DISCLAIMER: DON'T CRY WHEN YOUR ANIME DOESN'T MAKE THE CUT
#10-THE GOOD 4KIDS OPENINGS
4kids is notoriously shitty at localizing anime. Hell, some people are still scarred by the heaving censoring of One Piece (not me though, I don't care.) They turned rice balls into donuts, cigarettes into lollipops, and bento boxes into McDonalds, but you'd only be lying to yourself if you didn't this these themes were the best things ever. My dream is that they'll disband and Funimation will take all their musicians a make sweet English tunes forever.
#9-SERIAL EXPERIMENTS LAIN
I ain't gonna lie, this is still in my backlog. I hope its good because I need to check this out after watching Yuru Yuri. Of all anime, am I right? But I digress. This theme...seems(?) to set the tone for, Big Brother type dystopian society? There's this girl and she seems a little absent minded. I don't know why but, you'd know if you saw it. I haven't.
#8-GHOST STORIES
This anime is shit in Japanese and pretty much a practical joke in English, but man is that one terrific song. This anime doesn't even deserve a song this good. The chord progressions, the vocals, the queue's, the lyrics, the solo in the full song. It's like a masterpiece painted on an abandoned building. The imagery isn't even good either. Hell, its pretty boring. But this song is just so powerful, so energetic, I JUST WANNA GO OUTSIDE AND RUN UNTIL I DIE!
#7-NEON GENESIS EVANGELION
Bongos. Trumpets. Subliminal messages. Staring off into the distance. All of these things make for one of the most perfect and influential anime themes ever created. My favorite thing about Evangelion's theme is that it's simple, but its not boring. It shows a lot but it doesn't tell the whole story of everything. And its not some J-pop song they bought for $10 either, this sounds like some tango song or something. Its just so cool!
#6-ALL THE BLOOD+ THEMES
That first one is just the best one out of the batch man. The guitar sounds like a sitar for some reason, and its all nice and calm, the the drums come in and ITS LIKE SOMEONE BOMBED YOUR HOUSE! THEN SAYA STARTS RUNNING AND THERE'S ANIME LINES BEHIND HER AND SHE'S FLIPPING HER KITANA AND then it calms and shows eyes and embryo's and x-rays until they start palm-muting the guitars then your realize you only have so much time before they come back AND ROCK YOUR SOCKS OFF TO HELL AND BACK! Man it's so great. The second theme is just chill and its a sweet tune to go with the best arc of the show when they find out about all this corporate conspiracy and these other freaks. But it has this fun and carefree attitude to it that, in the sense of the show, is long forgotten. The dad died and they're on this chase to kill a girl just like Saya and all their friends are all like "Wha..they were just a group of adopted kids from Okinawa..." and its kind of sad. The third theme is pretty meh, but compared to other anime themes its good for what it is. The show started to suck at that point. And the forth one has some pretty not good vocals, but the visuals and the instrumentation make up for it. Its pretty good anyway though, like a mistake that solves the problem. At that point the show got its shit together and stopped being "Hey lets go kill Saya and fail" "Hey I'm Saya and I keep having a flashback where I run in a CGI hallway." and was just people turning into monsters and hacking and slashing. Man, 1/4th of the show sucked.
#5-FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST BROTHERHOOD FIRST OPENING
Its been 5 years since we saw the Elric brothers on TV. They failed to bring back their mother and restore their bodies, BUT NOW THEIR BACK TO KICK SOME ASS! This is pretty much what this theme song is saying. I like it because this anime has a lot of action but maintains its seriousness, and this song conveys that. And the other theme songs do too; the second theme is funner and the show has more action and a bigger sense of humor at this point with the introduction of those Chinese people, the third theme I actually don't know because this one was weird, etc. But man I think this theme song was what really made me care about theme songs.
#4-DR.SLUMP (1997) SECOND OPENING
Hey its another anime in my backlog. Now a lot of you might not know this but Akira Toryama, creator of the Dragon Ball series, had an anime/manga series about an android who ruthlessly destroyed the environment and ate shit with fairies...or something along those lines. Dr. Slump was more carefree of an anime and was just about an android who liked to mess around her home town. It was nice and relaxing and you watched it to take a load off. When I hear this song, I forget there are wars and plagues and racism, and just enjoy that woman's childish singing, as if she is innocent and carefree like a child. It's beautiful. But I HATE BRUNETTE ARALE!
