So, I’ve talked about my favourite openings in the past. In fact, my very first post on this blog was all about my favourite openings. A lot of them became my favourites after watching the show itself, either through pure exposure, or due to the feelings I have towards the show.
However, there are also some shows that I’ve watched, or taken an interest in, purely because I heard the opening first and couldn’t resist. Does it always pay off?
Eh.
Still, there have been some gems! Let’s start with the ones that paid off.
The Good
Ya Boy Kongming!/Paripi Koumei
When the season first rolled around, this show wasn’t even on my radar. I’m not one for caring about Chinese war strategists, generally. Therefore, I completely ignored this show, carrying on with watching what I’d planned to initially. But then.
It happened.
I think the phrase is love at first listen. Immediately, I realised that not only was this show not at all what I envisioned it to be, but it was a ‘me’ show. A show that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and this was reflected in the fun of its opening. I mean, try to get to the end of that video without singing along, even a little bit!
Ya Boy Kongming! is the perfect mix of both history, for the people who did tune in for the Zhuge Liang references, and jokes for the people like me, who thought they couldn’t care less. The show is side-splittingly funny at the best of times, and heartwarming at the worst. Though the opening pulled me in, it’s currently a contender for one of my top 5 of 2022. It will absolutely win an award for best opening though, regardless of my own thoughts and rankings! Chiki chiki bam bam~
So, maybe this is cheating a little bit. I’m a self admitted Trigger fangirl, and will usually watch everything they put out. That being said, at the time of Kiznaiver’s release, they weren’t really on my radar. The art style was interesting, I suppose. The thought of a love story didn’t really draw me in. Enter the Boom Boom Satellites…
The opening was not only catchy and an immediate ear worm, but the visuals were stunning, and immediately caught my attention. From the moment Nico’s head popped into the camera, I figured that I had to give it a go. And what a brilliant decision that was.
I’ve written a review on Kiznaiver before, so I won’t beat a dead horse here. Kiznaiver had its problems, but they were never enough to put me off. It in fact became one of my favourite shows, tearing me in two as I laughed and cried along with the characters. Perhaps I’m in the Kizuna system after all?
The watchable
I’ll admit it. I don’t think this show was as good as the hype people gave it suggested. I am a big fan of Durarara!, and upon hearing that they were in the same universe, I decided to give Baccano a go. I was finally convinced to watch it.
Remember the ‘ehh’ I was talking about at the beginning? This is it.
Was Baccano stylish? Absolutely. Was it well written? Yes, for sure. Ultimately, did I care about the characters and the storyline? Not really. There was an awful lot going on in Baccano!, that unfortunately, seemed rushed and overwhelming when trying to fit it all into a 12 episode cour. Perhaps if it had been given the same treatment as Durarara!, it might be a different story. Whist I enjoyed Baccano! for what it was, I’m not rushing to rewatch it, nor recommend it to anyone.
Kokkoku was another show that was not even slightly on my radar when it originally aired back in Winter 2018. The synopsis sounded pretty cool, but at the time, it was a no name studio, with little hype surrounding the show. I very nearly passed, until…
To this date, this is one of my favourite openings. The visuals? MIYAVI? A recipe for success, or so I thought. The show must be awesome, I thought.
Another big ‘ehhhhh’.
For all the brilliant threads that the show set up, and what appeared to be a really unique story turned out to be very anticlimactic. I can’t recall anything at all about this show, other than the MC’s name and the brilliant opening. I don’t remember the show being bad, by any stretch of the imagination. But forgettable? Yeah, completely.
The ‘oh my god’, is this still going?
Admittedly, I’m kind of cheating with this one. The opening wasn’t the entire reason I played it. I had played the game in the past (Shin route only), and I am also a sucker for any kind of cute boy related show. However, upon hearing the opening, I knew that I had to watch it.
How disappointing the show actually was. The show was poorly animated, and clearly done on a low budget, very quickly in order to appease fans of the series in just getting an adaptation. Truth be told, they might as well not have bothered. The pacing was appallingly slow. I appreciate that they were trying to adapt a game, which has lots of routes and moves slowly in order for each storyline to bulk out each of the love interests. But good grief. I ended up dropping this at episode 5, at which point, nothing of interest had even begun to take shape. In a 12 episode show, that’s rather concerning.
I suppose when I played the game myself, I didn’t think about how the female lead would come across animated. After all, when I played, I was the female lead. I have a personality, so it’s no problem. In the anime however, someone clearly didn’t get the memo that in order to be appealing to the harem of men she is wooing, and keep the viewers interest, your female lead needs to have at least a crumb of personality. She was absolutely hollow, and devoid of any kind of interesting feature. Future otome adaptations, please take note. Don’t do what Amnesia did.
You’d think at this point, with the countless death game anime there are, that I would learn my lesson with watching them. That I’d get the hint, and understand that the best ones are mindless popcorn flicks, at best (I’m looking at you, Mirai Nikki). But then Coldrain released this absolute banger as the opening and…well. I had to…
I think King’s Games main issue is that it really didn’t know what it wanted to be. Was it going to be a serious, ‘horror’ anime? Was it going to be a slapstick violence kind of show? Was it supposed to be serious? I don’t know, and I don’t think the writers did either. The deaths were always ridiculous and over the top to almost a Looney Tunes level of silly, and yet you were expected to sympathise and cry for these characters. Not a single brain cell was shared between any of the characters in the show. Hell, if there was a single brain cell to be found anywhere, it’s unlikely that the show would be made at all.
The entire story spins around in circles, with each bland, uninteresting wet towel character being introduced briefly before being violently killed off, and you’re expected to give a shit each time. I will admit that I sat through the entire show, if not just because it was the equivalent to watching a train wreck unfold before your eyes. I guess I can also put the blame on my love for Mamoru Miyano, too. Perhaps the shows he’s put me through can be its own article.
There are a lot of other shows I could’ve mentioned here, but ultimately, I’m going to go with just a few, otherwise I could write forever! If you have any shows that you watched purely for the opening, do let me know in the comments! You may also vehemently disagree with anything I’ve put, which I’d love to hear too!
Until next time…whenever that may be.
AHOGE GIRL 