Yes, it's been much too long since I bothered with this blog. Real life interferes, as always, as do things like social media (I love google+). So in an attempt to jumpstart things a bit, or at least try a monthly schedule, I offer something I did every year on LJ. Traditionally, the last post of the year was always my selection of the best anime opening song of the year. This year was... difficult.
The eventual choice for best song is surprising, at least to me. If I were simply picking ending songs, it would be Magia, hands down, the ending for the excellent Puella Magi Madoka Magica anime. Kalafina typically do great work, and Magia is one of the best. However, I don't rate endings. This is an opening, though, by a group who I first heard of from the ending single to the Eden of the East movie.I like School Food Punishment. A lot. It's pretty difficult for me to list a song of theirs I dislike, and the only reason I don't have a stack of their CDs in my collection is because they tend to go out of print, a problem which is pretty common to the jpop industry. They have an interesting sound, with a heavy jazz influence over standard electronic fare, keyboard carrying the day.
Notably, though, the vocals in this song are done by the venerable Maaya Sakamoto. So, one of my favorite vocalists temporarily displaces the already pleasant vocals of one of my favorite bands. Aural heaven. It goes beyond simply being catchy; most anime openings are, by definition, catchy. It's more that Maaya's voice is, in a word, beautiful, and the music is beautiful as well. Not in the sort of ethereal way that Yoko Kanno, Maaya's normal composition partner, tends to be. Beautiful in the way a Miles Davis composition can be; there's a lot going on in the song, and it all fits together perfectly.
Honorable mentions for 2011 include the Madoka Magica opening "Connect" by claris, and "Zannenkei Rinjin-Bu," by pretty much the entire female cast of Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai.
