Board 8 > my top anime OPs + EDs, plus chatting some anime in general

(+) Yeah! (+)

SeabassDebeste posted...

DRRR - i'm probably not going to go back to it unless it actually has a main arc that concludes or something. feel like i got enough out of the romp!

It does, the anime tells a complete story. Actually I was surprised to see your comments about the anime since I wouldn't at all describe it as episodic.

yeah, sorry, i guess what i mean is that it has a plot arc, but it doesn't feel like the plot arc of the show, if that makes sense.

21. Aku no Tenshi to Seigi no Akuma - Dragon Ball Super ED7
https://animethemes.moe/anime/dragon_ball_super/ED7-NCBD1080

Love the animation of this - showing everyone in comic panels, and then having some of them move and react to one another. DB is such a long-running franchise and cultural totem pole that it has a gigantic cast of characters (that it mostly refuses to kill off), and this is a great summation of them, honoring their history while not making most of them truly frozen. It's a short piece but I also love the song. I actually watched the series dubbed, and I liked the dub version of it too. Favorite part is the second half of course. What a pure sound of longing.

20. Genkai Toppa x Survivor - Dragon Ball Super OP2
https://animethemes.moe/anime/dragon_ball_super/OP2-NCBD1080

This is the only "battle arc OP" on my list, and man, it is strong. Musically the intro is pretty typical, but it's just way more action-packed visually than your typical battle shounen OP. The animations of Goku fighting Jiren are amazing. The rest of the first minute of the OP is pretty typical both musically and visually, but then we hit the last part, where (like so many OPs) it hits that third gear and we get more Goku vs Jiren. Over the course of over fifty episodes, it really makes an impression!

As for the arcs that have these themes... the Big Tournament is kinda cool, and easily the best arc in DB Super (and arguably the only real worthwhile part of the anime at all). Problem is that DB Super actually kind of sucks. It's the sequel to one of my favorite series of all time (which has its own problems), but the power-scaling and retcons and new powerups largely undermine what came before (which I guess is actually kind of a DB tradition). I mentioned in a different thread that Goku getting wrecked by a regular-ass laser-gun would never have happened in Z, and in fact I believe he literally gets shot in the head or something in the original DB and shrugs it off? The whole thing feels anime and not manga, and while that's not an issue for many other series, it is for Dragon Ball. It doesn't do anything interesting character-wise at all; I guess they try to de-wussify Gohan but somehow he actually seems even more pathetic because of it.

While it's pure anime and mostly dumb, Ultra Instinct Goku is pretty sweet, and the quick glimpse of it we get in the opening is great. Only there if you know to look for it too, which is neat!

I still need to watch Super, but I needed a break after watching Dragon Ball and DBZ for a couple years straight.

19. REASON - Hunter x Hunter 2011 ED3 (Hunter x Hunter song 3 of 5)
https://animethemes.moe/anime/hunter_x_hunter_2011/ED3-NCBD1080
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S8EWHxk_ls (includes intro)

I'm almost certain I hold EDs to a different standard than OPs, but to be fair, watching EDs has trained me differently. REASON might not be the greatest song here in a vacuum, but it has a long tail of good parts after the intro. And it is super-sentimental sounding. Visually it just focuses on these two kids and their friendship... and that's actually pretty great.

There is still more HxH stuff to come, so I'll save some further thoughts, but this arc - Greed Island - is actually considerably lighter in tone than the preceding arc. HxH as a series is fascinating how it just oscillates its plot depending on what its creator feels should happen. In general it's surprisingly subversive in how it handles climaxes of its stories despite conventional setups and buildups. Greed Island is almost certainly the most conventional arc of the series from front to back.

And yet - and this ties back to the two kids' friendship - it makes an incredibly bold move: it cuts Kurapika and Leorio from the story. There were definite hints that this series was about a quartet with your typical archetypes, but two major arcs deep, we just jettisoned them to tell a completely different, lower-stakes, lower-violence story. And it worked, and its ED made me want to be a kid.

Maybe one day I'll watch Hunter x Hunter

would certainly suggest it over super. given you weren't even a big fan of db/z, i'd just stay away imo

I liked Dragon Ball Z! The Buu Saga definitely burned me out by the end though.

