Best Opening Themes of Fall 2011

Suffice to say, it's been hard to read the surface of the past Autumn 2011 anime season. Die-hard fans will admit that the summer usually brings lazier titles, while the winter is more of a hibernation, leaving the equinox seasons to be the ones to carry the load. Considering the restraints usually come off in the fall, the load certainly appeared hefty this season.

The same ideas of renewal and competition tend to go with the animation and music for the opening sequences--I'd say that only Mawaru-Penguindrum, Gintama', and Nichijô impressed me with their  opening numbers last season, while the other shows struggled for a unique display. Fall seasons usually are meant to be more impressive, although the lack of a Shaft animation again made me a little hesitant to rip through the fifty-plus opening songs from anime shows this season.

The general consensus? Better! Less fluff, more stuff! J-Rock seemed to dominate the airwaves a lot more than last year, perhaps in an effort to wake up fans before the winter slumber. Here's my personal rankings for the latest anime trimester—hopefully we won't be singing in baby-talk next winter.

(Pictures, once again, provided by the awesome folks at CD Japan.)

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Best Ending Themes of Summer 2011

Thank God it's all over. It all couldn't have finished soon enough, and that was after abandoning Mayo Chiki!, R-15 and Kaitô Tenchi Twin Angel by their second episodes.

The summer season's shows were so tough to swallow this year that I almost didn't make it to 50% of the ending themes. In fact, I probably didn't make it—considering how many songs came from The iDOLM@STER and Uta no Prince-sama shows alone, I probably left a ton on the editing-room floor. I'm so burned out that a mindless second season of Shinryaku! Ika-Musume is quite welcome.

Since the ends of the shows were literally music to my ears, I probably enjoyed more ending themes this season than last. With this ranking of the best 15 ending themes of the summer, we finally end this sad season. Once again, all credits for the pictures go to CDJapan.

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Best Opening Themes of Summer 2011

It's me! Whatever you do, stay away from R-15 and Mayo Chiki!

Somehow I must have sent a D-mail to myself from the future. I have the faintest feeling that I had warned myself not to watch much anime this season, and running the first three episodes of each anime over and over again in my mind pretty much confirms what I've thought.

There really wasn't anything in anime this season that was new enough to drag my attention away from the Spring 2011 shows that I've continued to follow. Likely it had to do with the waving flag of surrender constructed out of recycled anthology pages—eight shows from Shônen Jump ran on Crunchyroll, Funimation and Viz Media—but it probably has a lot to do with the deluge of average shows. Still plenty of beach episodes on shows that could have been mistaken for other shows. (Was I watching A Dark Rabbit Has Seven Lives or Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka? I can't remember.)

I did manage to stay awake enough to pay attention to the songs in the beginning and end. At least, I hope I did. Many of them, much like the shows themselves, failed to impress.

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