Month: March 2024

the art of the anime opening song

Series: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure-Stone Ocean
Title: Stone Ocean
Music: ichigo from Kisida Kyodan & The Akebosi Rockets
One cant say enough about the JoJo series – a 133 volume action/horror/adventure/comedy/fantasy manga thats been running for nearly 40 years and in which “bizarre” is the vastest of vast understatements. Part of its charm is that the hundreds of characters are named after 1970s, 80s and 90s rock groups, musicians and songs. Its a music fans dream show. David Production has done stunning work of adapting it to an anime yet keeping all the comic-book feeling visually. Kisida Kyodan & The Akebosi Rockets are a rock band known for writing songs for popular anime series or as the genre is called in japan “Anison” (animation songs).

Series: Zom 100-Bucket List of the Dead
Title: Song of the Dead
Music: Kana-Boon
How do you take the zombie genre and make it fun and upbeat? Well just watch. A refreshing take on a tired subject! Great video with zombie choreography : ) Netflix made a live action version of this of 2023 but i really didnt think it lived up to the anime, not nearly as funny. The band Kana Boon although i dont know them, have racked up 287 million views on just one video alone

Series: Concrete Revolutio
Title: The Beginning
Music: Yamamoto Yosuke
A strange sci fi anime from Bones studio, the story is a postmodern take on Cyborg 009, a classic anime from the 60s, in a world set in an alternate 1962 where superheroes are suspect, similar to the Watchmen series in the US. Very unique animation and powerful music.

Series: Gankutsuo (The Count of Monte Cristo)
Title: We Were Lovers
Music: Jean-Jaques Burnel
Major animation studio Gonzo adapted Alexandre Dumas’ classic french novel to a sci fi setting, and to go with the watercolor-like impressionist artwork and actual costume designs by Anna Sui, they hired Jean-Jaques Burnel from The Stranglers to do the soundtrack music.

Series: Peeping Life
Title: HOTEL Alien
Music: Bradio
Bradio are a funk rock band signed to Warner Brothers Records. Theyre quite good! Very party-oriented music. Peeping Life is a animated-in-real-time improv sketch comedy series, this season here doing sketches based on classic 1960s and 70s anime characters like Astro Boy, Black Jack and Time Bokan.

Series: Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
Title: D City Rock
Music: TeddyLoid feat. Debra Zeer
Gainax is one of the worlds most successful and innovative anime studios (they made Evangelion, widely considered the greatest ever anime). They decided to send their staff to America for 6 months and absorb the culture and especially watch as many american cartoons as possible, and on return created “Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt” based on what they learned. Tons of sex, foul language, extreme violence and rude and disgusting purile gags, all that look vaguely similar to american animation but just so extreme that the satire will shock and offend the staunchest cartoon fan. Its funny yes, but absolutely NOT safe for US television.

japanese music you should be listening to – part 4

Plasticzooms – Personal Communication
wearing an einstürzende neubauten and spacemen 3 shirt in your music video is a great way to have me instantly like you. Plasticzooms are a japanese postpunk band currently living in Berlin.

Scanch – うそつき天国 (Liar Heaven)
Hard rock and glam rock mainstays since 1982, Scanch is fronted by Rolly Teranishi, (seriously watch that link) a major celebrity now doing TV and Film appearances as well as anime voice acting. He’s basically Japan’s Marc Bolan/David Bowie/Mick Jagger/Rip Taylor rolled up in one. He played Frank n Furter in japanese productions of The Rocky Horror Show and is known to cult movie audiences as the psycho bowling alley serial killer in Sion Sono‘s horror film “Suicide Circle“. I have to remember which Scanch video it was where the keyboard player caught on fire from an accidental flash pot explosion but they kept the camera rolling anyway.

Ningen Isu – Farewell to the World
Their name translates as “The Human Chair”, the name of a creepy short story from Japan’s literary master of horror Edogawa Rampo, the band started in 1987 and are masters of their brand of intellectual heavy metal, and big fans of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, King Crimson and KISS. I also speculate they may have been the inspiration for the popular heavy metal comedy manga “Detroit Metal City“.

Histujibungaku – Addiction
major label alt-rock trio from Tokyo, founded by the singer when she was in junior high school. Their name translates as “Sheep Literature”.

Max Fleischer’s Color Classics

Last week i caught the tail end of a week long Fleischer Studios animation retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. You likely know them for the 1930s Betty Boop and Popeye shorts, but they started in the silent era and were interestingly based in Times Square rather than Hollywood. The 5 immigrant brothers built a film empire producing 800 films between 1919 and 1939, capped by their feature Gullivers Travels and the 1941 Superman series before being bought out by Paramount Studios and moving to TV in the 50s. They are credited with inventing many innovative animation techniques such as rotoscoping, 3D backgrounds, sound, color and combining animation with live action. The museum screened that day selections from the Fleischer Color Classics series from the 1930s, the first few shot on two strip technicolor, an early color film process using only reds and blues. Some excellent short films, lovely and funny. Unlike Disney, a midwesterner whose cartoons represented middle america, The Fleischers were New Yorkers and many of their films represent urban life with its diverse dialects, working class and immigrant culture, jazz soundtracks and even gay references.

Find the complete collection here

Small Fry (1939)