Part 1
Part 2

Before we get into the final installment of his talk, I just wanted to note that Alex did put up a post listing all of the OP/EDs that he had used for the Anime Expo presentation. And according to his schedule, he’ll be at Otakon from July 17-19 where he’ll be giving the same presentation so even though you’re reading this, I’d definitely encourage you all to attend since he’s a very enthusiastic speaker and presenter. So with that out of the way, here’s part 3 of his presentation:

I don’t think it’s a secret that OP/EDs have long been used as a way to promote artists by using their music during the OP/ED sequence to allow viewers to listen to the artists’ music and hopefully get them to try out other works by the artist in question. It’s a trait that I notice with more popular shows like Bleach, Full Metal Alchemist, and Naruto. Heck, I’m sure you can think of a few OP/ED sequences that had a marketing motive rather than trying to articulate the show’s core themes. The example Alex used to illustrate this concept was an interview with Anna Tsuchiya that appeared at the end of a Nana episode. During that sequence, she took us through the song and what she was trying to describe the overall tone of the song. I didn’t really pay attention too much to the music though, so I wouldn’t be able to tell you much about it though.

But that made for a short aside as we moved back into some of the better-known OP/ED sequences. Like with Haruhi’s “Hare Hare Yukai” in the previous post, there’s no way a presentation on this subject is complete without talking about Cowboy Bebop’s OP, “Tank!” This piece should be familiar with most people since it’s been touted as one of the most memorable OPs out there with its attention-grabbing jazz and animation. As a bonus, Alex played the complete version of “Tank!” (as opposed to just the TV-size version) to demonstrate just how much more complete the full version feels since the artists are able to develop the song further by giving them the chance to bring out interesting jazz rhythms and melodies unto the listener without being constrained by time.

Next up is Gurren Lagaan’s OP “Sorairo Days” which does an excellent job of infusing that whole “boy seeks and finds destiny” atmosphere into the viewer through Shoko Nagawa’s performance. While that song is fairly enjoyable, I found this choice more compelling from the animation standpoint. That also seemed to be what Alex was gunning after since he talked briefly about how some shows set it up so that the opening animation changes as the show progresses and with Gurren Lagaan, it was the way a certain character was removed entirely as the show went on. Another thing to note was that the OP would use “Sorairo Days’” second verse for the second half of the show. It’s not an unusual step, but it’s not exactly common either so it’s something to note while you’re watching a show.

And sometimes, anime just imitates life and another anime will imitate the anime imitating life. Did you get that? Well, Alex drew a comparison between The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love?’s ED and the idol phenomenon that was prevalent during that time period. Just watch the ED and watch the animated singer’s (Lynn Minmay’s) movements which capture the sort of performance that one would expect from an idol performance. Decades later, Kannagi’s OP “motto☆Hade ni ne!,” would follow suit and Alex thought it did a decent job in the way it functioned as a tribute to Macross: DYRL’s ED. Although the similarities with Kannagi are rather striking, I’m still not convinced that Kannagi’s OP is a tribute so much as a parody of the idol culture, but Alex’s thoughts do have some merit, especially if you look at Nagi’s hand movements and compare them to Lynn Minmay’s. Alex also touched a bit on the Macross franchise which he affectionately described it as a sci-fi anime series with an intergalatic war backdrop where the war would come to a halt with the appearance of a singer whose songs are capable of bringing about an era of peace. Silly as it is, Macross fans will tell you that it works and works really well.

Before moving on to the next OP/ED, Alex briefly sidetracked into a discussion of some OPs that he felt misrepresented the show as a whole. His example here was Noir, which had a very enjoyable OP that was undone by the anime’s poor pacing. While the first episode had a decent dose of action, including that scene when one of the protagonists kills a man by strangling him with his own necktie, everything else just went downhill after that as the series plodded on at a sluggish pace. But that’s Bee Train for you, so nothing more needs to be said here.

Anyways, the next example that he trotted out was none other than the infamous One Piece opening and that was used to illustrate the sorry state of how OPs would get butchered when they were licensed and shown on Western TV. The original OP wasn’t horrid (but not my cup of tea) because it possessed a good amount of energy that made the show feel fun and exciting. It also had good usage of sound effects to help the audience connect with the characters. So when the show got brought to the US, the marketing executives decided in their infinite wisdom to replace the OP with a hip hop song that was hilariously bad in its attempt to sound badass. Gone is the dosage of fun that went into the show and instead, we get a rap song that tries too hard to be cool and ends up failing hard. As you might have expected, the audience was groaning pretty hard by the end because of how unbelievably bad it was. And to add more pain to the mix, Alex kindly reminded us how badly Escaflowne was butchered when it was transported to the States. Let us cease speaking about such evils lest they come back to haunt us someday.

