Welcome to the 2nd edition of Top 5! This week we’re going to take a look at the anime opening songs/sequences we consider to be the best of the last decade! It would be way too easy to do a “Top 5 Classic Openings;” It’d be littered with Dragonball, Evangelion, and other things that have quite simply been done to death. Nay, what we want is a challenge! There’s been a lot of greats to pick from, and narrowing it down is going to be quite a task, so let’s get right into it.
“Ready, Steady, Go” Full Metal Alchemist
First things first: L’Arc~en~Ciel make anything better, always. Even putting that aside, this opening is immensely badass. I remember when FMA was airing nightly on Adult Swim (back when anime wasn’t just on super late one night a week… aka the good old, pre-Family Guy days) and I caught a few episodes here and there. I could tell that the show was incredible, but since I saw it too sporadically to make sense of the story, the part that jumped out at me the most was the opening. Such an awesome song combined with a really cool animation sequence is definitely attention-grabbing. My favorite part of this opening are the parts with Ed & Al in that field or whatever by the fence… I just feel like those parts combined with the upbeat song captures the youth that was taken from them as characters. I would honestly consider this opening to be one of the newer additions to anime “classics,” right up there with older openings like Evangelion’s “Cruel Angel’s Thesis” and Sailor Moon’s “Moonlight Densetsu.”
“Bouken Deshou Deshou” The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Personally, the Haruhi anime was a bit of a turning point in my life as an anime fan. Before the show came around, I had been in an anime lull for quite a few years; I had been busy having a social life, and when I did have free time, I would use it gaming with and talking to friends online. I heard about an odd new anime starring a slightly-insane high school girl obsessed with aliens and stuff. I started streaming it on YouTube, and adored it. One of the high points of the series is the performance of iconic song “God Knows” from episode 12, but the entire series had a wonderful soundtrack. The opening sequence was no exception. The animation combined with the mood of the song perfectly captured the optimism for adventure held by the title character, and combined with Aya Hirano’s vocals set the tone for the entire series.
“Resonance” Soul Eater
Here’s another amazingly badass opening song, this one by TMRevolution. Soul Eater is an amazing series from what I’ve seen so far, with some of the smoothest animation I’ve ever seen in my life. The deceptively-complex simplicity of the stylized designs lend themselves really well to animation more than the comic, resulting in a very sexy-looking anime (if you’re an art nerd, anyways). The opening song has gothic undertones which suit the Tim Burton-esque locales featured in the series, and the animation and use of unique perspectives in the sequence match that “weird rock” feeling extremely well. Also as an added bonus, Shinigami-sama’s dance is epic. A killer song combined with such wonderful animation is a recipe for success, and in my book makes this one of the more memorable openings of recent years.
“Super Drive” Gravitation
For many people, Gravitation was the first true shounen-ai (boys’ love) anime they’d seen, as it was one of the first few to be released translated worldwide. I was no exception. Gravitation was a fantastic combination of music, romance, drama and comedy with an absolutely phenomenal soundtrack headed by musical genius Daisuke Asakura. Of course, a series where the main character is in a band would be required to have exceptional music, and Gravitation does not disappoint. Right from the get-go with the opening theme song, we have an upbeat, cheery song about falling in love despite obstacles that fits the context of Shuichi & Eiri’s relationship to a “T”. Although performed by Yosuke Sakanoue, rather than by Shuichi’s primary vocalist for music Kotani Kinya, the song captures the mood of the series well. The animation sequence is visually pleasing; Gravitation likes to merge photography with their animation and it makes for an interesting dynamic. All the characters in the series are well-represented in the sequence as well. All in all, this was a great opening perfectly fitting the genre it was intended for!
“CHU-BURA” Bleach
I would obviously have to include an opening from Bleach on here, but they’re all so good it was really hard to select just one. Ultimately I decided that “CHU-BURA” from the 3rd Captain filler arc was the best. I know it’s not super-serious, but I tend to think that the best parts of most shounen anime are when we get to see the characters just being themselves instead of drowning in drama or exhausting themselves in battle after battle. The summery opening from this arc is perfect at doing exactly that. KELUN’s music and lyrics are a fun & upbeat, and seeing all the characters from Bleach having a good time go great together with them!
