A Good Anime OP
There’s no precise formula for creating a good anime opening. A myriad of factors goes into the viewer’s enjoyment of the opening, many of them subjective. On top of that, it’s even subjective which factors a viewer finds important. Ultimately, the best universal definition of a good opening that I can make is something like “a music video that makes the viewer want to watch the anime.” Vague, right? So rather than try to refine that any further, I’m more interested in exploring those factors affecting our enjoyment.
Music
For many people, myself included, a show’s theme song can make or break the opening. For instance, while I almost always watch anime openings, I skipped Death Note’s second opening (What’s Up People?!) each and every time purely because I hated the song. But my husband, who almost always skips openings, was the exact opposite.
Unfortunately for anime producers, this is probably the part of the process for which they have the least control over the viewer’s reaction. They can go with groups whose songs have done well in other shows. Ali Project, for instance, has performed several anime openings and endings, including NOIR and Aother’s openings and Code Geass’ first ending. Alternatively, they can make a song using the characters’ voice actors, like Excel Saga did. Something like either of those might give them a better chance at the song being well-received. Might. Really though, they just have to hope that most people like the song they chose, or at least don’t hate it.
There is one quality though that’s extremely important here. Whether fans love or hate the song, it should at least be memorable. I may despise What’s Up People?!, but if it comes up in a “Guess that Anime Tune!” quiz, I would know what it is immediately. And who can think of Code Geass without hearing that iconic “Jibun wo” from the first opening? Similarly, I doubt many fans who’ve seen Ouran High School Host Club would not instantly be able to sing at least “Kiss kiss fall in love!” from its opening.
Music can also provide a commonality across different but related shows, though I can only think of one ‘series’ that’s done it. All but one of the shows in the Science Adventure series (including Occultic;Nine, though it’s a bit different) use the same singer, Kanako Itou, for their opening. The exception, Robotics;Note, still uses Kanako Itou for the second ending — continuing the trend.
Animation Quality
The opening of a show is something that’s going to, presumably, be watched over and over again, so it’s reasonable to devote a decent amount of the budget into making sure the opening’s animation is toward the top of the animator’s ability. For instance, while ufotable’s Fate/Unlimited Blade Works is pretty much gorgeous all over, Brave Shine is particularly lovely. I find it especially awesome watching the shadows from the clouds overhead pass over characters even while there’s plenty of other action occurring. On the other hand, Yura Yura (Naruto’s 9th OP), while stylistically pretty much the opposite end of the spectrum, has wonderfully choreographed fighting and katas performed by the Naruto cutouts.
Animation Style
I had to separate style from quality because they ultimately aren’t related. A lot of shows experiment with different styles in their openings and/or endings, and the results among viewers tend to be mixed. Cowboy Bebop uses primary colors and black cutouts quite effectively if its continued popularity is any indication, and the Monogatari series is pretty well-known for having unique opening, and ending, styles. For me, the first time I really noted an opening for its style was the first Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei opening, Hito Toshite Jiku ga Bureteiru — granted, that whole show has a bit of a different style. A lot of the scenes kind of reminded me of the covers of the Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service manga. The most recent example I’ve noticed has been Sousei no Onmyouji’s third opening, Sync. It has an interesting part with fairly realistically drawn hands manipulating strings off which hang the characters. Personally, this is my least favorite of that show’s openings purely because of this part, but I’ve seen a decent amount of praise for it as well.
Syncing
I try really hard to understand other people’s points of view, honestly, but I can’t understand anyone who doesn’t find this aspect important. To me, a good anime opening, or any opening really, should be like a good AMV. What you see should directly correlate to what you hear. Be it changes it tone, visual cuts, or any number of other visual ques, the animation should be affected by the music. It takes a special kind of incompetence to make an opening that doesn’t demonstrate this quality at all, so you’ll almost never see a show that completely fails at this, but some shows perform better than others. For instance, School Days’ Innocent Blue puts only minimal effort into syncing up its video and music. On the other hand, Kizanaiver’s Lay Your Hands On Me does an excellent job of matching the feel of the video to the feel of the music, while Dimension W’s Genesis syncs up just about every timing possible. (Actually, I mostly watched Dimension W because of the opening. Seriously, say what you will about the show’s story line, but that opening was a masterpiece of timing.)
Displaying Credits
Something most people don’t think about is how the credits are shown. After all, you just put the words somewhere on the screen and try to ensure they’re legible, yes? Enter Punchline. While this is certainly not the first show to do something interesting with their credits, it is an excellent example. From the first sign of them ( 原作 MAGES フジテレビ) to the last ( パンチライン制作委員会), most of the credits float by or decorate stairs as part of the animation rather than just words stuck on top. While I doubt presentation of the credits is going to make many people’s lists as the number one most important aspect of an opening, doing something different with them certainly enhances things.
Meaning
Until fairly recently, it had never occurred to me that openings could have symbolism or foreshadowing or really anything other than “these are the characters” — to be fair, reading into things has never been my forte. Of course, even I would catch the link between Natsuki Subaru’s power and the way Re: Zero’s Redo loops back to the beginning, but I typically didn’t think openings really related much to the show.
Then I watched Mother’s Basement’s “What in an OP” for Your Lie in April. I hadn’t even seen the show, but I was amazed. I watched some of his other videos, including the ones on Attack on Titan and Erased. I even watched the one about why Sword Art Online’s openings are so terrible — though this mostly just made me irritated that people are getting upset about one-frame panty shots.
It basically changed the way I watch openings. So, while if you’d asked me two years ago to write this article, this section wouldn’t have existed, now it’s one of the more important sections to me.
Sure, any show can stick a bunch of pretty pictures up and call it an OP. But giving plot information in such a way that most people miss it? I find that fascinating. Of course, depending on how it’s done, it might be more or less obvious. Mother’s Basement blasts SAO’s Gun Gale Online opening for revealing Death Gun’s identity, and now that he’s said it, I can’t un-see how obvious it is. Though, at the time I was watching it, I didn’t notice at all since I was still in oblivious mode. On the other hand, his analysis of the direction of characters’ faces in the second Attack on Titan opening is, I think, something you’re unlikely to notice until you’ve already been watching for a while, if at all.
Nowadays, I’m watching all my openings looking for extra information — and man, I’m not feeling good for Bon’s chances in Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu season 2. It adds something extra to an opening when I can look at it and speculate “what does this mean?”
It doesn’t have to just be plot foreshadowing either. For instance, in Occultic;Nine, people were wondering what the Christmas tree had to do with anything, and I think the general consensus ended up being that it was a nod toward the last episode airing on Christmas day. As another example, someone recently noted the golden apples at the end of KonoSuba Season 2’s opening. As it happens, the word for “testicles” in Japanese is “kintama,” or “gold balls.” For a show that’s mostly comedy, this detail is perfect for its opening.
Besides these, there may well be other things that make people like or dislike an opening. In Best OP contests in particular, voters are often accused of falling to either nostalgia or recency bias. However, I think that these are the most important ones.
Incidentally, for an opening that manages to avoid having any of the things I mentioned here, look no further than Now and Then, Here and There’s opening.
