I love anime music, and it is one of the main things I look forward to each new anime season. And as we have 60 new anime this season, we also have 60 new openings and endings — in addition to the new second-half themes from the Q1 anime that are still on the air.
So below are some of my favourite opening and ending songs from the anime that are currently airing during the Q2 2014 season in Japan.
Anime: Blade & Soul
Song: “RAINBOW”
Artist: LEGO BIG MORL
Why Do I Love It?: Who knew that adding a multicolored trail to a fan dance would be so beautiful? Moreover, the dance is choreographed to the song so both the visuals and music work together perfectly.
Anime: Brynhildr in the Darkness
Song: “BRYNHILDR IN THE DARKNESS -Ver. EJECTED-”
Artist: Nao Tokisawa
Why Do I Love It?: This is a song with no lyrics that gets you pumped up through a constantly building cord progression with a bit of dubstep and operatic choir vocals thrown in for good measure.
Anime: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Startdust Crusaders
Song: “Walk Like an Egyptian”
Artist: The Bangels
Why Do I Love It?: A song that screams ’80s is a perfect fit for the most ’80s anime to come out in decades — and given that a large portion of the story takes place in Egypt, the song is all the more apt.
Anime: No Game No Life
Song: “This game”
Artist: Konomi Suzuki
Why Do I Love It?: This is a beautiful looking opening and shows off the series’ bright animation style to its fullest. Moreover, the song itself has an excellent build up to the chorus and is one of the few of the season I often leave on repeat while I work.
Anime: The Irregular at Magic High School
Song: “Rising Hope”
Artist: LiSA
Why Do I Love It?: If you are a fan of the first opening to Sword Art Online, you know what to expect from a song by LiSA — and this one doesn’t disappoint. Coupled with great visuals of flashy magic and epic-looking battles, it’s one I never get tired of watching.
Anime: M3 the Dark Metal
Song: “Re:Remember”
Artist: May’n
Why Do I Love It?: A somewhat slow, uplifting song juxtaposed to scenes of mecha battles with monsters always makes for an interesting watch that primes your emotions for the episode to come.
Anime: Black Bullet
Song: “Tokohana”
Artist: Nagi Yanagi
Why Do I Love It?: The intro of the song is haunting when combined with the image of a little girl sleeping in the ruins of a destroyed building. The rest of the song, while of a quite different tone, isn’t half bad either.
Anime: Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers
Song: “Tsukiyabureru – Time to SMASH!”
Artist: T.M. Revolution
Why Do I Love It?: If you have ever watched Gundam SEED (or numerous other mecha/shonen anime), you know what to expect from a T.M. Revolution song — and combining it with animation showing children who basically keep the Avengers in pokéballs makes for an opening that gets a laugh out of me every time.
Anime: The Kawai Complex Guide to Manors and Hostel Behaviour
Song: “Itsuka no, Ikutsuka no Kimi to no Sekai”
Artist: Fhana
Why Do I Love It?: It’s a laid back song that’s enjoyable in and of itself, but add to it images like the rain of words in the animation and it turns into something really beautiful.
Anime: Knights of Sidonia
Song: “Sidonia”
Artist: Angela
Why Do I Love It?: It has a truly interesting song that alternates between a militaristic march (with a cord progression commonly found in traditional Japanese music) and a fast-paced J-pop track that sounds like it was pulled straight out of a music game.
Comments
20 responses to “10 Awesome Anime Openings And Endings From Q2 2014”
I didn’t realise Knights of Sidonia was going to be 3D animated. Agh, the manga are really, really good and if the series interests anyone at all I highly recommend you read the manga. It’s a crapload better!
Have you watched the series so far? it’s actually really good. I’ve read the manga and the biggest problem for me would be the battle scenes often being clustered and confusing in the earlier chapters.
The 3D might be weird at first but it has its charm the only issue would be the low frame rate around battle scenes. Sound direction is absolutely amazing giving the ominous feeling of space and the suspense of battles.
The anime so far has actually been following the manga quite closely however they have skipped a few flashbacks. That said, not sure if the anime will catch up with the manga without ruining the pacing. Hopefully 2nd season worthy if sales are good.
You missed the Tonari no Seki-kun op, short but best one I’ve seen in a long time.
It’s from last season, which is why it’s not listed
Yeah, but it has been running through this season so I reckon it should count
Forget the Tonari no Seki-kun op…
The ed is better… (Not to say the op is bad… but prefer the ed)
Yeah, I actually had to look that one up on the tubes and source it.
Akira Jimbo – Set Them Free.
Full youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhQ1X2KwMY0
And yeah, that’s one I let run every time. Also, partly for the expressions on the characters. That Seki-kun kid is boss.
I utterly adore Angela’s work on the Knights of Sidonia OP. That band always do epic OP tracks.
The anime this season is terrible.
No Game No Life among others greatly disagrees with you
One of the better ones, but ‘m more of a type A anime fan and this season is really lacking any well written story focused anime, besides really mushishi, but mushishi is a strange beast in terms of its episodic direction and storylines and I already bought the manga years ago.
I’m a bit dissapointed break blade is just a split up version of its movies that isnt going to continue the story afterwards anyway.
I have to agree that this season overall is pretty flat.
Shows like Mahouka are a little disappointing…
While I find Bokura wa Miinna Kawaisou has surprisingly grown on me,
And NGNL release day is the best day of the week.
I am finding most days I have no new shows that are “must watch”.
Maybe work is just that boring this season 😉
In my opinion the last 3 seasons have generally been somewhat lackluster. It depends however on what you like and what your level of anime snobiness is.
From a quality point of view I personally think it hasn’t been fantastic but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy it. I still sure as heck enjoyed some of the anime from the last seasons even if it’s a little cliched.
Agreed. It’s been tough hanging onto anything that looked decent at the beginning, but now everything just seems to have lost steam. Thank god for another Dragon Ball Kai season, at least I have something moderately interesting to rewatch lol
That Blade and Soul video looks pulled straight from Eurovision!
Mekakucity Actors and Akuma no Riddles OP are another two that are awesome, both have awesome music as well as just being exciting to watch rather than skipping over.
Honourable mention should go to Akuma no Riddle’s multiple custom EDs.
I’m sorry, but the OP to Futakoi Alternative will forever sum up all anime for me.
Brynhildr’s OP has been my #1 this season. Absolutely love it!
Also, has anyone noticed that Black Bullets theme sounds a HELL of a lot like Attack on Titans? Maybe that’s just me. In an odd way it would make a bit of sense though, considering the VA for Rentaro is also Eren Jaeger.
Also you’re missing the OP for Captain Earth! HOW DO YOU MISS THE SECOND BEST OP OF THIS SEASON?! Eh, guess it’s an opinion thing.
I agree with the JoJo ending, but the opening for JoJo (and every other opening for JoJo) is so fucking good.
JOJO! JOJO! JOJO!