Awesome EDs, ~2011 Edition

A couple of years ago I posted my “top 10 unskippable EDs”—titled that way because I used to skip EDs a lot of the time. Now I don’t do that unless it’s really bad. Anyway, all the embedded videos are broken in the old post and I watched a *lot* of anime in the past two years, so here’s a new list of memorable EDs.

TO BE ON THIS LIST I had to like the ED as a whole, meaning song and video both. There are some ED songs that I liked where the video is unmemorable (think Mawaru Penguindrum’s “Dear Future”—amazing song, boring vid). Some also might be awesomely bad.

These videos are alphabetized by the shows they came from. And no, I have absolutely nothing better to do, and yes, I’m very tired right now.

I’ve Finally Fallen For Hanazawa Kana

Glasses and ponytail! *dies*

The first roles that I would’ve heard Hanazawa Kana in, had I been able to ‘hear‘ seiyuu at the time, were Kajiwara Sora in Sketchbook ~full color’S~ and Potemayo from the eponymous anime, both of which aired in late 2007. The irony there is that the former is a character who’s too shy to speak aloud—so all of her dialog is mental narration—and the latter is a 2-foot moeblob who can only say two syllables per breath and mostly makes noises. —Not exactly roles that tell you if an actress is going to be good, in spite of being leads.

Finish or Fail 17 – MAXIMUM THE FRENZY: Kyouran Kazoku Nikki

It’s very easy to (or perhaps impossible not to) get thrown by the first couple of episodes of Kyouran Kazoku Nikki. What first appears, through it’s zany and high-energy opening theme, fast-talking characters, and ridiculous premise to be a crazy slapstick comedy series is spliced with what comes across as very forced and overdone drama. After all, while a show about a man and a loli-tacular ‘god’ becoming parents to surrogate children including an innocent young girl, a gay teenage boy, a high-powered humanoid robot built for destruction, a lion, and a jellyfish might not seem like something you wouldn’t expect to have some messages about family togetherness and such, you probably wouldn’t expect it to start in the form of the young daughter being ruthlessly bullied at school and consistently getting the shit kicked out of her, especially by a sadistic older sister. A lot of people dropped this series in the first few episodes precisely because of that drama – I was somewhat included, though my inability to watch things as they air also had to do with it. Nonetheless, Kyouran Kazoku Nikki was one of a few ‘dropped’ shows that I added to my ‘finish or fail’ list to give them a second chance. And I was not disappointed.