different lyrics and meanings.

And for an extra touch, the visuals of the intro are covertly updated, with minor - yet significant - changes in thematic scenes, which show how far the characters have come. It’s very slick, and contributes to that whole atmosphere of ef, which has that feel of a good puzzle, one that’s simple to figure out but still very rewarding.

Interestingly, I found the English version of the intro better sounding than the Japanese one, which gives some thought to the theory that perhaps it’s not that Japanese is better than English every time in anime, but it’s rather which one we hear first, that we get used to.

The endings of ef rotate a lot as well, with three main endings, one for each heroine, Chihiro, Kei, and Miyako. Usually, the one that gets the most focus in the show will have their song play at the end, with an animation focusing on them.

Chihiro, in fact, gets two endings, with the same visuals, but two mixes on the same song, one more hopeful and slow-paced, and the other, more despairing yet melodic. I am absolutely in love with both of the songs, especially the second one (which is why I linked it above), so it’s just win piled on top of win.

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei OP [Hito toshite Jiku ga Bureteiru / Goin ni Mai Yeah~]

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, another Shaft show, has two distinct opening songs in its first season, yet three vastly different animations.

Hito toshite Jiku ga Bureteiru, better known as Damn Twisted Person, was employed in both the low-budget original opening and the high-insanity second one. The first, despite being mostly screen of text upon screen of text, was still worthy of merit, for the occasionally random credits it would give to people such as Emperor Penguin, and for the short internet copypasta inserted in the middle.

The second had some interesting imagery to say the least, and went for a decidedly mindscrew feel. Random images of Nozomu (Pink Supervisor, Zetsubou-sensei, etc) looking insane and running about spliced with bondage pics, random pictures of that one artist, and existential imagery, made for a confusing but visually entertaining offering.

And the third (linked) was brilliant, for being a minute-and-a-half song that took twice that long to get through. This was because there was typically text written in the background of all the stills, that the viewer would have to pause and check, nearly every second or two, and sometimes in a matter of frames.

These lines usually formed jokes or witty wisecracks together that were amusing in their own regard, even when there weren’t more obvious jokes in-between (such as the “This video has been removed due to a terms of use violation.” notice). It’s exactly this brand of visual and mental crack that makes Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei as much of a thrill to watch as it is.

H2O ~footprints in the sand~ OP (plus omake) [Katayoku no Icarus]

A bit of a less noticeable or entertaining one, but meritable on other reasons.

The OP of H2O, Katayoku no Icarus, makes slight changes every time to the OP, to one scene. The part where the title logo is displayed has a different character in the background every now and then. This is apparent when, for example, Hamaji shows up in the background for their episode, or Otoha for hers.

Nothing exciting, but the extra section at the end of every episode, featuring deformed (chibi) versions of the H2O characters performing a short comedy skit, makes it worth sitting through the ED for, the proverbial carrot and stick spurring viewers to watch the ending. Although, Kazahane is another mood-filled, intense song that I’m smitten with, so it’s more of a carrot and carrot deal.

Shuffle! Memories OP [High Tension Dreamer / pray / pureness / Giri Giri Heart Connection / memories]

Most people will cite exactly this, along with episode 12, as the only merits of Shuffle! Memories, but quite the plus this is.

Shuffle! Memories is basically a recap series of the harem / visual-novel show, with the recap being divided up among the five heroines and their stories. Each girl gets two episodes, and each of those episodes is headed off by a theme specific to each character.

For example, the energetic Sia gets a fast-paced theme, while the reserved Primula gets a slow theme to match. All the songs fit up with their characters quite well and feature quite a bit of original animation (and in the case of two of them at least, a bit of service to the fans who wanted to see a different ending to the original show). Most of the songs are actually pretty nice to listen to as well, as High Tension Dreamer and pureness are great at their ends of the respective genre spectrum.

And I suppose, if you ask, my allegiances lie with Sia, so stop pouting at me for only posting the Asa opening.

-CCY

This post is tagged Analysis, blog general, Music