Wednesday, September 23, 2015

T5W#6-Top 5 Anime Intros


Behold, this week it’s the ultimate “Get Pumped Up to Anime” playlist.  There’s nothing like sitting down in front of the TV on a Saturday morning with cereal and siblings, ready to enjoy the latest adventures of heroes and heroines and their merry band of allies.  And in some cases the intros end up being the best part of the show (COUGH COUGH GUNDAM SEED DESTINY COUGH).  So without further ado, my Top 5 Anime Intro’s.

 
#5-Sailor Moon Crystal-Moon Pride
This might surprise most people.  I haven’t finished Sailor Moon Crystal, it just kind of fell to the back of the wagon after I found other shows.  But I really enjoyed this pumped up reintroduction to the Sailor Senshi Quintet.  The melody and rhythm is catchy, the guitar gives it a bit of an action edge and, tbh it’s kind of nice to see the Senshi back in action.  Say what you will about Crystal, the theme song, Moon Pride, was a solid way to get attention back into everyone’s favorite Guardian in a Sailor Suit.

 

#4-Gundam Build Fighters-Nibun No Ichi
A Gundam series had to make it onto this list somehow, the franchise is littered with dozens of good candidates.  As tempting as it was to put Wing’s “Just Communication” or “Rhythm Emotion” on here, I opted to go with the theme from a recent series that puts a smile on my face.  “Nibun No Ichi” feels like the call to a friendly get together: to join up with friends, build some Gunpla and pit em against each other if only to find out how to make them work better than before.  When you hear it and youre on your way to do something fun, you agree with the lyrics, “Everything’s gonna be alright” (wish I could say the same about Build Fighters Try but ive fussed about that more than enough).

 

#3-Stien’s Gate-Hacking Through the Gate
This one’s a bit more recent and while I haven’t watched the show in full, the opening is everything I kind of look for in a song: it’s haunting which makes it memorable, it has that bombastic middle which makes it sound epic, it’s the nigh perfect starter for a series.  Adding in the vivid radio signals at the very beginning make me wonder if this could have been a good anime substititute theme for Doctor Who…nah they’d go with a variation of the classic theme on that one.  Plus, once the chorus gets going you just want to kick all kinds of ass…and that’s really important for me.

 

#2-Red Faction-Black Lagoon
As soon as the guitar is reved, it’s time to break out the booze and bullets.  This is the ultimate action intro with a heart thumping beat that’s as violent and exciting as the action on the show.  I wish it would have made an appearance within the show itself as I could definitely see Revy and Dutch blasting away with this playing over the action.  Just type in the term “bad ass in Anime” and this song should come right to the forefront.

 

#1-Dragon Ball Z-Cha La Head Cha La
The quintessential intro.  But more importantly, it’s the first full blown Japanese intro I can remember hearing.  When DBZ was airing on the International Channel a very long time ago, it was run in full, raw Japanese, no subtitles (they later continued this with their airing of Dragon Ball GT).  So not only was it wild stumbling across episodes that hadn’t aired in the states yet, it was wild hearing the amazing opening theme.  It definitely got you pumped, more so than Rock the Dragon imho.  This is as classic as my childhood with Anime gets and I doubt id have as much an appretiation for opening themes without it…especially that bit where the pods crash, the team assembles (both versions) and Goku drops in to finish it up.

Maybe I’ll do endings next week?  Make this a bit of a two part listing lol.

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