Warning: The following article on how anime has conquered the lost art of openings contains spoilers for Jujutsu Kaisen and The Daily Life of the Immortal King, as well as a few others.
Openings for television series are fascinating. They’re a window into the soul of a series. They can give you a tease of what’s to come. They can prepare you for the journey ahead. In recent years though, I have found that they’ve lost something and save for a few scant examples there are no good openings on television anymore. Most series these days flash the title and give a few notes from the composer and that’s it. Some of them include The Mandalorian, Ahsoka as well as Invincible. Enter anime and the world of emotions their one-and-a-half-minute openings hold within them.
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The most obvious part of an anime opening is the visuals. They excellently set up the mood and tone of the season. This is something that Western series rarely do. Visuals within anime is where the animators get to show off. They get to tell a story without the constraints of logic. Here they get to show the audience what this series is, whether it be in a literal, figurative or metaphorical manner there is so much to dissect in an anime opening. There are so many anime openings that are visually sumptuous. From all the bombastic Black Clover openings to the rally cries that come from every Attack on Titan opening.
This brings me to the lyrics of an anime opening. These are poems, they are love letters and they are usually far more emotional than many realise. One such example that comes to mind is Jujutsu Kaisen, in particular, the second season’s arc following Gojo Satoru and Suguru Geto. The opening is incredibly potent visually and gives an air of the prowess of our protagonists. What I didn’t realise at the time was that there was a heartbreaking second layer behind it. The song is a letter to a lost friend. It is Gojo wishing he had seen the problems rising in Geto before it was too late. Adding this layer to the opening further compounds the emotional weight of not just the arc, but the series as a whole. It’s a masterstroke.
Then there are the rare anime that utilise their openings to further the narrative of their respective anime. One such series is The Daily Life of the Immortal King. This Chinese “donghua” tells the story of a godlike protagonist and its abstract utilization of the opening has allowed for multiple moments of sheer wonder. One recurring joke is where villains will hear the opening music and genuinely freak out because they know that something is about to happen to them.
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Anime openings have become so prevalent in our lives that many, myself included use them during their daily lives. How many of you use it for your gym playlist? When you’re feeling down, how many of you use your favourite anime opening as a pick-me-up or need a good cry so you have your go-to emotional opening to help usher those tears out? We all need a good cry every now and then. I myself use the hysterical Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead opening to get ready for my 9 – 5. I actually believe that series to be the best representation of how modern workers feel, and its opening is an anthem for us.
I’d like to say in closing that the unsung heroes of any series, movie or play can be the composers, the musicians and the singers. We might not notice when a score or a soundtrack is playing its part, but we’ll usually notice when it’s not.
Within anime openings, these artists flourish and in these short bursts of artistry they give the worlds they are a part of an extra layer or two of emotional impact, and I love that. In this brief article I’ve barely scratched the surface of the great anime openings out there, so sound off in the comments and tell us your favourite openings, there are no wrong answers.
