English Openings For Japanese Anime

[DeletedUser9]

I propose an interesting discussion. English openings of Japanese anime. These days it's really only anime companies who translate Japanese anime, and they take it very seriously. The opening credits are almost always intact (although they do still chop the ending credits often).

That's not what I'm here to talk to you about. Let's talk about back in the day when we still called the English translations cartoons. The days of Fox Kids and - god forbid - 4Kids. I'll likely extend past those two companies and their time (I'm not really paying strict attention anyway), but they're a good example.



Most of the time this notion gets a bad rep. When an English opening is made, it sucks. There's a few good examples of this, such as...
Dragon Ball GT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tH3Z2NYxak&feature=search
Spider Riders: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZsTXIQIB3Y&p=29D4CB53F0682C2D&playnext=1&index=4

Mainly the problem is the tendency to default to rap... and bad rap. To be fair, however, most Japanese anime all default to the same sort of music as well.



But there were some songs that had this problem but managed to be AWESOME. Really dorky but awesome anyway, or even BECAUSE they were. Some examples:

One Piece: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLTlH7KB0Xk&feature=search
Rave Master: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZoS6WEh8p0&feature=related
Pokemon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0xt8F8Y09A&feature=related
Digimon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpP93z0ridU&feature=search
Dragon Ball Z: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-Hjf43k3Cs&feature=search



But there were plenty of openings that weren't even dorky and REALLY fit the series, besides sounding cool:

Shaman King: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qLl145FqQg&feature=search
Thing is, with Shaman King, I'm of the opinion that the opening was BETTER than the Japanese one because it fit it better. This might be the best English opening ever IMO.

Vision of Escaflowne: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5ZXbrqPjKM&feature=search
Now Escaflowne is an odd case. The opening was good, but it didn't strictly fit the series in the same way. I think it deserves credit though as brilliant marketing. Escaflowne is a fairly typical medieval fantasy (with technology), and contains a lot of romance and fluff. They managed to market it well to the Saturday morning audience with this opening.

Cardcaptors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6-vS4aj-Zo&feature=related
Medabots: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPkRBd4qoWA&feature=related
Dragon Ball Z (2): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM0hunsIhPU&feature=search

All of these decently fit their series and sound good.



And of course these days it's become tradition to just have Vic Micogna (voice actor and music artist, most well known for playing Edward Elric in Fullmetal Alchemist) sing the opening:

One Piece: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUKWj_vurQE&feature=search
Dragon Ball Z Kai: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJO9vsjvUbg&feature=search



Now I can understand an issue, in that these openings often cut clips out of the shows instead of the high-quality unique opening animation, and that they tend to say the show's name too much, but I think English openings have gotten a way worse rep than they deserve.

Thoughts? Got any favorite English openings?

 

[Elfen]

Wow o.o, i just now rememebred some of those animes i use to watch way back when... Well most of the english ops didnt fit well with me, i hated how they sounded, like you said to much rap and all. And knwoing me.. i am not a big fan of rap/hip pop or w/e kids call it this days >_>. But i did like the first op for one piece on here, it was eh ok. I still like most of hte japanese openings better since i dont knwo what they mean or say ._. Thast just me though.

But to me, most of hte English openings where really cheesy and dorky, i really never payed attention to them, most reason is right after the opening it moved straight to a commercial and i just kinda let my mind drift off till they where over. But i really never hear english op for anime much any more... like this one aime called kiba, was in english on toonami but then they stop showing it and i had to watch the rest in japanese i only saw 5 episodes in english, yeah but here is the opening, i know its not english >.< dont kill me but it was good and it did fit the anime goodly http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKoAqH3yIEE

 

[Steve]

Dude, I loved the theme for Dragon Ball GT, but anyway:

Favorite:
Yu-Gi-Oh: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHxO4fLjgwE
Dragon Ball Z: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC54Z1h8AM4
Transformers Animated: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt5dsjnqv3c
Naruto: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWqMizmvusw
Sailor Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6_RZhh44NY
Hamtaro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amfFAvFFdrI

Despise:
Yu-Gi-Oh GX: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVhuoO6lBJI
Digimon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj0-hpO7a0Y
Bakugan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMr0Ag0QFWU

There's a lot of anime openings I like and dislike, but honestly, I hate Japanese themes more, mainly because they all sound the same to me, and because I only watch subbed anime. I think regardless of how cheesy and dorky they may be, a lot of them still maintain nostalgia for me.