18. Shiki no Uta - Samurai Champloo ED
https://animethemes.moe/anime/samurai_champloo/ED1v2-BD1080

There's one other ED here that has essentially nothing going on visually other than "mood," but man this song is fucking awesome. Love the singing introduction (and later essentially it repeats essentially as an outro as well). I really don't know that I have much else to say for it beyond that this is kind of the limits of how far a song alone can take you in this ranking.

I rewatched Samurai Champloo with my partner recently and it entirely held up. Admittedly it was never close to my favorite anime, but it's pretty consistent in its quality blend of comedy, occasional seriousness, and action. You just have to accept it as it is, which feels kind of like a core theme of the show.Fuu is also a great character. Butthis ED is legitimately my favorite part of the anime. There are maybe three or four more instances of this happening on this list - a good OP/ED can really power me through some dull or even offensively bad episodes. It's like when I'd power through a mediocre season of Supernatural just for the musical recap intro to the final episode.

Genkai Toppa x Survivor sticks out to me because I normally really dislike this type of singer, but do this OP quite a bit.

Kiyoshi Hikawa is an Enka singer and you can tell, but he's one of the few that's sort of managed to appeal to people under the retirement age.

SeabassDebeste posted...

the nerdgasms and precision given in 3BP aren't always riveting reading

That's exactly what I'm talking about, just that it has nerdgasms and precision all over the place (and they aren't done well, in 3BP). (Though I need to keep "nerdgasms" in the back of my head; I'm always struggling to think of a good way to translate "chuuni." Obviously that's not quite the same but.)

I remember reading it and wondering why so many of my non-VN/Anime nerd friends were excited about it, and then realized "Oh. They've never read any of the stuff I have does this but better."

And yeah, I need to get back to AoT someday >_>

17. Inner Light - Hajime no Ippo OP2
https://animethemes.moe/anime/hajime_no_ippo/OP2-NCDVD576

I adore the visual story told by Inner Light. Muscled-up Ippo suits up and gets in the ring and gets dramatically punched in succession by his greatest opponents, and he gets knocked down. But in a moment of inspiration, he gets up, puts his hands up, and gets ready to fight again.

That's the story of Hajime no Ippo right there, just like it is for Rocky. The kid has unusually strong punching power and some springy legs, but ultimately he wins not on talent but guts. The OP is actually pretty stirring, something I actually generally feel with EDs more so than OPs. The intro and outro guitar riff helps as well; it's used in the climax of the final fight of the original anime run and it is absolutely perfect. That's what helps to elevate it above some of these clearly technically superior OP/EDs.

16. Yuuzora no Kamihikouki - Hajime no Ippo ED1
https://animethemes.moe/anime/hajime_no_ippo/ED1-NCDVD576

Meanwhile, this song is even less sophisticated. It doesn't even have much instrumentation, just one guy lamenting. It's a clean sound.

You can call the animation a slideshow, but I find it awesome to see everyone just at their non-boxing lives. While it's a sports anime and thus mostly concerned with training and matches, Hajime no Ippo actually has me pretty deeply invested in its characters' lives outside of boxing - perhaps because it's actually about pros instead of students. Aoki, Kimura, and Ippo all need day jobs to get by, and Takamura lives a Spartan lifestyle off his purses. So using the ED to show this other side is pretty great.

The part about the ED that really elevates it is its use in the series. ED1 plays frequently after major boxing matches during the wrap-up, and almost always during emotional moments. The simple, plaintive sound of its intro works so perfectly as catharsis when Ippo - or an opponent whose pro dreams have been entirely dashed - and I like that it sounds like "Oh, what a day" in English, which is obviously unintentional but enhances the experience for me.

Hajime no Ippo might be my favorite anime overall, based on its original run. It essentially single-handedly interested in following the sport pretty closely for the better part of a decade. The emphasis on pros versus amateurs definitely heightens the stakes, and it maintains a deep commitment to extremely juvenile male humor. Its animation style is pretty minimalistic and the art style is not the prettiest, but it uses excellent musical cues and creates largely legible and dramatic fights, though the emphasis on KOs gets a little excessive. Reading later chapters has a lot of enjoyable points, but it's actually gotten a little tough as Takamura's antics feel like they go from funny to abusive and the obsession with metaphors for fighters' actions have gotten a bit repetitive and out of hand.

