Music in Anime : How Much I Judge Music in Reviewing Anime?

Our leader from Supercell FC Indonesia (SCID) said that 7 years ago was the day when the best opening of all time aside from JoJo openings, My Dearest by supercell from anime Guilty Crown, was released. My Dearest is a very great composition and song produced by our beloved, ryo from supercell, who is known for his works like Odds & Ends, The World is Mine, Sayonara Memories, Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari, and more. So, in honor of the 7th anniversary of My Dearest's release, today I am going to talk about music in anime again. And we will begin with a brief history of myself and my journey into the J-Tracks especially anime music.

Artwork by Patrick Macchi
(https://www.artstation.com/artwork/vBvlA)

Before I turned my steer completely into J-Tracks, I was a complete music nerd. Searching for songs that no one ever heard before and spread my love for those songs. I remembered the first time I discovered Imagine Dragons, I was like the first one who told everyone about them and within few months their songs were everywhere in my school. Stepping myself into higher education, I felt bored with how western music nowadays. Repetitive and less innovation. I listened to older songs and there, I started to love Daft Punk and they made me into an anime fan. I was dragged into anime specifically by Daft Punk's feature length music video for their Discovery album, Interstella 5555. So, I started to have thought "Oh, if Japanese people take music seriously, then I should listened to their songs." Then I became a huge J-Tracks fan and while I am not as music nerd as before, I still have the same trait of nerdiness for J-Tracks. With the innovation of Spotify, I could keep track of what songs that have been released in this week. And since there are over 100 anime released in each season, anime songs are released constantly every week. Now, you may wonder, how much I take musics in anime (like opening or ending themes and soundtracks) into judging or reviewing a certain anime if I am that nerd?

The answer is... I take musics VERY seriously and sometimes, it even affected whether I continue to watch an anime or not. One bad example of me dropping an anime just because it has bad insert song is an anime adaptation of manga created by Ryoko Fukuyama, Anonymous Noise. I was very hyped at the beginning to watch this anime since I have read the manga and loved it. But when the vocalist started to open her mouth to sing, I was very disappointed. And sadly, because Anonymous Noise is a manga revolving around music, I dropped the anime as soon as first episode (or second? I forgot). Maybe this is a lesson that if your anime is revolving around music or at least involving music inside, don't ever mess the music to begin with because that is where I judge first. 

All of my first impression in an anime usually revolves around soundtracks and songs in that anime. That's why I really love Guilty Crown's first episode. Guilty Crown opened with a song by EGOIST that is Eutrepe. The song is beautifully composed and it is accompanied by Chelly's soft yet strong voice. Not just that, the song actually fits the theme of the intro sequence. The song said about why people are fighting but Inori is actually running and fighting and that contradictory terms are in my liking. With just that song alone, I fell in love with the series (only to be heartbroken by the second half of the series' story) and not just that song. When the opening song, My Dearest, first introduced later, I am too fall in love with the opening. Ryo really did a very great job to make a very great first impression of this anime. Not just ryo, we must thank Sawano Hiroyuki for equally beautiful and epic soundtracks for this anime making me unable to drop this for its soundtrack composition.

The most recent example of a soundtrack or opening slash ending song that made me stay to watch even the anime is not so good and that is Genos Studio's Kokkoku. In short, the opening sequence of this anime is very lit. Just feel that energetic beat and drop. This song, Flashback by MIYAVI vs KenKen, is certainly going to make you stay in a very mediocre story of Kokkoku. If it's not for this song, I probably have dropped Kokokku from around third episode. Moral of the story, having a great opening is a great start to make your audience stay until the end of the show.

In the end, soundtrack and opening or ending theme are my first impression on watching an anime. Sometimes, I love to look pass the badness of an anime if that anime have a very great soundtrack or theme song. Because the first impression is important then music is very important on making me attached to an anime. Thus, music in anime is very important and maybe a major aspect for me to judge an anime to the point of letting it slide if it had a great soundtracks.