Best OPs and EDs of Spring 2020 – special guest Lauren

Hello and welcome to my series talking about the best OPs and EDs of the 2020 year! My name is Lauren and I am a guest writer and podcast host for BAYOG. If you haven’t read my first installment of this series where I talk about my picks from the Winter 2020 season, go ahead and click [here] to read that first. If you’re returning, thanks for coming back! This article will go over my thoughts on a few of my favorite anisongs from the Spring 2020 season.

    Spring is a season that promotes rebirth and rejuvenation. It’s also my birth season, so it always feels extra special to me and I’m always looking forward to it. Spring was the start of lockdown for us as well. I remember my birthday trip was supposed to be going to San Diego to spend a weekend, but like everyone else’s plans this year it fell apart. With how COVID is being handled in the United States, I doubt I’ll be able to go to San Diego in 2021 either. That won’t stop me from having fun indoors though! It’ll be my first birthday with my new cats, Rolo and Mac, so I’m sure it’ll be purr-fect no matter what. Is that a little too cheesy? I’m okay with it, anything to help keep spirits high! Let’s get this article rolling with my picks for the best anisongs of Spring 2020’s season!

---

    If you are like me and started watching anime in the early 2000s, you probably watched the original series of Fruits Basket as well. I can clearly remember hunkering down on weekends to watch my beloved bootleg Furuba DVDs on the family Playstation. The manga was also the first series I ever bought and collected as well, so it holds a lot of space in my heart. I am so thankful for the impact the story had on my life, and I feel so glad that I can experience the show again with the new remake which debuted in 2019. Spring 2020 saw the second season of the new Furuba, which finally filled in the rest of the story that the 2001 series didn’t get to animate.

The 2001 Furuba series had the most wonderful original soundtrack (OST) design. The late composer, Ritsuko Okazaki, created such bittersweet arrangements that perfectly simulated the warmth that main heroine Tohru exudes. If you are a newer fan of Furuba, I highly recommend you listen to the original soundtrack even if you don’t want to watch the original series. That being said, the new OST is nothing to sneer at in comparison. Masaru Yokohama nailed the new soundtrack, expanding upon Okazaki’s bitter-sweetness. There’s a new depth to the OST, much like there is a new depth to the 2019 reboot overall; It expands past the end of the original airing and gets to even darker and poignant plot lines that were not shown in the 2001 series. The saccharine, sweet melodies from the original adaptation would feel like out of place if they were included now.

This also pours into the OP and ED choices for the series as well. As the second season consisted of two cours, we ended up with two openings and endings each. “Prism” by AmPm feat. Miyuna and “ad meliora” by THE CHARM PARK were featured for the first cour with “Home” by Toki Asako and “Eden” by Monkey Majik used for the second cour. All four of these tracks have the same mix of wistfulness and hopefulness that match the series main message, and they really match with the brilliant OST that Yokohama created. These songs also feel like much more mature counterparts to “For Fruits Basket”, “Chiisana Inori”, and “Serenade” (the original series’ OP and two EDs), like Yokohama’s compositions feel like more mature counterparts to Okazaki’s original tracks. I could go on for this whole damn article if I don’t stop being Furuba on main so I will leave it at that, please listen to all the music this series has to offer!

---

Another second season we got was of my anime of the year, Kaguya-sama: Love is War, complete with a dumb litty original from the boss himself: Masayuki Suzuki. “DADDY ! DADDY ! DO !” features soloist Airi Suzuki for this jazzy track full of those sweet, sweet brass instruments I love. “DADDY ! DADDY ! DO !” is the perfect complement to season one’s OP “Love Dramatic” also by Suzuki but featuring actress Rikka Ihara. Suzuki is actually known as “Japan’s King of Love Songs”, having 40 years worth of work under his belt. It only seems natural to have him sing the theme for the best rom-com of modern anime. Kaguya season one was actually his first time ever performing an anisong, and in an interview with Livedoor he spoke about how shocked he was with the warm reception from anime fans, as well as how he loved seeing his song coupled with the animation. “DADDY ! DADDY ! DO !” has also performed well, ranking within the top 20 of the Oricon charts.

Suzuki’s songs are just the cherry on top to my favorite series of the year. With the recent announcement of Kaguya season three and the OVA, I really hope they tap his musical skills again for the show, as if to continue a tradition. Both “Love Dramatic” and “DADDY ! DADDY ! DO !” have a high energy, Bond-esque vibe that compliment the show’s themes of espionage and deception. It’s a big testament to how a good musician can be timeless. I hope Suzuki’s success propels many other older musicians to take the leap into anisong territory!

---

    It wouldn’t be a good article on anime music if I didn’t include one of the many music themed anime from this season, and my pick for this season has to be Listeners. I don’t think many other people watched this show (kudos if you did and continued it to the end) and I don’t know if I could say it’s one of my favorites, but I really enjoyed it and I’m glad I saw the story to it’s conclusion. It does however have the feat of having TWELVE different ending songs, performed by none other than Rie Takahashi who also voices the main heroine, μ (Mu, pronounced mew, shoutout to Love Live). Each ending features a different styling of music, with accompanying animation that summarizes the episode it follows. The animation also has been spliced with the official character designs from artist pomodorosa. 

    This anime is rife with references to prominent musicians and songs. The main character, Echo Rec, is named for the Binson Echorec, which was used heavily by Pink Floyd. μ’s predecessor, Jimi Stonefree, is a direct reference to Jimi Hendrix and his hit song “Stone Free”. Denka, a person who Echo and μ search for to learn about Jimi’s whereabouts, is literally just anime Prince. I had a lot of fun picking out all the references with my partner, who is also really into music as well. If you love music just as much as I do, I think you should at least try Listeners, if only to experience another show created by Dai Saito, who brought us Cowboy Bebop.

Out of all twelve songs tied to the show, my personal favorites are “Slip out!”, “Rainy lain”, “trauma” and “Slumber”. I also love both renditions of “Into the blues”: the original by ACCAMER and the ‘modern version’ performed by Rie Takahashi. I can tell that so much love and thought was put into each track and that is something to respect. 

---

That concludes another round of my favorite OP and EDs from the Spring 2020 anime season! If you’d like to hear my other favorites that didn’t make this article, please check out my public Spotify playlist that features all the songs I enjoyed from this season! Thank you again for reading my thoughts! 

Again, big shout out to aniplaylist.com, which is a project that helps compile anime music and categorize it on spotify and which helped me create this article! Please check out their website and consider donating to them so that we may keep using their services in the future. 

Please let me know what you think of my choices, and tell me what your favorite song from the Spring 2020 season was as well! Feel free to comment or tweet me at twitter.com/necara I would love to hear your opinions and thoughts. I hope you’re all well, and I’ll see you next week!!