But it's topnotch during the anime's actual run. Great training, great rise-and-fall-and-rise-again arcs. Nothing is stale. Fights are gripping and special moves actually feel like they have stakes. This is one of the anime I have seen front to back and would do it again.

15. Yu-Gi-Oh! Theme - Yu-Gi-Oh! OP (dub)
https://animethemes.moe/anime/yugioh_duel_monsters/OP-Dub-DVD480
Best version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTvQVUz9Tgc

It's time to d-d--d-d--d-d-d-d-duel!

Honestly I'm not 100% certain of this belongs here, but it's a full minute long, has music, and has animations from the show and original animations as well. The Yu-Gi-Oh! theme song has no lyrics, but it does have some cool instrumentals that go from a mysterious intro to a dark middle section to a heroic second half, all divided with "Your move" and of course the memeable "IT'S TIME TO DUEL!" exclamation. It's just fun to say!

The YGO! anime - specifically the dub rendition - starts off hilariously camp and mostly stays that way. Being a kids' dub, there's tons of use of THE SHADOW REALM when really they just mean "death," and the absolute seriousness with which they say it adds to its charm. There are some terrible arcs that I've just never really bothered to watch in there, but I really like Season 1, where the card game has no logical rules and is generally based off whatever the creator thinks is coolest at any given moment, and the dialogue is pretty incredible. Like, I think everyone loved YGO! Abridged Season 1, but it arguably didn't exaggerate the actual show by a lot.

For example, Kaiba in particular goes off with an absolute firehose of trashtalk to Joey in one episode, telling him to battle a more suitable opponent, like an infant or a monkey. Then when people try to say it's just a card game, he goes off and says "I'm at war here, and your friend was a casualty." Again, we're talking about a card game. The self-seriousness is its own joke, and while the show doesn't explicitly make it ironic, the ridiculous art, ridiculous battles, and ridiculous drama which they bring make their own joke.

That alone is already great. And keep watching long enough, and some legitimately cool stuff comes out - many of the the monster designs are really cool. The card game is pretty poorly designed, but once they start enforcing some semblance of rules, you can see strategy emerge from the characters, to the point where by the final battle, you can actually predict many of the moves people will make in terms of "what would make this most interesting" based on some of the cards you already know. I played YGO! with my friends, both the trading card game and a "paper" version, where we'd proxy cards from the show and use show-rules. The latter was raucously enjoyable.

The Battle City Finals (the half-season that this OP corresponds to) are almost certainly the best stretch of this show from a legitimate perspective (with Season 1 being the best from a camp perspective). Getting the Egyptian God Cards involved is great and Yami Marik is a fantastic opponent. There's also probably the best Yugi-Kaiba faceoff during this arc as well.

14. Guns n Roses - Baccano! OP
https://animethemes.moe/anime/baccano/OP-NCBD1080

This thing is manic in the best possible way. The lyric-less music is a bit like Tank!, but less cacaphonous and a bit more melodic, and I absolutely love the trumpet part that comprises the second half of the OP. Like DRRR!, the way it squeezes title cards into the frenetic sequences of the animation is topnotch. I just think it does basically everything a bit better than that DRRR! opening, other than maybe the intro part of the song. Isaac and Miria have my favorite part of that sequence, along with maybe Dallas once you've seen the show.

As for the show itself, I have overall very positive feelings. Episode 1 was utterly incomprehensible and nearly put me off of it, and I remember Episode 2 being pretty unimpressive too... and then it picks up, bit by bit. By far the coolest part of the show is that it all comes together around halfway through and then just stays at a cool level, and you feel good because everything fits together, not necessarily even because what's being depicted on the screen is so good. It's short, sweet, and clever, and while none of its characters would make any favorites list of mine, I really enjoyed a lot of their interactions - Isaac/Miria and Jacuzzi/Nice in particular. It's also just cool; the 1930s grunge-y vibe is fantastic. And of course it had this fucking great OP to go with it all.

I wish the anime had been more popular because there are so many books that didn't get covered. It's a pretty crazy story (at least up to what I've read so far).

It's been a while since I've looked at anything Baccano! related. Seeing the OP again was a nice trip down memory lane.

