Forum - View topicThe Set List - Top 10 OPs of 2004
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Shaterri
Posts: 173 |
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No mention whatsoever of 'Nekomimi Mode'? Okay, it's not the deepest OP on the list, but it will definitely stick to your brain like nothing else. And the music itself really does work wonders.
I have a personal soft spot for the My-HiME OP "Shining (Star) Days" too, but looking back on it it's pretty much just a classic giant mech opening - it reminds me a lot now of Gurren Lagann's OP especially. |
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Cyberphobe
 Posts: 194 |
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No Desert Punk? C'mon. It should get points for it's catchy theme and live action. How many animes do live action? Not many.
I'm sure this would come up eventually, but a suggestion for a future The Set List would be a top 10 Gundam themes. Keep up the awesome work I'm really enjoying this column. |
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Calathan
 SubscriberPosts: 9112 |
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The only anime from 2004 whose opening I have on my playlist is To Heart: Remember My Memories, so I voted for that. The animation that goes along with it isn't particularly interesting, but the song is just much more in my tastes than anything else from 2004.
I think my taste in music must be very different than Hope's as there is literally nothing on the list that I would just want to sit down and listen to. They seem like good fits for their shows, but just aren't something I would enjoy listening to on their own. The animation that goes with them also just isn't something that excites me. Perhaps some of them (e.g., Tenjou Tenge and Paranoia Agent) are brought down in my opinion because I don't like the shows, while the ones for shows I like a lot (e.g., Elfen Lied and Monster) are rather boring in my mind . . . well I don't know if "boring" is the right word for Elfen Lied's opening animation, but it doesn't get me interested in watching the show. Overall, I would say that 2004 was a very bad year for anime openings in my opinion. I really enjoy watching anime openings, and have a couple hundred anime songs on my playlist, so to have one song I particularly like and no opening that I can say is really great overall (considering both song and animation) makes it a down year in my opinion.
I also was surprised that didn't get a mention. I wouldn't say is it a good opening, but it is just such a weird and memorable opening that I think it deserved a mention somehow. |
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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Paranoia Agent's OP is amazing. It blew me away when I first saw it and was one of the first anime themes I heard that really made me think about the potential musical beauty of Japanese lyrics (the other was Samurai Champloo's ED). I would put Rise at #2. Origa's incredible vocals in both Russian and English are stunning, and the lyrics are meaningful and pertinent. Set to Yoko Kanno's transcendent music, it really is something special.
Samurai Champloo's OP is perfect for the show, and reminds me of The Boondocks OP (I swear you could set either show's op animation to the other show's op song and they'd match)! They're both really good hip hop tracks set to great animation. I think I liked the music in Beck more than it's OP, especially the dubbed version of the Full Moon Sways duet. (Music-themed shows like Beck and Nana would make good Set List topics!) The poll got me to Youtube some long forgotten 2004 OPs, as well as songs I'd never heard. This Ugly Yet Beautiful World's themes were probably the best thing about the show, as I remembered it. Yugo the Negotiator's theme is surprisingly funky. Gantz's OP was solid. I regret looking up Nekomimi Mode 
I only voted for OP's of show's I watched that really made an impression on me, so PA's OP, Rise, SC's OP, and Bleach's OPs. I might've voted for Naruto's Go!, too, but it wasn't on the poll (did it really come out in 2004?) |
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Eldritcho
 Posts: 260 |
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While Samurai Champloo may have only been number six on the list, in terms of overall soundtrack there isn't any show better from that year!
Seriously, Nujabes is and always will be a phenomenal composer, and it saddens me that he died at such a young age. |
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koinosuke
 Posts: 271 Location: Fukushima, Japan |
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Great list. Hard to believe these shows all came out more than ten years ago, and even harder to believe the greats we've lost since then - Nujabes, Kon, and now Origa.
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Mr. Oshawott
 Posts: 6773 |
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Daphne in the Brilliant Blue: The cheerful mood of the lyrics really captures the bright atmosphere of the show.
Kannazuki no Miko: The lyrics had a mysterious, yet powerful tone to them. Madlax: I loved the somber feeling that was expressed throughout the song. MGL Nanoha: I was awed by Nana Mizuki's amazing singing of Innocent Starter. It's as if I was venture out straight into the blue yonder. Other favorites I voted for are School Rumble and Tenjou Tenge. |
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MajorZero
Posts: 359 |
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Grain, Super Shooter, Hit in the USA (though, I still don't understand half of the lyrics), Battlecry. If I judged by visuals alone, I'd gave Paranoia Agent second spot, but Susumu Hirasawa's music never worked for me outside of anime, kind of a deal breaker.
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K.o.R
 Posts: 221 |
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I don't really remember the opening visuals for Grenadier but its song "KOHAKU" by Mikuni Shimokawa is probably one of my favourite anime songs of all time.
