Yata’s Top 25 OPs of 2023

Hey, y’all. Yata here. One more article before the self-imposed hiatus returns, and it comes in the form of what I cut my teeth doing for a dozen (!!!) years: rambling about anime openings. If you’re new here, welcome! Prepare to get irrationally disappointed. If you’re a returning reader, you’re welcome. I braved the deluge so you don’t have to! That’s right, for the sake of due diligence, I watched what I believe is every opening from 2023 that fits my established criteria. Here’s a refresher on what counts:

• The OP must have debuted in 2023. It can come from a series that premiered before 2023 and/or will continue airing after the year ends, but the OP in question had to debut this calendar year.
• All people are biased, and I’m inherently fonder of series I’ve seen and liked since I’m able to parse additional context from their OPs. The same applies for genres of shows and songs that happen to be more up my alley, though I do my best to keep an open mind.
• OPs from movies are excluded. Only OPs from TV anime, OVAs, and ONAs were considered.
• My rankings are mostly arbitrary and based on music composition, audio production, lyrics and delivery, visual production, audiovisual sync, artistic creativity, and pretty much any other metric relevant to absorbing this stuff. Some of these aspects are weighed more than others based on what I feel the OP in question was trying to emphasize, but I don’t give the individual metrics ratings of their own during the ranking process. Their pros and cons still ultimately come second to my personal enjoyment.

And of course, remember this list is just one guy’s opinion. You’re entitled to your own, but there’s a pretty good chance you also haven’t sat through all 200+ OPs from this year, most of them multiple times over, so maybe my take is worth hearing out, ‘kay?

Yata’s Top 25 OPs of 2022

“For Great Justice isn’t dead! For Great Justice isn’t dead,” I continue to insist as it slowly shrinks and transforms into an annual dumping ground for my thoughts about anime themes and little else. But hey, dril’s still kicking, and I don’t even have an usurper on my hands to wrest this blog away from me, so I might as well dust it off and get busy! It’s fall, and you know what that means: time for Yata to marathon every OP and ED that aired in 2022 and select the best of the best for the ani-blogosphere’s most niche awards.

And yes, I’m doing OPs first this time—a certain esteemed adaptation happens to be airing a different ED every week this season (you know the one) and I’m not publishing that list until my eyes and ears get to witness them all. That’s not the case with this year’s OPs, as just about every significant title has aired its token offering(s) by now. Over 200 OPs of “research” later, I’ve narrowed them down and selected the lucky few I most wish to highlight.

Yata’s Top 25 OPs of 2021

Hi, everyone! Yata here, and welcome to the second of my three late-year posts as we wrap up what anime had to offer us in 2021. If you missed my Top 10 EDs of 2021 list, make sure to give that a glance, and of course stay tuned in late December or early January for the grand finale: my Top 10 Anime of the Year and general 2021 Recap.

But before that, I said we’d keep the theme song trend going, and I intend to. You either love it or hate it—this annual list of my favorite OPs has been a feature of the For Great Justice-sphere since even before the site’s inception, and in recent years I’ve dragged myself through anisong hell by attentively marathoning every single OP from that calendar year just so I can say nothing slipped by me.

By my count that left me with just over 200 openings to slog through for 2021, and slog through them I did; the OPs that were amazing this year were amazing, but they weren’t particularly abundant, meaning I kinda had to pad out the bottom half of the 25 with some personal pleasures as opposed to only rewarding crowning artistic achievements. The number’s part of the brand, though—I refuse to change it at this point.

Yata’s Top 25 OPs of 2020

I vowed to not spend 11 months procrastinating this time around and let the record show I meant it. The winter 2021 premieres are already trickling out, but before I dive headfirst into those, there’s one piece of 2020’s unfinished business to attend to (well, regarding anime, that is). You either love it or love to hate it: the annual rundown of my favorite opening theme songs is back, on schedule for once, and it’s in peak form as it’s ever been.