13. You Won't See Me Coming - Gankutsuou ED (Gankutsuou song 2 of 2)
https://animethemes.moe/anime/gankutsuou/ED-NCBD

This song is awesome and its visuals are trippy af. It both sounds like and looks like a rave party, but with the hovering menace of the storyline. I really like how it contrasts the OP, and how it kind of inverts expectations - you might expect the OP to be bombastic and visually stirring and the ED to be mournful and placid, but instead we have the reverse, as if the ED contains the truth of the present but the show has concealed it.

It's all the cooler because of the one of the show. It blends melancholy with this elevated, soap-opera-y feel. Because it never gets into the silliness that I love about so many other anime, it can actually sustain a higher pitch of melodrama without feeling too ridiculous or cringe-y to me. Characters will sincerely go into hysteria and I buy it because that's the feel of the show throughout - and then suddenly, when the episode ends we go surreal and weird again. (This is in addition to the French-voiceover recaps!)

Gankutsuou is one of my favorite anime for the first two thirds or so of its run. I didn't know the story of the Count of Monte Cristo (and have since read a translation), but deciding to make the kids the point of view characters is an ingenious decision, especially for people who don't know the story - it turns this revenge tale into a combination of a mystery and coming of age story - super-compelling. We don't talk about the ending though.

The trippy visuals are a big highlight of the show as well. It's so unlike anything else I've seen in an anime series the way it uses those textured color patterns and it really enhances the Shakespeare-meets-steampunk feeling of the show. The Count is inexplicably blue which just is kind of hilarious, but no one ever draws attention to it, and that type of thing just continues to contribute to the greatness of it all.

Leonhart4 posted...

I wish the anime had been more popular because there are so many books that didn't get covered. It's a pretty crazy story (at least up to what I've read so far).

i don't feel like i was at all left wanting more - it seemed like they more-or-less resolved everything?

SeabassDebeste posted...

i don't feel like i was at all left wanting more - it seemed like they more-or-less resolved everything?

And yet they still do tons more with the story and the characters, and it's great.

12. The Real Folk Blues - Cowboy Bebop ED (Cowboy Bebop song 2 of 2)
https://animethemes.moe/anime/cowboy_bebop/ED1-NCBD

It's a slideshow with a fadeout at the end, but The Real Folk Blues is likely the best ED song on this list, and that's a fairly simple reason why it's up here. The visuals wind up perfectly complementing the show, which often dwells on isolation - despite being a "found family" type of show, in the end, both the villains and Spike wind up unable to express themselves or to escape from their pasts to go down a different road.

Cowboy Bebop actually isn't one of my favorite anime. I've only seen the whole show through a single time and it was a long time ago, but I watched over 75% of it again with my partner during the pandemic, and I've since watched the Netflix live-action remake. And honestly, it's grown on me. The thing about Bebop is that its quality feels undeniable - the beautiful late-90s art direction, the consistent animation, the blend of comedy and action, and of course that soundtrack. Yoko Kanno's jazzy music is the best part of the series, and while the plot and characters of the show are forgettable, I listened to songs off its soundtrack for years after watching it. The Real Folk Blues has a good case for being the single best song off that soundtrack, from the beginning brassy riffs, and it's an incredible treat to have it play after the final "See You Space Cowboy..." ending card of each episode.

I've actually been gradually watching through Cowboy Bebop with my wife, and it's been fun getting to experience it all again.

Love Real Folk Blues.

11. Gotta Catch'em All - Pokemon OP1 (dub)
https://animethemes.moe/anime/pokemon/OP1-Dub-480

I think everyone here is probably pretty familiar with this one. I actually think for a kids' show this OP is not particularly corny - it's just really sincere in a bit of a cheesy way. This isn't really about nostalgia either; I can't really watch the majority of Pokemon episodes anymore without cringing (even season 1!) but this stuff is just great - a highlight reel of the great monsters that are the soul of the franchise, along with showing the cast of characters perfectly in their strengths. Like the little snippet with Team Rocket and Gary as the villainous figures in Ash's story.

As for the show itself - I saw almost all of Season 1 at some point, with repeats on a handful of episodes - though not usually the ones I'd want to see, like the gym battles or especially league/Orange Islands battles. Ash and Misty are kind of tremendously annoying characters, and the repetitive idiocy of Team Rocket was clearly made for an extremely young audience. But damned if it wasn't a cool tie-in to the games, and damned if it didn't create a world that you could enjoy even though the storyline and characters of the show were so silly. This is a show where I imagine that if you made a highlight reel of the 20 best episodes, it would be pretty awesome. Instead you get a bunch of bloat, which helps the world-building a lot but much of which is kind of a drag to watch.

