Monday, June 25, 2007

Anime Music (Part 1: Insert Songs)

I'm once again cheating in my inspiration for content and borrowing an idea from Andew's Cinevistaramascope. (Linked on the right) He compiled a list of 100 pop music moments in films. I wish I'd seen even half of the films on that list.

Everyone has their own tastes in music, and indeed, I am no exception. A good soundtrack will further my enjoyment of something in the film medium (regular film, television, animation) and of course, my love of anime is one of the largest examples of this.

There's alot of music in anime that I like, so I've decided to break this piece up into several sections. To begin with, I'm going with insert songs moments. I decided to add some ground rules to help better define the sources for songs.
1) If the song is used as an opening theme, and at some points gets used in the middle of the show, it does not count as it was an opener first.
2)If it is either the usual ending theme, or an ending theme for the credits in a series finale, it counts as an ending theme, not an insert, but special ending themes in the middle of a title can count.
3)Insert songs must include lyrics. If there are no lyrics, it's part of the score.
4) And classical music, such as "Ode to Joy" which has lyrics, does not count as it is well known and not relatively unique for the series.

THIS IS A SPOILER HEAVY POST. WATCH CLIPS AT YOUR OWN RISK!
These are in no ranking order, but merely what came to mind as I thought about things. I apologize for some poor video/audio quality in these clips, as they were the best/only I could locate.
1)
Cowboy Bebop - "Call me Call me"


2)
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - "God Knows"

3)
Gundam SEED - "Akatsuki no Kuruma"

(Note: I realize this version is the ending to the second of three special edition installments of the series. Rest assured, the orginal episode version was not used for credits, I'm not breaking my own rules)

4)
Gundam SEED Destiny - "Fields of Hope"


5)
Cowboy Bebop - "See You Space Cowboy"

6)
*FLCL - "Blues Drive Monster"

7)
Macross Do You Remember Love - "Do You Remember Love"

8)
Sailor Moon R: The Movie - "Moon Revenge"

9)
Dragonball Z - "Day of Destiny Spirit vs Spirit"

10)
Mai - HiME "It's Only the Fairy Tale"

11)
*FLCL - "Crazy Sunshine" (no decent/full clip available)

12)
Mobile Suit Gundam - "Beginning"

13)
The End of Evangelion - "Komm, Susser Tod" (Note: Subtitles get off track for a little bit)

14)
Gurren Lagann - "Happily Ever After" (SEVERE SPOILER WARNING FOR NEW/CURRENTLY AIRING SERIES)

*FLCL is FULL of insert music, it's part of what makes the series so amazing. These two moments happen to be my personal favorites.

1 comment:

Andrew Bemis said...

Big thumbs-up to #13. It's unsettling as hell, and I love the way that it creeps up on you. Oddly enough, it has a lot in common with a discarded ending for 2001.