No, seriously, 2020 was a really good year for OPs overall, so much so that it made the usual slog—watching every opening to debut in the last calendar year—surprisingly manageable. Some assaults to my faceholes snuck through as always, but for once the issue wasn’t what to add so that I’d reach 25 worth praising, but what to cut. I’ll address some of those bubble entries in a minute, but more importantly, I need to recap the criteria for what’s eligible and valued on these lists:

• The OP must have debuted in 2020. It can be from a show that premiered before 2020 or that will continue airing after, but the OP in question had to debut this past year.
• I don’t need to have seen a show in order for its OP to be eligible on the list, but recognize I’m inherently biased towards those I have seen since I’m able to parse additional context from them. OPs of long-running shounen adaptations, kids’ shows, and idol hell tend to be absent here for that reason.
• Movies are also excluded; these are just OPs from TV anime and ONAs.
• My rankings are somewhat arbitrarily based on music composition, audio production, lyrics and delivery, visual production, audiovisual sync, originality, and pretty much any other metric you could think of. Some of these aspects are weighed more than others based on what I feel the OP in question was trying to accomplish, but I don’t give these individual metrics ratings of their own during the ranking process. The pros and cons of each still ultimately come second to my personal enjoyment.
• On that note, never forget that the following is all just my personal opinion. You’re entitled to disagree and I expect that you will. If you decide to reach out asking where X or Y is, just remain civil and don’t act in bad faith. I certainly welcome you responding with your own favorites.

You ready? I’m ready. Let’s get this countdown started!

Yata’s Top 25 OPs of 2019

It’s here. I did it. It’s late, sure, but it’s done and done early enough that I won’t necessarily set myself further behind schedule. You wanted it, you asked for it, and now, 10 months late and almost totally irrelevant, I return with a Top 25 OPs post for the year 2019.

Why did it take so long? Well, I typically do the annual OP list when I get a lull of work in the winter, but this year I got a pandemic instead, and that led me to pursue more ambitious projects in my limited free time, If I had, you know, died, I didn’t want my last creative exercise to be this. Don’t get me wrong—I still love anime themes as an art onto themselves, but the ones 2019 had to offer were perhaps the overall weakest batch I’ve seen from a year in a while. And no, I didn’t “miss the good ones,” I watched every OP available on them databases as research. It was a grueling time.

The only thing that could make it more grueling is if it’s all for naught, though, so fuck it, you’re here, I’m here, let’s run down my favorites.

Yata’s Top 25 OPs of 2018

I’m two months late with this one, but I wasn’t gonna abandon this annual tradition entirely. I don’t know about the rest of you, but 2018 felt like a relatively weak year for OPs, though there were still some remarkable standouts and a plethora of solid enough contenders fighting to round out this top 25. If you’ve been following For Great Justice for a while, you’re likely already familiar with my OP and ED-grading criteria, but if haven’t (or if you need a refresher), these are my general rules:

• The OP must have debuted in 2018. It can be from a show that premiered before 2018 or will continue airing after 2018, but the OP in question had to debut this past year.
• I don’t need to have seen a show in order for its OP to be eligible on the list, but I recognize I’m inherently biased towards those I have seen since I’m able to parse additional context from them. OPs of long-running shounen adaptations tend to be absent here for that reason, so if you’re eagerly awaiting openings from say, One Piece, Black Clover, Boruto, or Gintama, you’ll probably be disappointed. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
• My rankings are somewhat arbitrarily based on music composition, audio production, lyrics and delivery, visual production, audiovisual sync, visual creativity…and pretty much any other metric you could think of. Some of these aspects are weighted higher than others based on what I feel the OP in question is trying to accomplish.

Despite all that, none of these metrics are ever given numbers during the ranking process, and the craft-related pros and cons ultimately still fall second to my personal enjoyment. After all, objectivity is bullshit and these ratings are just my personal opinion. You are certainly entitled to disagree.