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kevinx59
 Posts: 959 Location: In sunny California |
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I never heard the openings (or watched ) Monster or Phoenix and Samurai 7's opening didn't stand out for me but other than those I love all of the other choices. Man I didn't realize it but 2004 had a lot of awesome music and series. I love Inner Universe's visuals but Rise grew on me more and I prefer it, audiowise. Bomb A Head is cheesy as hell but a lot of fun to listen to( and watch). I was gonna be pissed if Battlecry wasn't on the list but luckily that didn't happen. Nujabes music is so chill and ethereal, it's a shame he passed away. And I'm really glad Paranoia Agent got #1. So sad that Kon's also dead but Hirasawa is one of my favorite composers and I'm glad he is still alive. For the poll I selected 1,4,5,6,7 from the video, as well as Gantz, Fafner, Kannazuki no Miko, Madlax, and Rozen Maiden. The funny thing is I've never watched any of those 5 series, but the openings are awesome. Ali Project and Angela are always good in my book, and I really like Kotoko's more techno older songs.
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Kougeru
 Posts: 5529 |
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Hatred for Elfen Lied? Blasphemy. I really think people that hate Elfen Lied are looking too close to the surface of the show. Must be the newer generation or something, was in ANN's top 10 back when I signed up for the site. Now it's only on the "most popular" list. That and the lack of 瞳の欠片 from FicitonJunciton YUUKA just screams bad (and/or limited) taste.
Sadly I disagree with most of this list. The top 6 were good songs but definitely not the best 2004 had to the offer and most of the rest just made me laugh that they were on this list. Nekomimi mode should be #1 lol jk. Serious though, READY STEADY GO should be on here from Full Metal Alchemist (2003-2004, CD released in 04) not only because it's a great song, but also because it was a huge factor in the rise of Jrock's popularity in the 00's. Lastly, to the people saying 2004 was a "bad year" for anime openings. It was a fantastic year if anything, I can make a list of great songs from that year that would probably be 300 total songs or so, maybe like 100 of the OP, 100 ED, and the rest OST and insert. Last example for one of the best songs of 2004 ed or OP, 禁じられた遊び from ALI PROJECT. Musically, how catchy it is, the lyrics. and the animation...it's just a wonderful song. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18206 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Never heard the opener for Phoenix before, but I can easily see what it was included; it is fantastic.
Though I liked all of the picks, I do agree with some others who have posted already that "metamorphose" from This Ugly Yet Beautiful World is the most glaring omission. Its lyrics fit well, it has a great sense of artistic timing, the orchestra-back song is well-done, and it's sung by Youko Takahashi, the vocalist behind "Cruel Angel's Thesis" and Shakugan no Shana's great first closer. And fun fact about the PA opener: it's also the entry on the set list with (probably by a mile) the fewest animation frames. IIRC what Kon said about that in an audio commentary, it's under 50. |
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omiya
 Posts: 1828 Location: Adelaide, South Australia |
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I'm glad that this "Set List" article highlighted some OP's by artists that haven't made Anison a career, but it would also be great to cover the rise of the Anison-focussed music industry, Lantis / Flying Dog / King / 5pb ... Also making distinctions between OP and ED songs (and ignoring insert songs like "Nowhere" from MADLAX) fragments the coverage of anime music. For an example of a song co-written by Arika of ALI Project and Elements Garden, check out Minori Chihara's "Celestial Diva" (PV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvV4s7-XBCc) which was sung by Minorin and Arika at Animelo Summer Live 2013. (That was also the concert where I heard Kinjirareta Asobi [禁じられた遊び]/ ALI PROJECT - Rozen Maiden OP live). |
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ArthurFrDent
 Posts: 466 |
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the funniest things about these older lists... is that I think of a show when it was brought over here, rather than when it came out in Jpn. Samurai 7 was mid '05 for example... but I think I didn't buy until 2006... Moon Phase, didn't release until late 2006, and I have the boxset from 2008.
which is why my backlog has taken on strange time and space dimensions, and distortions. I sometimes imagine I'll finish watching Samurai7, but then it's been so long I need to restart, and oh, look, shiney! And just a short time later, we can now watch an awful lot of stuff [sometimes actually awful] released not long after being seen in Jpn... tho sometimes the discs still take years. Perhaps the backlog will always be... and now I have a nekomimi mode earworm. I guess that's a memorable one, eh? But then I can put on the GITS SAC OST's and that will fix that. It was a pretty good year, then. 
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2558 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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I only got to watching it now, but it's an extremely well-chosen list of OPs from Hope. Many choices brought me back to when I was first becoming an anime fan, or when I was doing my work to cover 2004 for the Golden-Ani project, and all of them are still excellent songs today. Hey, no matter what you may feel about Elfen Lied, there's no doubt that "Lilium" is one of the most chilling anime OPs out there... And if that's not enough, go ahead & check out the version sung acapella by an all-male choir, which is even scarier to listen to.
There are some OPs that, I feel, easily match up with the ones Hope listed, though: "Shangri-La" from Fafner (as others have mentioned in this topic, Angela's voice is amazing & the composition is outstanding, only recently topped by Fafner Exodus' OP) "Voyage" from Fantastic Children (the OP version is epic, and the version titled "Voyage...Meguru Toki no Naka de" is even better) "Samurai Crew" from Samurai Gun (much like Elfen Lied, people can hate on the show, but ZZ's OP is not just an amazing anthem, but probably the best song I've heard from them [not to mention later re-purposed into World Cup anthem "Samurai Blue"]) "Asu he no Toushi" from Ring ni Kakero 1 (the OP to a series that I feel is insanely unknown & ignored from the past decade, and it's one of my all-time favorite anime OPs, with an insane beat, original creator-written lyrics, & an unforgettable performance by Marina del ray) |
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