10. A Cruel Angel's Thesis - Neon Genesis Evangelion OP
https://animethemes.moe/anime/neon_genesis_evangelion/OP-NCBD1080

It kind of annoys me how good A Cruel Angel's Thesis is, when the show is just so bad. This is obviously one of the most famous anime OPs of all time which totally makes sense - it has one of the catchiest and most memorable melodies. The images that flash by don't necessarily make any sense or look that cool, but they go in rhythm to the beat, and when the piece moves with the clean sound and pace of A Cruel Angel's Thesis, that's awesome.

But yeah, the show is pretty terrible to watch. I guess I'm not that into giant robot anime to begin with, so I might be the wrong audience for a deconstruction where the primary hook is that the main character is annoying and that the show runs out of budget really often. All the trauma about dead moms and clones and what are the Angels might provide some interesting mystery, but none of it is resolved in a particularly interesting way. The one thing that NGE does have going for it is that it's got this visceral quality that you don't always see in anime like this, and it's spine-tingling when Unit 01 goes and literally eats another EVA. But the incomprehensible plot and lack of charismatic characters really killed it for me.

I was introduced to Eva through the OP, and if the show lived up to like 10% of the OP's quality then this might arguably be at the top of the list overall.

9. Higurashi no Naku Koro ni - Higurashi no Naku Koro ni OP
https://animethemes.moe/anime/higurashi_no_naku_koro_ni/OP-NCBD1080

Man, this OP is probably the scariest anime OP I've seen? The way the "camera" shakes and flickers, the seemingly innocent girls, the overall vibe of things being off and unsettling... the song itself is a banger too, with this pulsing electric energy infusing its beats. And the whole thing is still lyrical and melodic throughout, intense and beautiful and pleading.

It's all the more memorable because the anime absolutely delivers, too. It takes a very visual novel-esque format, with a time loop as its backbone. It's a horror anime, a genre that I generally dislike but can elicit strong gut reactions from me, and it's particularly effective due to the starkness of the contrast in its tones: half the story is set in an elementary school where the kawaii and slapstick are ultra-saccharine, with an actually really cute, funny dynamic. And then when those same characters start exhibiting signs of craziness, paranoia, and cruelty, it's all the more jarring and horrific. It's all present from the beginning frames of the series, where we see a kid butchering other kids with an ax - and then we flash back a few days and that kawaii-overload strikes for the first time. It's deeply unsettling and yet manages to disarm you with the charm of those lighthearted parts even as you try to stay on your guard. Oh, and as for this first season - it never actually answers your questions.

The sequel series actually begins to answer some of these questions, and it moves from horror to more of a sci-fi/low fantasy story. I love the actual story in the sequel series and the way it resolves storylines and makes you feel more involved in a serial element, but the horror mood of the first half is what really sticks with me about the show (and is what somehow got me invested in these 11-year-olds to begin with). And it all starts with the tone set by its opening.

Yeah, I'm generally not into horror either, but Higurashi is great. Don't know that I'd have checked it out if I hadn't read Umineko and knew it was from the same guy.

Banger OP, too.

does umineko really end that poorly? i really was considering it when it took over the board after the F/SN days until the 8th part dropped and its popularity imploded

I guess it depends on how you feel about certain characters and what you ultimately wanted out of the story.

I was pretty disappointed by the ending overall, but I'd still say the ride to get there is worth it. It's such an experience, if you can endure the beginning of the first episode.

So basically everything in between the first couple hours and the last couple hours is great!

Love the higurashi opening. Quick note you may or may not already know, but most of the lyrics in that song are taken directly from various nursery rhymes or childrens' games. And much like English ones, those can get pretty creepy in the right context :)

As for Umineko, it was a mixture of a lot of people wanting the ending to be different than it was imo, but also Ryuukishi07's best friend died while he was writing it and so... yeah >_> Regardless! If you like Higurashi, at least give Umineko a chance.

i did not know!

and noted, time to watch the umineko anime

Do not do that even if you liked the Higurashi anime.

