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| Cartoon by Christopher McElfresh |
35 - Upotte!!
"I.N.G."
Iori Nomizu and Misuzu Togashi
Upotte is a pretty crazy show and this opening just may be perfect for it. It is certainly average in its content considering how crazy the show is, but it is well-composed. The scene where the lead girls are presented in front of their guns the embody.. or represent... or whatever and the flag of the nation the gun originates from. The song is typical J-pop fare but it’s fun enough and fits the tone well. All-in-all, I like this intro. It’s odd but lively.
Chris
Sooo.. Upotte.. Its an anime.. where the girls are like.. guns.. or something? Eh.. It’s alright I suppose.. for an opening. The song is memorable enough. It tells you the gist of what you’re going to see by outlining the guns as they show the characters.
-Craig
34 - Sayonara Zetsuobu-Sensei
"Hito Toshite Jiku ga Bureteiru"
Kenji Ohtsuki
This may be one of the... odder anime intros out there. Unlike a lot of the more conventional openings, that of Sayonara Zetsuoby-Sensei is a blend of free-association imagery and overt sexuality. The images of girls with their faces missing, replaced with Kanji are... kind of disturbing and the overall pace of the opening is truly frantic which works quite well with the hyperactive rock song that is the perfect contrast to the muted color palette.
-Chris
This was a good one. It will get stuck in your head as its quite memorable. The anime itself is about a teacher who frequently caves into despair and tries to kill himself because of it, and a student of his who can only see things positively, and has no pessimistic qualities at all. The opening has a very unorthodox choice of art, as it shows all kinds of shibari ( japanese rope bondage ), among other things. Strange, but definitely memorable.
- Craig
33 - This Ugly Yet Beautiful World
"Metemorphose"
Yoko Takahashi
The striking strings chorus saves, for me, what would have otherwise been a pretty mediocre opening. The characters pose and flaunt their roles in the story in a very traditional way. Still, the overall flow of each scene, the character design and the haunting orchestral rock theme work very well together. This is a great way to start off any show.
-Chris
32 - Lucky Star
"Take It! Sailor Uniform"
Aya Hirano, Emiri Katō, Kaori Fukuhara, and Aya Endo
Ho-boy. Okay. So this is one of those anime that just hit me the wrong way when I watched (some) of it. It isn’t my favorite. The opening, while well-animated is a little too weird for me. The fourth-wall breaking music video style is certainly funny in context, but the rapid, very wordy theme song is a little too much for me.
-Chris
This was one I liked more than Chris and Bryan did myself. The first episode of Lucky Star is sort of insufferable, but the anime itself is packed with obscure references to many things. The art style is very crisp and clean, and consistently shows just how good an anime can look when it isn’t dumbed down by the production process. It almost seems cell-shaded in a way, if you understand the meaning of the words.
-Craig
31 - Air
"Tori no Uta (Bird's Poem)"
Lia of I've Sound
This is one of the many anime I have not seen but the intro is a clean, simple display of good artwork and a haunting melody that is somewhat soothing despite the techno beat. I cannot reiterate enough how good the background art looks here. The intro to Air paints a picturesque precursor.
-Chris
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