& Summer 2009 Anime Music

As with last season, I was again inspired to post theme songs that I like of current anime series. As with last season, one show's music in particular provided this inspiration - Umineko no Naku Koro ni [When the Seagulls Cry].

Umineko no Naku Koro ni really walked away with the title of best theme music of the season, between the music not being bad, and the lack of any high-caliber competition. The opening especially appeals to me because one of the musical themes I go for is modern compositions/melodies in symphonic/operatic style. The ending I suppose would be classified as fun, in rock opera style with a singer that has the perfect voice to perform the the creepy insane rambling lyrics.

Opening theme: Katayoku no Tori [One-Winged Bird]


Ending theme: La Divina Tragedia


Perhaps given the lack of serious competition I may have lowered the threshold for inclusion in this post, I dunno. Anyway, next up is Kara no Kyoukai [Boundary of Emptiness]: Garden of Sinners: Oblivion Recorder. Kara no Kyoukai is a series of movies that form a single plot line. While some of the themes are shared between all of the movies, some are unique to the movie (in this case the one that just came out a couple weeks ago).

As you can see, the video was replaced with the logo of the movie. Note that I set it to start at 0:42, which is where the theme for this movie starts. The music before 0:42 and after 4:18 is from the main theme of Kara no Kyoukai, which I think it pretty bland.

Ending theme: fairy tale


The rest all fall under the category of fun/cute. Bakemonogatari [translated by some as GhoStory, which preserves the pun] has a pretty fun ending theme with a bit of cuteness. The video of the credits seems to have been replaced with a still of the picture that's in the background during the credits.

Ending theme: Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari [Your Strange Story]


Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou [Comprehensible Modern Magic] has a somewhat peculiar ending theme. Like the animation during the credits (which you just know is going to get made into animated GIFs), the music is overly cute, yet strangely catchy (although I can imagine it would make some people want to kill things).

Ending theme: Made in Wonder


Finally, Hayate no Gotoku!! [Like the Wind; this is a pun on the main character's name being Hayate]; first of all, note that the sound on this video is LOUD, so you might want to turn your volume down. This one really crosses the line from cute into obnoxious. While the melody is nice and fun, the "cute" accompaniment makes me want to smash things.

I can only figure that the producer of this series is an absolute copyright Nazi, because despite quite a bit of looking I can't find a single video of this ending theme with the credits animation, which is unfortunate, because that would show you who the infernal peanut gallery is. Instead, I found this video, and I really don't know where it came from. It's called a preview, but as I only saw one copy of it, I'm thinking maybe it's a fan-created anime music video. In either case, it seemed better than the large number of others, which simply played the music to some picture (the album cover, a picture of the character singing, etc.).

Ending theme: Mankai Watashi Iro [something along the lines of My Full Bloom Form]