Dubious in respectability. (人聞きが怪しい。)

You know, it's funny; I always complain about not knowing what to put in this blog, and yet whenever I think about it, something always comes to mind in five minutes or less.

I suppose my head is simply too full of things Japanese to keep quiet for long.

Anyway, on to today's topic:

Music in Anime.

Or, more specifically, popular music used as endings and openings for anime series.

Specific? Yes. A topic inspired by a particular instance? Why yes, yes it is.

As a matter of fact, it's how I originally discovered BUCK-TICK, though I didn't know it at the time.



Yes; oh so many years ago, when I naively rented Nightwalker from Netflix, I happened upon a marvelous opening tune by a band whose name I simply could not find. For many a year, I simply knew it as "Gessekai" (I didn't speak Japanese then, after all, so no kana.)

(Side-note: What a disappointing series Nightwalker was. Any and all potential of intriguing vampire BL completely spoiled by dreadful writing and a low animation budget. Alas.)

Ironically, it was only after I heard the ending to XXXHolic that I figured out who the men behind Gessekai were.



In fact, XXXHolic's ending, 蜉蝣～かげろう～, is what inspired my passionate love for BUCK-TICK in my sophomore year of college. And we all thought that anime wasn't good for anything but attracting the weeaboos in droves.

(I jest, of course; I like anime just as much as the next Japan blogger.)

With BUCK-TICK as its ending and スガシカオ's 19才 as the opening, XXXHolic truly beats out all competition, in my opinion, as best-musically-surrounded-anime-series of all time.



You're free to contest my opinion, of course, but I expect auditory evidence and a full three pages (minimum) of well-reasoned argument backing your candidates.

Of course, if you were to find a series with an opening by the Sex Machineguns and a closing by Dir en grey... well, suffice it to say that you could color me impressed.

Interestingly enough, at least in the case of BUCK-TICK, neither of these anime-tunes was ever on an album. There were, however, videos for both; though admittedly I think it was just an opportunity to do a little bit of camera whoring.



(Is it just me, or is that a little bit of cosplay there, Atsushi?)



Again, though, do you see me complaining? No-siree-bob.

It makes you wonder, though. Sure, publicity is great; it draws random white college girls into your audience, after all, but are some things just a little embarrassing, even for rock stars?

I suppose that line of reasoning is entirely contradicted by the fact that Gackt appears to be doing nothing BUT anime tunes recently... but then again, as we all know, the man is crazy, so perhaps he is not the best model with which to compare.

Anyway, as suggested in the title, this is perhaps a dubious manner in which to discover music, but... when it leads to a life-long love for BUCK-TICK, who am I to argue?

This is Edo, signing off while humming along to the music in her head.