Absolutely please do not watch the Umineko anime ever.

Please don't.

SeabassDebeste posted...

i did not know!

and noted, time to watch the umineko anime

DEATH DEATH GREAT EQUALIZER IS THE DEATH

(This means don't do it)

Either read the VN or read the manga, which I've heard is pretty good

Umineko manga is quite solid. However, it's lacking in the S+ soundtrack.

It's much better than not experiencing it at all, if you don't want to read a VN for whatever reason. But the VN is still the best way, even if it has its flaws (Mostly in length/verbosity)

The anime, meanwhile, is definitively worse than not experiencing it at all.

The Umineko anime's OP isn't even better than the VN OPs.
I think people would recommend the Umineko fighting game over the anime.

(i mostly said that to see the meltdown)

8. Scramble - School Rumble OP
https://animethemes.moe/anime/school_rumble/OP1-DVD576

God this song is fun. It just absolutely takes off. Probably my favorite OP where the singers go for a "young girl" sound. It's got a wonderful bombastic, brassy riff to start us out, kind of telling us "Off to the races!"

And it does take off. It's got that cheery and slightly manic feel perfect for the wacky slice-of-life anime it is with an absolute ton of fun animations. My favorite part might be the little repetitive section late in the OP where the bowl-haircut boy is spinning around. It's hilarious and I love everything about it. I also really like the second OP for Season 2 but decided to go with this one, which I find iconic and which won the show my instant buy-in.

As for the anime itself - it's one of the funniest that I've seen full-stop and it's got a lot of heart. I barely remember anything about the show, but I loved both the male and female leads and the complex love polygon that forms with those characters. I never watched past the end of S2, which was all that was out at the time, and I'm a little daunted by the prospect of going back. But if it has a satisfying conclusion then maybe it should be in the cards...

Yeah, I personally prefer OP2, but they're both fantastic. School Rumble is definitely one of my favorite anime ever. It's such a great cast. It's really big, but it feels like everyone gets their time to shine, which is nice.

I wouldn't recommend the OVA they put out to conclude the story after season 2. It skips a crap ton of content and is just generally unsatisfying. I'd recommend reading the manga if you really wanted to experience the whole story (although the manga ending isn't great either).

SeabassDebeste posted...

But if it has a satisfying conclusion then maybe it should be in the cards...

LOL do i have some bad news

never seen a bigger trainwreck from a previously good story (also applies to the manga)

okay yeah i guess that's why i never finished it - same reason as why i never started umineko!

Yeah, it's not a good ending. There's been some supplementary material over time that makes it slightly less bad, but I don't know anyone who was satisfied with it.

as i'm doing this writeup, i think i want to move it higher. so a list re-jiggering is gonna happen while i move this up (and continue its writeup lol)

and SR ending poorly makes me very, very sad. might just have to let that sleeping dog lie.

Sometimes you have to live with bad endings to experience the great content that comes before. School Rumble wasn't diminished in my eyes from the ending. It was unfortunate, but the bulk of the content is great.

(i mean hey, i did watch the bulk of it in S1 and S2!)

7. Makafushigi Adventure - Dragon Ball OP
https://animethemes.moe/anime/dragon_ball/OP-DVD480

It's the oldest piece on this list by a decade and it shows in everything about it - the song itself, which sounds like it's from a different era, some of the animations which just seem a little not-perfectly-synced, running a little long in places, and not looking perfect. But I fucking love it. I love that this intro is 1:49 long. I love that it goes from this extremely, unapologetically-full-length, bombastic chorus to two verses to build anticipation. I love that tenor in the music - is it poor quality that makes it sound that way or is it just an echo or reverb that they do with the percussion? I love that it goes back to that initial bombastic verse to wrap the theme. It's actually probably best compared to A Cruel Angel's Thesis, but with a much better show and a more obviously "TV"-esque song.

There's a second version of this OP - same song but different animation - and it features King Piccolo and an older Goku. I like the older Goku there and I drastically prefer the plot arcs that come about starting with that second World Tournament - but this one just feels the most classic. I'm certain I'm not the only Dragon Ball fan who started with Z (possibly in a random arc) and eventually made their way back to the original DB. Since my experience with Z was with dubs, I didn't include the even-more-iconic Cha-La Head Cha-La here, even though it's arguably just as good or better - this more accurately represents my experience.

