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NEWS: 3 Anime Themes in May 20-27's Top Singles in Japan


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Trunks



Joined: 30 Jun 2002
Posts: 43
PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2007 12:28 pm Reply with quote
Wow, all the way to #2? How high did the Haruhi singles manage to get?
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Kaioshin_Sama



Joined: 05 Feb 2005
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PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2007 12:47 pm Reply with quote
What's interesting is that they are all pretty bad songs in my opinion.
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omnistry



Joined: 03 Mar 2005
Posts: 1015
PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2007 12:59 pm Reply with quote
Kaioshin_Sama wrote:
What's interesting is that they are all pretty bad songs in my opinion.


I wouldn't say that. I mean, the "LUCKY STAR" theme is just an entertaining song; but it's nowhere near great. KOTOKO, on the other hand, has a knack when it comes to anime themes.
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Patachu
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Joined: 08 Jul 2004
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PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2007 1:33 pm Reply with quote
Well, I suppose if you hated good pop songwriting, one could say that the LoveCom ending theme is a "bad song." But as a player of about 3-5 instruments and a sometime composer-arranger-songwriter, I'm looking to the Lovely Complex and Seirei no Moribito theme songs as shining examples from this season.

Of course, the Lucky Star theme was driven entirely by wota sales; you could make a record of Aya Hirano belching the alphabet and it'd still move several thousand copies.

And since when have sales rankings been a marker of quality, anyway? Razz
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omnistry



Joined: 03 Mar 2005
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PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2007 1:35 pm Reply with quote
Patachu wrote:
you could make a record of Aya Hirano belching the alphabet and it'd still move several thousand copies.


Ask her to do that at Anime Expo Laughing .
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aluria



Joined: 11 Nov 2005
Posts: 367
Location: New Westminster, B.C., Canada
PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2007 1:37 pm Reply with quote
Oh, can't believe the theme for Lucky Star made it so high. It's a decent song but not THAT decent...
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Chrno2



Joined: 28 May 2004
Posts: 6171
Location: USA
PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2007 3:38 pm Reply with quote
You have to admit as catchy as the ending theme was to 'Haruhi' was, that song to 'Lucky Star' is downright on the money too. Never would have expected it to be the next madness. Taking the #2 spot...now that's impressive. Only in Japan can an song for an anime show get top billing against other albums. Although, I can't really get into the show. I've already did 4 episodes and I didn't know how to take it. I guess I'll give it another try eventually. But I have yet to see the actual lyrics of this song.

Isn't it cool when animation gets a budget for it's OP then screws up later? Hahaha!!!
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halo



Joined: 11 May 2004
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PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2007 3:40 pm Reply with quote
I don't really care about the Lucky Star opening theme but when the end themes come out they've got my money easily.
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Kaioshin_Sama



Joined: 05 Feb 2005
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PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2007 4:18 pm Reply with quote
Patachu wrote:
Well, I suppose if you hated good pop songwriting, one could say that the LoveCom ending theme is a "bad song." But as a player of about 3-5 instruments and a sometime composer-arranger-songwriter, I'm looking to the Lovely Complex and Seirei no Moribito theme songs as shining examples from this season.

Of course, the Lucky Star theme was driven entirely by wota sales; you could make a record of Aya Hirano belching the alphabet and it'd still move several thousand copies.

And since when have sales rankings been a marker of quality, anyway? Razz


My favourite of the season is actually Howling from Darker Than Black with the emphasis on strong Guitar work to go along with the singer.

On your second point, how bloody true is that. The problem with a lot of modern anime music is that people are more concerned with the image of the idol singer and their voice than with the overall composition of the song. I find a lot of 21st century anime music to have very weak instrumental backup to the point where it's almost non-existant and entirely overpowered by the singer. The singer in turn is often heard belting out her lyrics in a really high pitched and loud voice, but without any really feeling or effort put into the performance (compared to 80's idol Mari Ijima or Maaya Sakamoto who you can tell is giving the performance there all and are working in tandem with the instrumental's rather than on top of it). You know what this reminds me of, the Boy/Girl Bands of the mid to late 90's in North America. Welcome to the 90's Japan (I've always felt the sound of Japanese music is like 10 years behind the rest of the world for the most part)

On the last point. Never.
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larinon



Joined: 27 Jul 2003
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Location: Midland, TX
PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2007 4:36 pm Reply with quote
I think the Lucky Star theme is decent, but what really makes it work is the opening animation that accompanies it in the anime. The song by itself...still interesting, but not the same. A similar example, at least in my mind, is the DearS ending Happy Cosmos.