Yata’s Top 25 OPs of 2017

Happy holidays, everybody! Yata here, with what seems to be an annual tradition at this point. That’s right – it just wouldn’t feel like the end of the year if I didn’t frantically write up a bajillion blurbs about anime openings, and I don’t intend to break the streak now. If you’ve been around FGJ for a while, you probably know the drill by now. If not, allow me to quickly summarize my criteria for you:

• The OP must have debuted in 2017. It can be from a show that premiered before 2017 or will continue airing after 2017, but the OP in question has to be from this year.
• I don’t need to have seen a show in order for its OP to be eligible on the list, but I recognize I’m inherently biased towards those I have seen since I’m able to understand additional context from them. OPs of long-running shounen adaptations tend to be absent here for that reason, and though they fare a bit better this year, if you’re eagerly awaiting entries from say, One Piece or Gintama, you’ll probably be disappointed. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
• My ratings are arbitrarily based on music composition, audio production, lyrics, visual production, audiovisual sync, visual prowess…and pretty much any other metric you could think of. And despite all that, the pros and cons still fall second to my personal enjoyment. After all, objectivity is bullshit and these ratings are ultimately just my personal opinion. You are certainly entitled to disagree and/or think I’m a maniac.
• And last but not least, I’ve always considered an entry field of 25 large enough to not think twice about including multiple OPs from the same show, but this year, the competition was abundant and I wanted to highlight a maximum number of different productions, so I’ll be limiting each show to one OP.

Yata’s Top 25 OPs of 2012

Gotta give you a bit of backstory before we begin: Haru, L-K, and I founded For Great Justice in the late summer of 2014, but we had actually met each other online and started conversing about two and a half years prior. At the time, Haru and I in particular seemed to hit it off with similar taste, each of us just getting into the whole “watch a ton of shows as they air” trend, and the rest is more or less our site’s modest history. For that reason, 2012 (and its spring season in particular) has continued to hold a deep place in my heart, and lately I started getting nostalgic about those good ol’ days.

Then the epiphany hit me: that was five years ago.

My first thought was “Where the fuck did that time go?” My second was something to the effect of “You know, this would give me a reason to crank out another OPs list,” and that’s precisely what I’m gonna be doing here. If you’re familiar with my previous OP lists, the criteria and rules haven’t changed. If you aren’t, allow me to explain:

These ratings are by and large my own personal opinion (of which you are entitled to yours) and based on arbitrary factors including but not limited to melody, song composition, audio production, visual production, audiovisual sync, originality, relevance to the show (when I’m able to judge that), and my own miscellaneous personal enjoyment. Having seen a show isn’t a prerequisite for its OP to appear here, but OPs for shows I have seen are much more likely to be included and placed higher than those I haven’t, especially in this nostalgia-driven installment. The exact numerical rankings are pretty much irrelevant outside the top 10. OPs to shows which started airing before or finished airing after 2012 are eligible, but only if the OP itself first aired during that year.

Since 2012 marked the start of my anime-watching habits, this will also likely be my last retrospective Top OPs list going forward, so fasten those seat belts, plug in some headphones, and accompany me on this totally self-gratifying trip down memory lane.

Yata’s Top 25 OPs of 2016

Hey, everybody, Yata here! Another year down, another Top 25 OPs list to show off! Personally, I found 2016 to be a bit of a weak year for stellar openings, but that just made the “moderately above average” crop even harder to sift through. So sift I did; I whipped up my first draft of this list back in October and spent the next three months re-arranging the hell out of it to the point of absurdity, eventually ending up with this. My criteria and ranking system remain the same as they’ve been for the last three years worth of these things. To recap:

•  The OP must have debuted in 2016. It can belong to a show that started before 2016 or one that will continue into 2017, but if the OP debuted in an airing season of 2016, it’s eligible for inclusion on this list.
• If a show has multiple versions of what can be considered the same OP (different animation set to the same music or vice versa), only one will be included; any changes to the OP, if relevant to mention, will be noted in the blurb.
• If a show has multiple completely different OPs, all of them are eligible as individual entries as long as they meet the above criteria.
• It’s not a requirement that I’ve seen the corresponding series for each OP on this list, but obviously the ones I have seen (or am at least moderately familiar with) are much more likely to be included because I have a better grasp on what the contents of their OPs mean. This year, there were uncharacteristically 8 (a new personal record!) openings on here from shows I either didn’t watch at all or didn’t complete, so even if you’ve kept up with me throughout the year, there might still be some surprises in store for you below.
• Unlike the many YouTube channels which rank openings mathematically and solely on their music, I rank these on a non-numerical, totally arbitrary combination of each one’s music, visuals, audiovisual sync, relevance to the show (when I’m able to discuss that), and my own personal enjoyment, with the most emphasis placed on whatever I feel each individual OP was trying to accomplish.

And just a reminder, these rankings are very loose apart from the top handful; there are several entries around the bubble which didn’t make the cut for me (see: Ajin, Flip Flappers, Mayoiga, Orange, Shirayuki S2, etc.), but that doesn’t mean I hated them – there’s just a lot of anime openings each year, guys. I have to draw the line somewhere. In that same vein, the exact numerical placement of each OP is mostly a matter of nitpicky preference, as anything outside the top 4 could have easily swapped places with any other openings in a 4 or 5 spot radius and still felt “right” to me.

And of course, try to remember that these rankings, like any evaluation of art, is massively subject to personal preferences. You are entitled to your opinion just as I am entitled to mine, and there’s nothing wrong with agreeing to disagree. I welcome discussion over this list (as long as it’s civil) and encourage you to comment, or, if you feel so inclined, post a rundown of your own. That’s “great justice,” as they say.

Anyway, with that explanation out of the way, let’s get this OP rumble started!

Yata’s Top 25 OPs of 2013

Hey, folks. Yatahaze here. In 2013, back in the pre-FGJ days when me and the crew primarily conversed through Facebook and forums, I made a list of my favorite 25 OPs from that year. At the time I thought – and still do think – that it was a spectacular year for anime openings, with several great entries nearly on par with each other vying for the top handful of spots. Since we’ve been a bit slow this spring (and also because those OP lists of mine seem to do pretty well for site views), I decided to revisit that old list and see if I could tweak some things around and write about them in more detail. This is the one that started it all, so it only seems natural to actually post it to the website where anyone can find it.

For those of you new to my OP ranking methods, here’s a reminder for what counts and what I consider:

• The OP must have debuted in the year in question (so for this, 2013). It can belong to a show that started before then as long as the OP itself debuted that year. In other words, 2012 shows that carried over into 2013 and used an OP that only aired during that year are acceptable entries.
• If an OP has multiple versions (either different animation set to the same music or different music set to the same animation) and all those versions are available online, I’ll choose the version I like the most. Multiple versions of what are otherwise the same OP won’t take up multiple entries. For entries with evolving credits, whatever’s available will be used.
• If a show has multiple OPs, they are all eligible as long as they fit the above criteria. This never came into play for my 2014 and 2015 lists, but this old one will show why that rule exists in the first place.
• I don’t need to have seen a show to include its OP, though shows I have watched are much more likely to be on the list, seeing as I’m more familiar with them and the in-show significance of their OPs’ contents. Doubly so for sequels or long-running series.
• Unlike the many YouTube channels dedicated to ranking OPs based solely on music, I judge OPs on a sliding scale combination of their music, visuals, audiovisual sync, relevance to the show (when able), and my personal enjoyment, with regards given to what I feel the OP was trying to stress or accomplish most.

As always, don’t fixate on the exact numbers too much. The rankings are loose and (for this list especially) really close, meaning there are a couple solid OPs still absent here, but to stick with the precedent, I’m cutting this list off at 25 numbered entries and one honorable mention. If you’d like to see my lists from 2014 and 2015 first, you can go ahead and click on those. Otherwise, I hope you all enjoy this old but revamped and finally-published installment of Yata’s Yearly Top 25 OPs. Let’s jam.