Went geocaching on Sunday, and was tired as heck on Mon… and it entirely slipped my mind that this post was due! Jeez, what’s the point in having content ready to go and then forgetting about it?
So, let’s hit the jump and chat about this week’s OP’s!
N1 A Place Further than the Universe / Sora Yori Mo Tōi Basho (Yorimoi)
The Girls Are Alright! • Saya
Watching the OP right before writing this… I never realized that it opens with Kimari being turned upside down – just as her world is over the course of the show. Neat!
I’ve always liked the part that starts at 00:42, with the girls stumbling along (in character if you look closely) – then BAM, a jump and they’re in Antarctica. It’s also something of a troll as so little of the show actually takes place in Antarctica…
Correctly identified by too many to count…
B2 Sound! Euphonium / Hibike! Euphonium
Dream Solister • True
One of my favorite openings ever, from one of my favorite anime ever…
Also correctly identified by too many to count…
As a bonus, here’s Dream Solister performed by a wind orchestra (just like Kitauji’s concert band) performing in the theater featured in the final episode!
O2 Gangsta
“Renegade” • STEREO DIVE FOUNDATION
This is one of those cases where I wish the show had been half as good as the OP… It started strong, then kinda petered out as they tried to expand the scope of the story. It would have been so much stronger had they just concentrated on Nicolas and Worick.
I3 Silver Spoon
Kiss You • Miwa
A happy bouncy tune… Also, if you haven’t watched Silver Spoon, you really should! Both seasons are pretty darned good.
O3 A Certain Scientific Railgun / Toaru Kagaku no Railgun
Only My Railgun • fripSide
Maybe it’s just me… but it seems the music in the version has been toned down…
So here’s a seriously rocking live version.
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And we have out first winner – Marth makes a clean sweep of N column! But the game isn’t over. Has Wing correctly identified I5? We’ll find out next week!
(I did not plan a to-the-wire finish. I used a Bingo ball simulator to randomly “draw” balls from the available pool to determine which squares would be revealed each week.)
Apprentice Mages Lounge. 
I definitely agree with Dream Solister from Sound! Euphonium. That is a great opening and I like the symphonic elements mixing with J-pop melodies.
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I’ve heard some other things by True, and they’re pretty darn good. Hard to search YouTube for “True” though…
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That’s good to know about that band. Yeah, I can see why it would be tough to YouTube True. Haha!
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Ah, so O3 was Railgun. I only watched a few episodes of Index, and maybe a single episode of the second season of Railgun, but that image is iconic. I’d never have guessed Gangsta: the image as it is doesn’t really invoke the show, and there’s bad contrast, so if you blur it out it loses all distinction. I actually quite liked the show, but this must be the most abrupt ending in anime history: cut short by the studio going bankrupt and just… stopping. Silver Spoon was instantly recognisible once Wing guessed it, and the other two were fairly easy for me.
There isn’t anything left that rings a bell now (and nobody else has guessed). G4 and B3 look mildly familiar, but not enough to bother me. Still curious, though.
Btw, the early camera movement in the Euphonium opening (e.g. zoom speed) is an example of non-CGI stuff that’s also not good for my motion sickness, proving it’s really the camera rather than the CGI that bothers me. The second half of the video is totally fine, though. And the song’s great. Hearing it again feels surprisingly nostalgic.
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When I was designing this, selecting the level of blur was a huge challenge… And also why I shifted to monochrome. But even so, some images remained instantly recognizable. It was a hard call not to go in and hand blur, which seemed “cheaty” to me.
B3 is one I expected to be easy… But all along folks have guessed some I thought would be hard, and missed those I thought would be easy.
I don’t recalls Gangsta‘s end being that abrupt, they finished an arc didn’t they? Masamune-kun bailed in mid-arc and it my candidate for most abrupt end ever.