Dragon Ball was written as its own thing, of course. The ten-year-old Goku who appears at the beginning of Dragon Ball was always destined to have some adventures, but it was never written in the stars that he would become as iconic and memetic as he did. But because I watched Z first, the original Dragon Ball series has this feeling of being like a mythical origin story, and it's imbued with this feeling of being both a divine text and an incredible nostalgia trip. LIke the anime that will appear at #3 on this list, it's kind of impossible to watch a character go from child to adult (and over so many episodes!) and not feel some sort of emotion. DBZ doesn't get repped on this list, but like so many other people, I watched it as one of my first, and it's still one of my favorites, bowdlerized dub and all - the bowdlerization is part of its charm to me now.

While the non-nostalgic moment-to-moment excitement of DB is probably lower than that of Z to me, the iconic/great moments are legion - transforming into an ape (?!), training with Krillin, learning the Kamehameha, the villainous King Piccolo, and practically every match in a tournament. Of course, due to its legacy, more moments are iconic than perhaps deserve it compared to another anime. That's just the benefit you reap from becoming a legendary anime!

6. Get Over - Hikaru no Go OP1
https://animethemes.moe/anime/hikaru_no_go/OP1-NCBD1080

What a random anime to have such an amazing theme up here. While I actively disliked many parts of Eva, Hikaru no Go is... kind of... fine? It's essentially a sports anime and has a lot of fun sports tropes, but it rather suffers from being about a middle schooler. At this point I no longer care as many high schoolers even, so going to middle school and playing it straight (unlike, say, Higurashi) put a lot of emotional distance between me and the protagonist. The cast was pretty forgettable other than Sai.

And yet... it gets this freaking great OP. Like I don't really understand how this show gets this OP, but it fits it perfectly - a high-energy song with an optimism that really fits the age of its characters. Like ACAT with Eva, this song single-handedly carried my viewing experience of Hikaru no Go, but it does so in a purer way, since the show's lightness means it's more bingeworthy and therefore this song gets played more often. The animation also actually makes sense, even if some of the clips are cheesy - the epic freeze-frames of people playing Go are kind of ridiculous when the show doesn't actually thrive in ridiculousness the way Yu-Gi-Oh! does, e.g.

This song makes a return in the final five minutes of the final episode, and it's probably the best thing to happen during the entire second half of the series. Song is amazing front to back, but favorite part is 0:24 - 0:40. But even singling that part out feels crazy, because what makes the song instantly iconic is the intro chorus, and we get that both at the beginning and end... the whole thing is just great! It almost makes me want to rewatch this anime for it!

5. Just Awake - Hunter x Hunter 2011 ED (HxH theme 4 of 5)
https://animethemes.moe/anime/hunter_x_hunter_2011/ED1-BDLyrics

This is likely my favorite song in the top ten and has a good case for favorite song in the whole thing. I don't like a lot of metal but this one hits everything. And it has a highly effective animation to back it - introducing each character in still images to begin with, followed by some super-trippy lighting effects, but moving to different visuals with each section. Shout-out to Hisoka getting a whole screamo death metal rap section to himself followed by literally light shooting out of his crotch.

If anything holds Just Awake (which I've listened to many times) back, it's actually that I wasn't that big a fan of HxH's first arc. It's reasonably decent shounen with some really dumb ideas but surprisingly good execution on those dumb ideas. And because of the ED's aggressiveness, I didn't actually see the ED as being a "reason" to watch the episode the way I did for like Pokemon's OP or Cowboy Bebop's ED. It just happened to happen at the end of each episode, and it was pretty good. Actually paying attention to it has drastically increased my appreciation for it though.