#3-HIGH SCHOOL OF THE DEAD
CALL ME A PLEB ALL YOU WANT THIS SONG IS THE TITS MAN! HIGH IMPACT SEXUAL VIOLENCE! IF THIS SONG WAS MADE IN THE '70'S IT'D BE THE "FORTUNATE SON" OF EXPLOITATION FILMS! WHEN I HEAR THIS SONG I JUST WANNA DRIVE AND DRIVE UNTIL EVERYTHING IS DEAD AND I'VE LEFT THIS PLANET BEHIND! H.O.T.D. FOR LIFE!
#2-DRAGON BALL Z JAPANESE OPENING
Hironobu Kageyama, the man who sings this song, was a fanboy for Dragon Ball when he made this. He shat himself when the asked if he could make a theme song for Z, for which he replied "Make love to me on this table!" For real though, he considers this his best song and loves to perform it. Who could blame him? This song is not just a theme song; its an anthem. DBZ is an adventure of a lifetime (I actually liked Dragon Ball better but whatever) and this song, paired with the footage of glaciers breaking and Goku...gathering electricity(?) and great apes just let you know you're on an adventure of a fucking lifetime. I mean Rock the Dragon is cool and all, but it doesn't compare to the beauty and amazement in Cha-La Head-Cha-La.
Time for a quick list of the top 10 honorable mentions:
My Little Monster for reminding me of the early 2000's
Kill La Kill for having a HUGE spoiler in it and sounding so cool!
Gurren Laggan for being as epic as FUCKING TOSSING GALAXIES AT EACH OTHER!
Attack on Titan because despite me thinking it blows, the theme song is good (same with Sword Art Online)
Fist of the North Star for being the most hardcore love song
Paranoia Agent just for laughs
The Fourth Fullmetal Alchemist theme for being the only good one
Blood-C for having a theme song better than the entire show
Corpse Princess because even when they had it on Netflix no one watched it but its a good watch for being pretty mediocre
#1-MADOKA MAGICA
Oh man, I just cried a little. This theme is just tug after tug from the rug Madoka Magica pulls from under you. It's just a regular magical girl opening with some goofy wardrobe malfunctions, transformations, friendship, and girlish running to a song by clariS and you're like "oooh this looks like fun!" But really, this is all warming up to be one of the most tragic anime ever made. Just stop reading and go watch all 12 episodes, or just the first four if you just want a rough idea. Fuck Clannad. This is the real shit.
Thanks for reading!
#10-THE GOOD 4KIDS OPENINGS
4kids is notoriously shitty at localizing anime. Hell, some people are still scarred by the heaving censoring of One Piece (not me though, I don't care.) They turned rice balls into donuts, cigarettes into lollipops, and bento boxes into McDonalds, but you'd only be lying to yourself if you didn't this these themes were the best things ever. My dream is that they'll disband and Funimation will take all their musicians a make sweet English tunes forever.
#9-SERIAL EXPERIMENTS LAIN
I ain't gonna lie, this is still in my backlog. I hope its good because I need to check this out after watching Yuru Yuri. Of all anime, am I right? But I digress. This theme...seems(?) to set the tone for, Big Brother type dystopian society? There's this girl and she seems a little absent minded. I don't know why but, you'd know if you saw it. I haven't.
#8-GHOST STORIES
This anime is shit in Japanese and pretty much a practical joke in English, but man is that one terrific song. This anime doesn't even deserve a song this good. The chord progressions, the vocals, the queue's, the lyrics, the solo in the full song. It's like a masterpiece painted on an abandoned building. The imagery isn't even good either. Hell, its pretty boring. But this song is just so powerful, so energetic, I JUST WANNA GO OUTSIDE AND RUN UNTIL I DIE!
#7-NEON GENESIS EVANGELION
Bongos. Trumpets. Subliminal messages. Staring off into the distance. All of these things make for one of the most perfect and influential anime themes ever created. My favorite thing about Evangelion's theme is that it's simple, but its not boring. It shows a lot but it doesn't tell the whole story of everything. And its not some J-pop song they bought for $10 either, this sounds like some tango song or something. Its just so cool!
