![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
On Anime Music
So Wife and I are going on a trip to Japan (eee!), and I'm trying to assemble the appropriate playlist (as you do). Which has led to a lot of poking around my collection of anime songs, and, well...
So the first thing you think of, when it comes to anime music, are anime theme songs! It's the low-hanging fruit: first exposure to the anime, changes at least once a season, and lots and lots of people have written about which ones they like best (all links are from the top of just the first page of :cough: a lot on Google).
(Huh. Anime theme songs would make a good radio station. :investigates and finds I am clearly not the first person with that thought:)
But anime theme songs are, in theory, about the show as a whole, and at most specific they're about the main character (looking at you, SAILOR MOON). Which leads us to character songs, which are a source of fascination and frustration to me. Fascination because it's like, here, let's turn anime into a musical! Let's give each character a theme, or just explore them for a song! And frustration because it seems like every other 'anime soundtrack' for sale isn't a soundtrack as I'd call it, i.e. background music from the show. Instead it's a collection of character songs - without necessarily being labeled as such.
And then you have Actual Soundtracks, which can be Western-style (e.g. WITCH HUNTER ROBIN), or can straddle the line between soundtrack and character songs (e.g. the first soundtrack issued for YURI ON ICE, which contained the songs for the skating performances in the show - another, more traditional soundtrack came out later). How good are they? Eh - depends on your feelings about the show and about soundtracks in general. The soundtrack of the COWBOY BEBOP movie contains a lot of excellent jazzy songs, regardless of your feelings about the movie itself, for example, but the soundtrack to the (first season of) DARKER THAN BLACK feels like Generic Soundtrack Music.
Which leads us to: Poll time!
So the first thing you think of, when it comes to anime music, are anime theme songs! It's the low-hanging fruit: first exposure to the anime, changes at least once a season, and lots and lots of people have written about which ones they like best (all links are from the top of just the first page of :cough: a lot on Google).
(Huh. Anime theme songs would make a good radio station. :investigates and finds I am clearly not the first person with that thought:)
But anime theme songs are, in theory, about the show as a whole, and at most specific they're about the main character (looking at you, SAILOR MOON). Which leads us to character songs, which are a source of fascination and frustration to me. Fascination because it's like, here, let's turn anime into a musical! Let's give each character a theme, or just explore them for a song! And frustration because it seems like every other 'anime soundtrack' for sale isn't a soundtrack as I'd call it, i.e. background music from the show. Instead it's a collection of character songs - without necessarily being labeled as such.
And then you have Actual Soundtracks, which can be Western-style (e.g. WITCH HUNTER ROBIN), or can straddle the line between soundtrack and character songs (e.g. the first soundtrack issued for YURI ON ICE, which contained the songs for the skating performances in the show - another, more traditional soundtrack came out later). How good are they? Eh - depends on your feelings about the show and about soundtracks in general. The soundtrack of the COWBOY BEBOP movie contains a lot of excellent jazzy songs, regardless of your feelings about the movie itself, for example, but the soundtrack to the (first season of) DARKER THAN BLACK feels like Generic Soundtrack Music.
Which leads us to: Poll time!
Poll #28848 First, the really important playlist question!
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 3
When taking a trip on a plane, what kind of music do you prefer?
View Answers
Theme songs! Fight songs! High tempo all the way!
0 (0.0%)
Low-tempo ballads are more my style.
0 (0.0%)
Wordless soundtrack music, please.
0 (0.0%)
Some combination of the above.
3 (100.0%)
My favorite anime theme song is:
My favorite anime character song is:
My favorite anime music not covered by the previous two questions is: