In this column, "Beyond the Anisong," I want to explore what lies on the other side of anime songs — the structure of the music, the talent of the artists, the behind-the-scenes creative process, and the impact these songs have had on the broader music scene. All from the perspective of one dedicated anisong fan.
Anisong Was Always Where the Real Talent Gathered
Looking back, anisong has always featured the era's most representative musicians.
In the 1970s and 80s, anime songs were still largely positioned as "theme songs for TV shows." Yet even then, artists like Isao Sasaki and Ichiro Mizuki were carving out anime music as a legitimate form of expression through their overwhelming vocal prowess. Their voices transcended mere background music — they became the very soul of the works themselves.
In the early 1980s, the first signs of change appeared. In 1983, Anri's "CAT'S EYE" — the theme song for the anime *Cat's Eye* — topped the Oricon charts for five consecutive weeks. A pop artist who wasn't an anisong specialist had scored a massive hit with an anime theme song. It was an event that foreshadowed the era to come.
And what made this shift definitive was TM NETWORK's "Get Wild," the 1987 ending theme for *City Hunter*. It was the moment when "pop music" and "anime" — two worlds that had existed separately — truly began to intersect.
This trend accelerated. In the 90s, BAAD, WANDS, and Maki Ohguro for *Slam Dunk*; JUDY AND MARY for *Rurouni Kenshin*; Yoko Takahashi for *Neon Genesis Evangelion* — each artist, with their respective songs, was dissolving the boundary between anime and music.
The Real Reason Talent Flocked to Anisong
Of course, this wasn't driven purely by musical reasons. The anime tie-ups of the 90s had a significant business dimension driven by record labels.
*Slam Dunk*'s theme songs featured a lineup of Being Inc. artists — BAAD, WANDS, Maki Ohguro, ZARD — while *Rurouni Kenshin* featured JUDY AND MARY and L'Arc~en~Ciel. Anime broadcasting weekly during prime time on national television was an incredibly effective CD promotion vehicle. Rather than artists being drawn to the works themselves, record labels saw anime as a powerful promotional platform and deployed their artists accordingly — that structural reality is undeniable.
But here's where it gets interesting.
What began as business-driven tie-ups eventually elevated the quality of anisong itself. When top-tier artists put their full effort into creating songs, and those songs merged with anime visuals, an expressive power emerged that the music alone could never have achieved. Just as Yoko Kanno freely traversed jazz to electronica in *Cowboy Bebop*, and Yuki Kajiura built a singular sonic universe in *Puella Magi Madoka Magica*, the presence of anime's "narrative" elevated artists' creativity to an entirely different dimension.
Business attracted talent, talent deepened expression, and expression crossed borders. LiSA achieving worldwide recognition through *Demon Slayer* was the culmination of decades of this structural accumulation. Anisong becoming music that reaches the world was no accident.
Another Work of Art in 90 Seconds — OP/ED Visuals as Expression
There's another theme I want to explore in this column. The appeal of anisong doesn't lie in the music alone — it's also in the opening and ending *visuals*.
What's surprisingly little known is that anime OP/ED sequences are often produced entirely separately from the main show. Particularly for original anime from the 1980s through the 2000s, it was not uncommon for OP/EDs to be created before production on the main episodes had even begun — meaning the main visuals didn't yet exist. The studios and creators involved were often different from those working on the show itself.
Imagine this: no script exists yet. You've never seen the actual footage. All you have to go on is a synopsis, character descriptions, and a sense of the world's atmosphere — and from that, you create 90 seconds of video. This is, in essence, an independent work of visual art.
That's precisely why OP/ED sequences carry such unique intensity. Freed from the need to faithfully recreate the main story, the creator's interpretation and aesthetic sensibility are directly reflected. The visuals are perfectly synced to the song's BPM, emotional arc is crafted through cuts, and the essence of the entire work is distilled into 90 seconds. Music and visuals become one — a form of expression unique to anime, distinct from both music videos and episode recaps.
Beyond the "Kids' Music" Prejudice
To be honest, there was a time when I looked down on anisong a little myself. "It's just anime music, right?" But at some point, I realized something. Some of the musical experiences that had moved me most deeply were anisong. And that emotion wasn't born from the music alone — it came from the unity of OP/ED visuals and music as a complete "90-second work of art."
There is no hierarchy in music. Yet anisong still carries a lingering sense of being "not properly appreciated." Songs that deserve to be discussed on the same plane as rock, jazz, and classical are overlooked simply because they're "anime songs."
In this column, I want to convey the true richness that lies beyond that prejudice — Beyond. Not just the depth of the music, but also the power of expression born from the fusion of sound and image. I intend to put it carefully into words.
Next time, I want to write about a seismic shift happening at the frontier of anisong. K-pop artists are entering the Japanese anime theme song arena in droves — I'll decode the strategy behind this phenomenon and its implications for the future of anisong.