#6-ALL THE BLOOD+ THEMES
That first one is just the best one out of the batch man. The guitar sounds like a sitar for some reason, and its all nice and calm, the the drums come in and ITS LIKE SOMEONE BOMBED YOUR HOUSE! THEN SAYA STARTS RUNNING AND THERE'S ANIME LINES BEHIND HER AND SHE'S FLIPPING HER KITANA AND then it calms and shows eyes and embryo's and x-rays until they start palm-muting the guitars then your realize you only have so much time before they come back AND ROCK YOUR SOCKS OFF TO HELL AND BACK! Man it's so great. The second theme is just chill and its a sweet tune to go with the best arc of the show when they find out about all this corporate conspiracy and these other freaks. But it has this fun and carefree attitude to it that, in the sense of the show, is long forgotten. The dad died and they're on this chase to kill a girl just like Saya and all their friends are all like "Wha..they were just a group of adopted kids from Okinawa..." and its kind of sad. The third theme is pretty meh, but compared to other anime themes its good for what it is. The show started to suck at that point. And the forth one has some pretty not good vocals, but the visuals and the instrumentation make up for it. Its pretty good anyway though, like a mistake that solves the problem. At that point the show got its shit together and stopped being "Hey lets go kill Saya and fail" "Hey I'm Saya and I keep having a flashback where I run in a CGI hallway." and was just people turning into monsters and hacking and slashing. Man, 1/4th of the show sucked.
#5-FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST BROTHERHOOD FIRST OPENING
Its been 5 years since we saw the Elric brothers on TV. They failed to bring back their mother and restore their bodies, BUT NOW THEIR BACK TO KICK SOME ASS! This is pretty much what this theme song is saying. I like it because this anime has a lot of action but maintains its seriousness, and this song conveys that. And the other theme songs do too; the second theme is funner and the show has more action and a bigger sense of humor at this point with the introduction of those Chinese people, the third theme I actually don't know because this one was weird, etc. But man I think this theme song was what really made me care about theme songs.
#4-DR.SLUMP (1997) SECOND OPENING
Hey its another anime in my backlog. Now a lot of you might not know this but Akira Toryama, creator of the Dragon Ball series, had an anime/manga series about an android who ruthlessly destroyed the environment and ate shit with fairies...or something along those lines. Dr. Slump was more carefree of an anime and was just about an android who liked to mess around her home town. It was nice and relaxing and you watched it to take a load off. When I hear this song, I forget there are wars and plagues and racism, and just enjoy that woman's childish singing, as if she is innocent and carefree like a child. It's beautiful. But I HATE BRUNETTE ARALE!
#3-HIGH SCHOOL OF THE DEAD
CALL ME A PLEB ALL YOU WANT THIS SONG IS THE TITS MAN! HIGH IMPACT SEXUAL VIOLENCE! IF THIS SONG WAS MADE IN THE '70'S IT'D BE THE "FORTUNATE SON" OF EXPLOITATION FILMS! WHEN I HEAR THIS SONG I JUST WANNA DRIVE AND DRIVE UNTIL EVERYTHING IS DEAD AND I'VE LEFT THIS PLANET BEHIND! H.O.T.D. FOR LIFE!
#2-DRAGON BALL Z JAPANESE OPENING
Hironobu Kageyama, the man who sings this song, was a fanboy for Dragon Ball when he made this. He shat himself when the asked if he could make a theme song for Z, for which he replied "Make love to me on this table!" For real though, he considers this his best song and loves to perform it. Who could blame him? This song is not just a theme song; its an anthem. DBZ is an adventure of a lifetime (I actually liked Dragon Ball better but whatever) and this song, paired with the footage of glaciers breaking and Goku...gathering electricity(?) and great apes just let you know you're on an adventure of a fucking lifetime. I mean Rock the Dragon is cool and all, but it doesn't compare to the beauty and amazement in Cha-La Head-Cha-La.
Time for a quick list of the top 10 honorable mentions:
My Little Monster for reminding me of the early 2000's
Kill La Kill for having a HUGE spoiler in it and sounding so cool!
Gurren Laggan for being as epic as FUCKING TOSSING GALAXIES AT EACH OTHER!
Attack on Titan because despite me thinking it blows, the theme song is good (same with Sword Art Online)
Fist of the North Star for being the most hardcore love song
Paranoia Agent just for laughs
The Fourth Fullmetal Alchemist theme for being the only good one
Blood-C for having a theme song better than the entire show
Corpse Princess because even when they had it on Netflix no one watched it but its a good watch for being pretty mediocre
#1-MADOKA MAGICA
Oh man, I just cried a little. This theme is just tug after tug from the rug Madoka Magica pulls from under you. It's just a regular magical girl opening with some goofy wardrobe malfunctions, transformations, friendship, and girlish running to a song by clariS and you're like "oooh this looks like fun!" But really, this is all warming up to be one of the most tragic anime ever made. Just stop reading and go watch all 12 episodes, or just the first four if you just want a rough idea. Fuck Clannad. This is the real shit.
Thanks for reading!