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As I remember it, Gangsta’s ending didn’t even properly finish the episode, let alone an arc. It felt literally like they just cut the power on a film that was ongoing. It felt that abrupt to me. I’ve googled it, and it seems I’m not alone. (For example, this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/3mkvmo/spoilers_gangsta_episode_12_final_discussion/)
As for guessing: it’s really hard to gauge easy/hard. Once I knew what some were they seemed obvious in ways they weren’t before. I really don’t know how that works, but it’s a complete turnaround. The pictures look different. (The easiest must be Nana, since you can actually read the title…)
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re:Gangsta My memory must be faulty then… gettin’ old.
And yeah, I almost took Nana off the list as it seemed extremely “cheaty” to blur it enough that the title didn’t show.
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Songs on my iTunes list: 1/5 (Dream Solister). Just a great song. I also like “Kiss You,” but that’s not even my favorite anime opening by miwa – I give that vote to “Shanranran” from Flying Witch. Just personal preference, though. She’s one of those artists who has a pretty distinctive sound, and it’s one that I like a lot. I remember the first time I heard the Flying Witch OP, I knew right away that it was her before I even looked it up.
So I got three right this week, and the other two I never would’ve figured out. Coincidentally, I wondered briefly if the Gangsta poster was Index because the guy in the middle looked like he had Touma’s spiky hair in the greyed-out version, but nothing else around him seemed to fit so I decided that couldn’t be right. I never even thought of checking Railgun.
And now with that discussion of “Renegade” I suddenly feel like listening to some Styx.
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“Kiss You” and “Shanranran” are both in my playlist… Reading your reply, at first I thought I should have been noting how many were on my playlist (4/5 or whatever) all along. But then I realized every single one was on my playlist and it would have been redundant as hell.
Interesting that both you and Dawn went for Index – but didn’t think of Railgun. Truth is, I watch Index out of habit and am much more a Railgun fan. I am curious to see how A Certain Scientific Accelerator plays out.
Loved that song back in the day… My retro music for the day, I spent a good chunk of yesterday listening to mid 80’s Moody Blues. IMO, their finest hour.
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The only late period Moody Blues that I know is “Wildest Dreams,” which is a great song and a longtime favorite (even if I occasionally mix it up with the Asia song of the same title that came out around the same time). I have a few of their late 60’s/early 70’s albums, though. Last time I went on a retro-80s binge, it was actually Billy Idol that I went back and hit up again. LOL
I got to see Styx with my Dad in 1996, on their one and only full reunion tour with the classic lineup before Dennis DeYoung split with them for good. It was a fantastic show, and it’s an experience that I appreciate even more in hindsight because it did end up being a one-off.
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Wildest Dreams…
Paired with it’s sequel, I Know You’re Out There Somewhere…
But their finest song of that era is unquestionably The Voice…
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Aw, it’s a real shame I only discovered this game now. I took a look at the blurred out chart in the intro post and was able to pick out a bunch of the shows, just from memorising what key visuals look like…but I don’t have a clue what the OPs are called in most cases, since I either haven’t watched the shows in question or didn’t bother remembering the OP names.
My making a bingo now would be futile regardless of how I try, but just to prove a point about key visuals, without Google I can tell you G1 = Sailor Moon Crystal (this one I do know, it’s Moon Pride), I5 = Yuki Yuna, B3 = SAO s2 (the Gun Gale Online one with…I believe her name is Sinon, she’s got bright blue hair – I can tell you SAO s1’s OP is Crossing Field, but I don’t know s2’s OP’s name). The last blurred box that isn’t free (G4) I’m less sure of, but I think it was Aldnoah Zero. I believe Aldnoah had songs by Hiroyuki Sawano, so it’ll probably have funky punctuation and/or spelling.
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You could have looked ’em up! :)
We’ll see next week! Thanks for taking part even in an abbreviated form.
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Wait, so this still counts as an entry…? Since ther were only 4 boxes left (not including the free space) and the comments were locked on the intro post, I thought you weren’t allowed to submit any more entries. (Maybe I’ve got it all backwards, who knows…)
If I can still add to my previous response, Google tells me Yuki Yuna = Hoshi to Hana, SAO s2 = IGNITE and Aldnoah = Heavenly Blue (which is by Kalafina, not Hiroyuki Sawano…I keep confusing specifics of Aldnoah with Re:Creators).
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No, I just meant that next week, we’ll see if you’re correct. :)
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