Everything that took place after this point was just a bonus because of the time extension and Alex remarked about the OPs that interested him because they didn’t use any animation from the series itself. Before going into the samples, he did talk a bit about some false expectations to come out of OPs, pointing out to an incredibly badass fight in one particular Full Metal Alchemists OP that unfortunately never happened even though it got the audience psyched up for the encounter. The fact that it never transpired was a letdown to say the least. So the next few OP/EDs that he showed us don’t use footage from the show, but they’re not misleading either. Honey and Clover, as you can see, uses that artsy animation that doesn’t have much to do with the show, but it sure catches your attention through its clever execution. It also doesn’t hurt that the claw thing at the end never ceases to amuse me, at least, after catching me by surprise the first time through. Nodame Cantabile’s OP struck Alex in the same way Honey and Clover’s did, particularly in the way the musical instruments were synced to the music. Finally, Eden of the East’s ED was notable for making creative use of animated paper art to convey a small portion of Eden’s main plot and I think many people (myself included) who saw that when Eden ran found it to be very well-executed.

And because Eden of the East was brought out, the audience got Alex to show the OP. Like the previous three, this one also doesn’t use any footage from the anime series though this one gets the distinction for using Oasis’s music. Although music by Westerners isn’t an uncommon occurrence, it doesn’t happen all that often either, which is enough for people to take note of “Falling Down.” Alex also mentioned something about Production I.G. doing a music video set to this song, but like him, I’m not actually sure whether that’s been released yet, so if anyone can confirm its status, that’d be nice to know.

That pretty much concluded the presentation. Hopefully by reading this, you were able to get a feel for how his presentation ran and that you got something out of this. Like I said at the beginning, he’ll be at Otakon, so for those attending, even if you’ve read this, I highly encourage you to go since he might throw a few things into the mix now that these posts have been written. All thoughts on this series of posts as well as Alex’s presentation are most welcome and I’ll try to answer any questions about the panel for those who have questions (assuming my brain can recall the finer points). Hope you all enjoyed this is much as I enjoyed writing this!

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the Winter season was disappointing, both in the quality of the shows as well as the music end of things. We got maybe one good soundtrack out of it and the OP/ED themes are mostly a bunch of misses save for a few decent ones (and Sorrow-kun practically got the OP/ED bases mostly covered save for the omission of Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou’s ED “Aishiteru”, my opinion though, not his).

But now that Spring 2009′s season is well under way, this one has definitely been filled with a lot of interesting titles and, as depthcharge101 noted in his comment in an earlier post, it’s packed with some pretty promising soundtracks as well. Anyhow, here’s a list of the shows I’m following and what I think of their soundtracks based on the few episodes I’ve seen so far. These commentaries are not meant to be very in-depth in their analysis and my opinion could easily change as the series progresses, so please keep that in the back of your mind. Without further ado, let’s begin.

Eden of the East
No, this blog isn’t really supposed to deal with plot or anything important like that, but I’d just like to comment that this series has given us the best two episodes from any anime series shown so far this spring season. The soundtrack has also been enjoyable since we have Kenji Kawai behind the reins and he’s done an excellent job mixing some of the more calming, heartfelt themes, like when Saki and Akira are together just interacting (great on-screen chemistry by the way) and divulging backstories, along with some of the pieces that are heavy on the tension. Kawai doesn’t restrict himself to a single medium either and I was able to catch some solo piano, some synth here and there, and of course, some orchestral which means that we can expect an excellent, varied soundtrack to come out of this one.

Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Yes, I do realize that writing a piece of music that’s as heartfelt and sentimental as Michiru Ooshima’s “Brothers / Brajita” is nigh impossible and for that matter, trying to write a soundtrack on par with Ooshima’s efforts on FMA’s first season is one hell of a tall order. But in spite of these high expectations, I’ve been enjoying what Akira Senju has delivered. If you’ve heard any of his stuff from Red Garden and Princess Arete, you will be able to pick up on a few themes that he reuses for FMA2. By and large, this soundtrack has been able to excel in terms of conveying a sense of the melancholy which is fitting given what’s transpired so far in the series. I do have faith in the fact that he’ll be able to pull off another memorable soundtrack and will definitely be getting this one once it comes out.

Guin Saga
I’ve only been through one episode of this series so far, but already, the plot’s looking pretty good with a Berserk-ish atmosphere that pervades the overall series. The music has also been really enjoyable, but curiously enough, I haven’t been able to identify any Uematsu-isms in the soundtrack so far. Uematsu seems to be focused on providing an epic orchestral experience and so far, has delivered upon that. What we haven’t gotten a lot of are his signature synth melodies that are readily identifiable (give Blue Dragon’s Soundtrack a listen sometime to understand what I’m getting at since I admit it’s hard to explain) and it’s too early to tell whether that’s a good or bad thing. For what it’s worth, I’ve enjoyed the pieces I’ve heard from Guin Saga’s first episode than I did with Blue Dragon, so that’s got to count for something.

