There are several types of anime openings and endings. Barring a few such as the Ghost in the Shell and Serial Experiments Lain openings which have openings in Russian and English, most of them are in Japanese, usually with some Engrish thrown in. Just as in western music, there are different genres. In general, there are three genres of anime music; rock, pop, and moé (cutesy).

The Japanese J-pop scene is probably the most popular, recognizable pretty much all over the world. Any opening of ending by groups like Flow, L’Arc En Ciel, Asian Kung-Fu Generation, Orange Range, or any other J-Pop group falls under this category. Patty and Konata can probably explain it better.


Rock is kind of similar to pop, especially in the instrumentation, but rock has more power to it. In other words, the music has a different feel to it, even with a similar sound. Take the Xam’d opening, by one of my favorite J-rock bands, Boom Boom Satellites.


Moé, the final type, is hard to define in English, but if you hear it, it becomes clear.

I personally like some of these, especially when voice actors from the series sing the theme songs themselves, such as what happens here or in others such as K-On. Sometimes it sounds like the singers are little girls, and despite voicing them, they actually aren’t. Of course, there are female Japanese singers who don’t sound like little girls, and some males singers who do.

Another one of my favorite Op’s is an oddball, being that it is sung by a Japanese artist, but it is done completely in English. Some of you may recognize it.

I know I have some Bleach fans out here.