4. Ready Steady Go - Fullmetal Alchemist 03 OP2 (FMA theme 1 of 2)
https://animethemes.moe/anime/fullmetal_alchemist/OP2-NCBD1080

This is the defining shounen OP to me - in fact, it's the highest-ranked on the list. It might not be strictly my favorite, but it's absolutely the correct song for this arc for this anime, and at syncing the images to the song at every turn. It blew my mind the first time I watched it and it still blows my mind every time now. I kind of can't believe this was only used for like twelve episodes, but from the hard intro to the LET'S GET STARTED READY STEADY GO, virtually every cut executes a beautiful shounen OP trope flawlessly:

- lingering image of important symbols
- singular cuts to characters with a cool visual flare
- character opens his eyes at exactly the point where the song really kicks into gear and the perspective shifts dramatically
- title card appears on the sky
- protagonists start running across the world
- leading into the first great musical section, Ed's hand clasps at exactly the right moment of the beat
- every main good guy appears in a montage in rhythm as the song bursts into a more melodic, joyous section
- quick glance of Scar, a future villain
- exciting short snippet of a battle scene with more villains
- PLEASE TRUST ME as the melodic section ends with Ed, on his knees, being offered salvation from Winry's hand
- rockin' quiet intro-outro with more flash-cut images including a sneaking shot of Ed and Al followed by Bradley followed by Ed reaching for the sky

Everything about those just hits exactly the right button with me, and watching it fills me with so much joy.

3. Toki wo Kizamu Uta - Clannad: After Story OP
https://animethemes.moe/anime/clannad_after_story_mou_hitotsu_no_sekai_kyou_hen/OP-NCBD1080

(Mild Clannad S1 spoilers unmarked, After Story spoilers marked)

I didn't like the first season of Clannad that much. There were some highlights, but every time that the anime got into a given harem route, I'd wind up enjoying that character less afterward - both Kotomi and Fucko* suffered from that.

I'm not sure when it was clear After Story was gonna be a ton better - maybe it was inevitable given the way Clannad ended and they dropped the dating sim aspect. But maybe it was this OP. It's incredibly moving from the getgo and the focus on Nagisa is already really apparent - though I still love the way it gives title cards to each harem member. (I actually seem to like title cards in general - DRRR and Baccano both benefit a lot from this!)

Anyway, After Story still has tons of shaky moments, but from the moment they graduate high school it starts to get really interesting. The physical frailty of Nagisa has been looming over the story from the beginning, and I don't particularly care for a sick girl storyline - but the way it affects this story is brilliant. Her failing to graduate high school is underplayed given how dramatic it is, and the mundanity with which that happens is all the more heartbreaking. It contributes to the sense of alienation, and leaving the rest of the cast behind is just as painful here as it is in real life. I didn't even particularly like everyone consciously, but over the course of a season and a half, they most have really grown on me.

Off the top of my head Clannad is one of two anime series that made me cry like this one did - and this one did it more than once. Going from dating sim to true love story is incredible. I wish there were more shows in general that looked at the beauty of a committed relationship - rather than focusing on just the dating aspect, or the comedic failures of a marriage. Nagisa and Okazaki have some minor conflicts but primarily just love each other here. Conflicts are external and are mostly just life - losing the family you find in high school, going from school to working, living under your in-laws' place because you don't have money, dealing with sickness and death, parenthood - and that's what makes it so powerful. And while there's a lot of incredibly serious emotion in After Story, the increased focus on Nagisa's parents is amazing.

That stretch from around episode 5 or so to episode 22 or so (it's been a while) is utterly unbelievable. I do think that eventually the repeated trauma gets a bit much in the end to the point where I actually felt a bit numb, and while the ending is satisfying, I don't particularly love that we miss out on exactly what happens after the time reset. It's a similar complaint I have with Steins;Gate's ending. Then there are the annoying-ish school parts and some contrived stuff...

... And yet, that singular stretch is such a high peak, and this is such a strong OP that I actually had to move it up from 7 to here. Clannad overall isn't really anywhere near my favorite show, and this OP in a vacuum might be high-ranking but not in the coveted uber-elite. But just watching it brings back all of those feelings - it's so gentle and pure, but so sweeping and grand, and that grandeur epitomizes this show about growth, loss, friendship, family, hope, and love. Watching and listening takes me back to all the best moments of the show and, just like in life, puts on rose-tinted glasses looking backward.

* This character's name shows up as a censor bypass which is apparently illegal so I've now modified it to be censor-friendly

woo just awake

SeabassDebeste posted...

* This character's name shows up as a censor bypass which is apparently illegal so I've now modified it to be censor-friendly

amazing

I don't really care for the ending of Clannad After Story, but the stretch of like 10-15 episodes before that is still outstanding enough to make it one of my favorite of all time.

The OP is great also yes.