Hayate the Combat Butler!!
With Kotaro Nakagawa at the helm, one might expect great things given his previous works on PlanetES and Code Geass, but like his earlier soundtrack for Hayate the Combat Butler, it doesn’t really stand out all too much. Indeed, the anime series will shamelessly peddle character CDs (of which there are too many to keep track of), but the BGM seems to be more of an afterthought. At least the music still fits the series and doesn’t stand out as being conspicuous in a negative way even if it’s just a bit on the forgettable end.

K-ON!
Surprisingly enough, K-ON! has one of the weaker soundtracks this season since the show doesn’t seem to be prioritizing the musical aspects as much as the comedic character interactions. The times when I did pay attention to the background music resulted in a rather lukewarm impression. While there isn’t anything inherently wrong with the music per se, its lackluster melodies aren’t anything to write home about and don’t impact the series much, if at all. In a way, this isn’t too different from Kyoto Animation’s other shows that don’t rely on Key visual novels (e.g. Clannad, Kanon) or a sequel to a franchise whose first season was done by another animation studio (Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid). Not that it matters much since everyone will be too distracted by the characters’ antics to really care about the soundtrack (myself included).

Ristorante Paradiso
I really like this show’s atmosphere. It’s seeped with class and when you put the music on top of it, you can effectively label it as a show with an environment similar to Bartender’s but with a soundtrack that’s almost ARIA-esque. Appropriate too because according to TheBigN, some of the musicians working on Ristorante Paradiso also plied their trade as members of the Choro Club. Obviously, that revelation ranks high up there on things that are very much relevant to my interests and needless to say, I’m highly highly anticipating this soundtrack’s release.

Saki
Gonzo certainly has a knack for producing anime series with above average soundtracks. Give the soundtrack to the oft-maligned Strike Witches a listen and you can see how Seikou Nagaoka manages to interweave militaristic and slice of life themes in one decent soundtrack. Mind you, it’s nothing great, but nothing bad either.

So with Saki, we get a mix of pleasant pieces that flow really well with what’s taking place on screen and if you’ve followed lelangir’s music blog in the least, you will note that he’s already got one piece from Saki transcribed for your enjoyment. It’s a nice, dainty piece that fits in with the tone of the series so far, but there will undoubtedly be some serious pieces once the series begins to focus on the intense mahjong matches to come. How memorable the soundtrack will be at that point is anyone’s guess, so it’s a matter of waiting and seeing at this stage.

Sengoku Basara
If you’ve played the Dynasty Warriors series of games, you’ve pretty much got an idea as to how this series sounds. There are points where you hear some epic orchestral music and once the action heats up, there will be plenty of rhythm-heavy music (read: techno) to flow with the intensity of the action on screen. Because of the heavy influx of of techno and electronica as well as the show’s tone which reeks of silliness, I don’t expect anything great to come out of this and unless I hear more promising tracks down the line, this will be another soundtrack to forget.

Valkyria Chronicles
There’s not really much to say about this particular title since everything is going about as well as I’ve expected from the soundtrack front (though apparently people are annoyed that Alicia is coming off as a tsundere). As for the music, Sakimoto hasn’t deviated at all from the game soundtrack yet and I’ve been recognizing the tracks left and right, which means that my expectations have been met. It should be noted that according to an interview with Sakimoto over at Original Sound Version, we have this little gem:

Sakimoto: Also at the beginning of April, I can’t remember the exact date, but the animation series for Valkyria will start as well.

OSV: And you’re scoring the entire thing?

Sakimoto: Yes. But the atmosphere of the music in the animation is very different from the game. The director loved comical style music, so I guess you’ll just have to hear it.

OSV: Were these team-based or by yourself?

Sakimoto: Valkyria is being done by myself, but Muramasa is by Basiscape.

This might not bode well for fans of the game if there will be more emphasis on the more comical moments rather than a drama-heavy war-themed series. Either way, I’ll be interested in seeing how this plays out should the Valkyria Chronicles anime get a soundtrack of its own.

The Final Word
The lineup has been pretty solid through and through and though there are a few notable shows that are not listed here but show promise in the realm of soundtracks (Pandora Hearts, scored by Yuki Kajiura, being the main one), I’m definitely looking forwards giving most of the ones on this list a listen. Given my current status, I’ll only be able to review a small fraction of them (quite possibly just one), so stay tuned for those. And of course, as of this posting, K-ON!’s OP and ED singles have both been released, so you pretty much know what I’ll be working on for the next couple of days.

And of course, feel free to share any series not on this list which might have some decent BGM that’s worthy of a listen. Stuff does fly under my radar, so any recommendations on the music front are always welcome.