As long time readers know, I’ve been promising to post about my anime playlist basically forever… Well, the project is finally underway! Hit the jump and let’s get started!
The big hangup on getting this project started was figuring out an order to present the songs in. Alphabetical seemed wrong (and boring) and “Date Added” just didn’t work for me somehow. Finally, I realized that the “Last Played” column in iTunes made for a neatly sorted semi-random order… So I made a list in that order.
With each post, I’ll take either the next song(s) on the list or the next song plus others inspired by or related to that song. (Maybe sometimes off list.)
Alas! The dice cannot be bargained with, and the series starts not with a bang – but a bounce. With the harem-fanservice-battle-action series, Sekirei.
Minato Sahashi was living a normal life; he had just failed his college entrance exam for a second year in a row, and lived a quiet life in a single’s apartment. That is, until the busty Musubi fell from the sky on top of him! She is a Sekirei, one of 108 that are destined to fight each other until only one remains; and he or she will ascend to heaven with his or her chosen one known as an Ashikabi. Minato soon finds himself in the embrace of Musubi, becoming her Ashibaki – but his life will only become more complicated. Musubi isn’t the last to claim Minato as her Ashibaki, and what’s worse, plenty of other Sekirei and opponents stand in his way!
Source:ANN
Currently streaming on: Hulu (1st season, sub only)
I’ve never exactly hidden that fanservice shows don’t bother me, so long as they have some kind of characterization and plot. (And Sekirei has the bare minimum of both.) But still it’s kind of embarrassing, no?
Anyhow, there’s not really much to say about either season other than I enjoyed them for what they were.
Season 1 OP
Season 2 OP (Full version rather than the actual OP because that’s all I could find on YouTube.)
Not much to say about the OP’s either. As much as I enjoy the songs, the OP’s are pretty generic overall. Other than the lack of panty shots, they do showcase what you can expect from the show – plenty of skin, plenty of fighting.
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Visit the Anime Playlist Index (an ongoing work-in-progress) to see the entire series and my whole playlist.
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Be sure and check out the most recent posts in the Anime Playlist series:
Sword Art Online (franchise)
NANA
Laid Back Camp (franchise)
Shirobako
Yuuki Yuuna (franchise)
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OK, and with that, the project is underway. Seventy odd songs to go so I’ll be at this for a while.
Drop a comment with your thoughts on the OP’s, the music, or the series. Let’s chat!
Apprentice Mages Lounge. 
Never watched this series, never heard either of these songs before. Let’s take a listen…
Season 1 OP: Man, this song instantly screams “mid-2000s.” ’05, ’06 maybe? Pretty catchy, probably the seiyuus are singing it, I’m guessing.
Looking it up: Yeah, 2008, pretty close. And I was right, it is the seiyuus – wait, Saori Hayami and HanaKana are in this thing? And it was animated by Seven Arcs, the Nanoha people? Alright, Imma watch it again.
Watching again: Interesting, 2008 means this came out not long after Nanoha Strikers, but the visual styles between that and this don’t look all that much alike. And now I’m listening again, some parts of this song are reminding me of the first Saki OP from ’09, though that was a different studio. Different composer too? Lessee, yep, different composer.
Hey, wait a minute, the guy who wrote this song also wrote the OPs for Haruhi Suzumiya! Okay, no wonder I like it. Right, let’s check out season 2 now.
Season 2 OP: Hmm, not feeling this one quite as much. Feels a bit mellow for an OP, especially an action series. The visuals seem a bit better, though. Can’t find a writing credit, so I don’t know if this was the same composer as S1 or not.
Second listen: Okay, I think it’s not so much that the song is mellow – the tempo picks up nicely after the opening verse – I think it’s just that the vocal performance feels really soft and gentle. I would’ve preferred a little more bite in the delivery and maybe have one of the singers go a bit lower in her range, just to give it a fuller sound. But that’s my taste talking – I’m the guy who generally prefers contraltos to sopranos anyway. Still not a bad song, just not quite my style, and I definitely like the first season’s song better.
More research: Oh wow, so I’ve actually seen a lot of stuff by the guy who directed this. Looks like he did two seasons and two movies of Nanoha, plus Dog Days and KanColle. If nothing else, that tells me the fights in this series should be good – that’s a strong resume for female-focused action anime. Doubt I’d ever actually get around to it, though, even if it wasn’t Hulu-exclusive. I’ve never watched Ikki Tousen, Freezing, Maken-ki, or Senran Kagura either, and it feels like they’re all more-or-less the same kind of show. I have seen some of their 90s OVA ancestors like Natsuki Crisis and Variable Geo (which holds the proud distinction of having the single worst anime dub I’ve ever sat through), but at least those were only 2 or 3 episodes.
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That’s a comment above and beyond the call! (And very late if I read the timestamps right…) But you’re definitely the go-to guy for music.
It’s also a harem series, and though the action is driven by the antagonist the girls are mostly fighting to gain the attentions of the protagonist… Though it sounds kinda mellow, checking the lyrics on my local copy they skew towards the harem/action POV. So they do kinda match.
I do get what you’re saying though. The OP introduces the show… and all the parts of the OP should work as a whole with the show. Get the viewer’s attention.
IIRC, they were pretty good… But I’ve never actually watched the series any time recently when I’d have been better equipped to think about such things. I’ve rewatched individual eps and scenes but I’ve never felt motivated to re-watch the whole shebang.
I watched a lot of fanservice shows in my larval days… (including the infamous Agent Aika and Najica Blitz Tactics) Not so much nowadays. I don’t avoid them per se, but my standards for plot (vice “plot“) and my understanding of what anime actually is have… grown more than a little. I definitely don’t think it would be your thing.
I was kinda surprised that it was only on Hulu, Crunchy had it recently but it appears to have quietly disappeared.
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Hey, I’ve watched my fair share of ecchi trash over the years – I mean good grief, I cut my teeth on 90s anime when even the non-ecchi series had nude scenes, so I’m the last person who’s going to judge anyone for that. And no, it isn’t my usual thing, but even I occasionally get an itch. That’s how I ended up watching Sister New Devil, after all. Now I got that out of my system, it’ll probably be a couple more years before I watch another one. I think the last one I watched before that was Yuuna-san, which came out in 2018, so that seems about right.
I think Sekirei is an Aniplex-owned series, so it might turn up on Funimation at some point in the future. Not that I’ll be holding my breath waiting for it or anything.
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Finally got to listen to the tracks. I quite like both. I don’t know if both of them had the same composer, but the structure seems similar, at least, though the first one seems more fond of wind instruments, while the second one seems to prefer strings. I also think the first one switches from a minor scale to a major scale for the chorus, though I can’t be sure (around the 50 seconds mark). The second one achieves a similar effect, but I’m not really hearing the same shift. I’m rather bad at hearing those things, though, so I’d need the sheet music to be sure.
As for the show, I’ve never seen it. I don’t mind ecchi, but I’ve always avoided shows with, let’s say, uniform breast designs. There’s no variety here, and because of that, they become a feature of the show rather than a feature of the girl. It’s seriously distracting. I dropped Horizon for the torpedo design, and I got to episode 7 on my second try (I think I might have liked the show a lot better with more varied breast design).
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That’s doing better than me! I couldn’t tell even with sheet music… I can’t carry a tune, even in a bucket.
Yah… Like most all fanservice shows it’s pitched to a particular demographic. (Large breasts, panties, whatever.) There is one girl in Sekirei who isn’t oversized, but as usual that’s played for humiliation.
You’re not missing out on anything by never having seen it.
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