A Certain Anime Music Tournament

The INTENSITY!
The INTENSITY!

If the prospect of seeing anime music like “Ai wo Torimodose” going up against “Toki wo Kizamu Uta” in a popularity contest is something that tickles your fancy, you just might want to check out my latest project that’s kicked up over at the Animusic Tourney.

The idea behind the tourney is simple enough: people go in and nominate a bunch of anime opening, ending, or insert songs that they happen to like. The songs then get seeded according to how people nominate and are then placed in a head to head vote where the song that gets the most votes wins and advances until it falls to some almighty track or succeeds in defeating all other comers to win it all! Along the way, people might discover new tunes to cherish and new artists to fawn over. There might even be some cool discussions that result. No matter what happens though, the primary objective is to indulge in a fun, social exercise.

After all, the most accessible parts of anime music, for better or for worse, are still the opening, ending, and insert songs. They all come up in the anime at a time where they’re allowed to assert their presence, diverting the viewer’s attention somewhat away from the ongoing narrative and on to the sweet combination of vocals and instrumentals. On top of that, there’s so much diversity to be had that the nominations are fairly eclectic, both between different nominations and within nominations. It’s a world where R&B nestles comfortably among J-pop, where grandiose, operatic works have no problem sharing their turf with rap. In other words, a wonderful place to be in.

And after seeing so many messageboard threads where people post their top 10 anison, I figured we’re about due to have an enjoyable little diversion where we can witness the likes of “Uninstall” duking it out against “Tabi no Tochuu” while “Cruel Angel’s Thesis” looks on with a smug expression, content as it sits atop its high perch watching the rabble fight for scraps of votes. For all this to occur, we do need people to head on over and start nominating.

In case this isn’t enough, Aeroblip and I talk about the tourney in the last 20 minutes of the latest podcast at Desu ex Machina. Give it a listen to get an idea of the tone I’m effectively setting (i.e. light and fun, mostly).

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Anime Instrumentality's Founder and Editor-in-Chief. As you can probably guess, I'm a big anime music junkie with a special love for composers who've put out some beautiful melodies to accompany some of my favorite anime series. I tend to gravitate towards music in the classical style with Joe Hisaishi and Yoko Kanno being a few of my favorite composers, but I've come to appreciate jazz and rock as anime music has widened my tastes.

13 thoughts on “A Certain Anime Music Tournament

  • June 17, 2013 at 2:44 am
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    I’ll go with this I guess. I’m sure I forgot about some great songs but oh well. Not going to waste time thinking about it.

    01 Sousei no Aquarion – Sousei no Aquarion
    02 Turn A Gundam – Tsuki no Mayu
    03 Fullmetal Alchemist – Brothers
    04 Gurren Lagann – “Libera me” From Hell
    05 Cowboy Bebop – Tank!
    06 Break Blade – Fate
    07 Bakemonogatari – Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari
    08 Baccano! – Gun’s & Roses
    09 Haibane Renmei – Free Bird
    10 Tytania – Ano Sora wo, Ike
    11 Wolf’s Rain – gravity
    12 Bokurano – Uninstall
    13 Eden of the East – light prayer
    14 Angel Beats! – My Soul, Your Beats!
    15 Code Geass – COLORS

    I fully expect the nominations to be dominated by stuff from 2011-2013.

    Reply
    • June 20, 2013 at 10:48 pm
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      @random
      Well, there’s the almighty Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari to take into account. I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but I’d be disappointed if that doesn’t get into the top8. And, of course, I suspect Gun’s & Roses will have a strong showing as well. We’ll have to see… perusing the nominations so far has been interesting to say the least.

      Reply
    • June 20, 2013 at 10:51 pm
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      @LovelyAngel Amy
      Holy crap, that’s quite a list to pare down. And looking at it, there are a few on there that I really should be including on my list. Good thing I haven’t submitted just yet.

      Reply
  • June 17, 2013 at 9:26 pm
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    Also, just letting you know that this page in particular appears to be broken at the time of this comment. Pic: http://i7.minus.com/iYk89DcXk8qGo.png

    The main page and other blog posts still appear correctly (checked on Chrome and Firefox no addons).

    Reply
    • June 20, 2013 at 10:52 pm
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      @random
      Must be a cache issue with someone using the mobile version or something. Hopefully it all checks out and is resolved by now.

      Reply
      • June 24, 2013 at 12:50 pm
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        Yep, it seems to have fixed itself. Thanks.

    • June 20, 2013 at 10:53 pm
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      @Yumeka
      And the test of this tournament will be to see whether timeless songs truly are timeless! Needless to say, I’m pretty eager to see how things go!

      Reply
  • June 19, 2013 at 9:10 am
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    I can’t narrow them down to 15. Even less rank them. I’ll be checking out the submissions though.

    Reply
    • June 20, 2013 at 10:54 pm
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      @Stef
      Definitely a challenge for sure. Looking forward to your commentaries on the tourney.

      Reply
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  • June 27, 2022 at 1:20 pm
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    Heh. I just came across my spreadsheet with all my picks from this tournament, and I thought I’d see if it still existed on the interwebs. Now I’m firmly down the rabbit hole of listening to it all – the music still holds up today 🙂

    Reply

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