I agree with Kaioshin_Sama above that Howling is one of the better songs from this season's group, along with Kotoko's Hayate theme. Those two are probably my favorites, as well as being my favorite series so far.
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Patachu
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PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2007 5:04 pm Reply with quote
Kaioshin_Sama wrote:
You know what this reminds me of, the Boy/Girl Bands of the mid to late 90's in North America. Welcome to the 90's Japan (I've always felt the sound of Japanese music is like 10 years behind the rest of the world for the most part)


This is true, but it's not always a bad thing. Japan's terminal unhipness has allowed some very different musical approaches to blossom. The West's leading-edge forwardness with popular music causes "old" styles to be pushed aside way too quickly, or else relegated to dinky novelty/nostalgia acts. This, I think, is unfair to completely legitimate styles of music. For example, I like classic soul, R&B and disco, but those have been just about abolished from American urban music. Yet Japan never got the memo that disco was uncool, or that funk music is now a running gag about afros, so I can still groove to the likes of Home Made Kazoku, Round Table, and Minmi with zero guilt, because these people are still taking outdated styles dead seriously and producing quality (or at the very least, fun) music.

What does tee me off is when Japan's stubborn traditionalism allows pointless cultural institutions to be formed in popular music. SMAP is a goddamn joke (imagine if New Kids on the Block were allowed to exist two decades past their expiration date) and Morning Musume should just retire already and let some new girl group win our hearts over. But what do I know, I'm not a professional music exec/producer. I just make it. Rolling Eyes

FWIW, Howling does nothing for me (I have no taste for rock), but Darker Than Black's ending theme is an instant win (I always brake for Rie Fu).
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omnistry



Joined: 03 Mar 2005
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PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2007 5:09 pm Reply with quote
Patachu wrote:
What does tee me off is when Japan's stubborn traditionalism allows pointless cultural institutions to be formed in popular music. SMAP is a goddamn joke (imagine if New Kids on the Block were allowed to exist two decades past their expiration date) and Morning Musume should just retire already and let some new girl group win our hearts over. But what do I know, I'm not a professional music exec/producer. I just make it. Rolling Eyes


The same should be said about DREAM. They've past their primes a few years back.

Let the girl groups that actually play their own instruments have the top of the charts. Oreskaband, TsuShiMaMiRe, Pistol Valve, noodles, chatmonchy, any of these bands are more talented than these label-made "eye candy" groups. If only Japan would warm back to Puffy, too, while we're at it.
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Patachu
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PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2007 6:02 pm Reply with quote
omnistry wrote:
Let the girl groups that actually play their own instruments have the top of the charts. Oreskaband, TsuShiMaMiRe, Pistol Valve, noodles, chatmonchy, any of these bands are more talented than these label-made "eye candy" groups. If only Japan would warm back to Puffy, too, while we're at it.


I was with you up until "performers who play their own instruments are inherently better." That's just not true.

Performers who play their own instruments are performers who play their own instruments, nothing more. Sometimes they're better than people who only use "the voice" as their instrument. But sometimes they seriously need to go back for theory lessons. (The same can be said about "performers who write their own songs..." honestly, that just leads to overinflated egos who don't realize that they might want to let REAL songwriters do the songwriting. Case in point: garage bands.)

And let's not sell these "eye candy" groups short. All I said was that stagnant ones should be removed, but you know, they put in just as much work as "proper" musicians. These girls are learning 90-minute dance sets that basically demand them to be endurance athletes sometimes TWICE in one day, not to mention the sheer mental effort of learning every dance move, ON TOP OF being able to lip-sync every word of every song (and sometimes they don't even get the luxury of lip-syncing and STILL have to vocalize).

I remember in high school how memorizing 10 minutes of marching band music and field-show maneuvers pretty much wiped me out (I always liked concert performance better because you could sit and read the music), and yet idol singers have to learn almost 10 times that, plus keep in physical shape, which basically adds up to a full-time job. AND most of them have barely reached high school!

So to think that cutey pretty vocally inept girl groups are a bunch of lazyasses who don't work as hard as "proper" bands, or are lacking in ability, is just misguided, Rockist thinking. The demands of these music performance styles are simply different.

But tired old girl groups that have lost their charm with the general public should definitely retire.
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Kaioshin_Sama



Joined: 05 Feb 2005
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PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2007 11:25 pm Reply with quote
Patachu wrote:
omnistry wrote:
Let the girl groups that actually play their own instruments have the top of the charts. Oreskaband, TsuShiMaMiRe, Pistol Valve, noodles, chatmonchy, any of these bands are more talented than these label-made "eye candy" groups. If only Japan would warm back to Puffy, too, while we're at it.


I was with you up until "performers who play their own instruments are inherently better." That's just not true.

Performers who play their own instruments are performers who play their own instruments, nothing more. Sometimes they're better than people who only use "the voice" as their instrument. But sometimes they seriously need to go back for theory lessons. (The same can be said about "performers who write their own songs..." honestly, that just leads to overinflated egos who don't realize that they might want to let REAL songwriters do the songwriting. Case in point: garage bands.)

And let's not sell these "eye candy" groups short. All I said was that stagnant ones should be removed, but you know, they put in just as much work as "proper" musicians. These girls are learning 90-minute dance sets that basically demand them to be endurance athletes sometimes TWICE in one day, not to mention the sheer mental effort of learning every dance move, ON TOP OF being able to lip-sync every word of every song (and sometimes they don't even get the luxury of lip-syncing and STILL have to vocalize).

I remember in high school how memorizing 10 minutes of marching band music and field-show maneuvers pretty much wiped me out (I always liked concert performance better because you could sit and read the music), and yet idol singers have to learn almost 10 times that, plus keep in physical shape, which basically adds up to a full-time job. AND most of them have barely reached high school!

So to think that cutey pretty vocally inept girl groups are a bunch of lazyasses who don't work as hard as "proper" bands, or are lacking in ability, is just misguided, Rockist thinking. The demands of these music performance styles are simply different. But tired old girl groups that have lost their charm with the general public should definitely retire.


The problem I have with the idols singer is often the musical layout of the song is very similiar. A lot of shows have this thing where they start of very fast, say few lyrics build up and break off for the title card, and then once its done showing they immediately launch into a song with lovey dovey lyrics featuring a combination of the word's "Sky, Love, Happiness, Dreams, Air, Future, Flying, Memories, Summer etc.". This will go on for about a 30 seconds, then the bit before the title card repeats and then it trails off with a long note and the title sequence ends.

I can't even count the number of times I've heard this same composition style and it seems to happen most in Haremish anime, but its not entirely limited to that genre. A good set of examples would be the Shuffle! opening and the Karin (The vampire girl show) the Nanoha StrikerS opening and the second Shakugan No Shana opening, but those are just the one's I can think of off the top of my head.

All are also examples of what I judge to be overselling the lyrics and singing them to forcefully instead of letting them flow through the singer. Aya Hirano for example is pretty bad for this too. I used to think she was a passionate singer like Maaya Sakamoto, MIO or Kageyama Hironobu, but after hearing the full version of Bouken Desho Desho and God Knows live and in recording recently, she goes way overkill on the vocals. For some bizarre reason all her inserts and openings sound more passionate and less forced when they are TV size edits.
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Kagami-chan



Joined: 27 May 2007
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Location: Lucky ☆ Star Fangirl
PostPosted: Thu May 31, 2007 12:05 am Reply with quote
Personally, I like "Motteke! Sailor Fuku" as well as the other songs mentioned in the article. Some of my other favorite songs from this season are: the Romeo x Juliet opening "Inori ~You Raise Me Up~" by Lena Park, the Idolmaster Xenoglossia opening "Binetsu S.O.S!!" by Miyuki Hashimoto, and the sola opening "colorless wind" by Aira Yuki. Also, I like the themes that Yui Horie did for Nagasarete Airantou and the Darker Than Black ending theme "Tsukiakari" by Rie Fu.
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