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Top Anime Opening Songs That Hit Different

Top Anime Opening Songs That Hit Different

Anime opening songs are more than just a musical introduction they set the tone, spark excitement, and often become an emotional anchor for fans. A truly great anime opening (or OP) doesn't just hype the audience it hits different. Whether it's the nostalgia, the lyrics, or the intense energy, some anime OPs stay in our heads and hearts long after the final episode.
From power-packed shonen intros to emotionally resonant ballads, here are the Indians top anime find to animesuge and opening songs that hit different the ones that make you never want to hit that skip button.
Few openings have had the cultural impact of 'Gurenge'. Performed by the powerhouse vocalist LiSA, this track perfectly captures the intensity and emotional stakes of Demon Slayer. Its blend of rock and J pop, matched with breathtaking animation, made it an instant classic.
Why It Hits Different: Empowering vocals and lyrics about growth and pain
Reflects Tanjiro's strength and resilience
Massive popularity even beyond anime fans
Tokyo Ghoul's opening 'Unravel' is a hauntingly beautiful song that reflects emotional conflict and inner darkness. TK's unique voice and the powerful chorus create an unforgettable atmosphere, mirroring Kaneki's transformation.
Why It Hits Different: Emotionally raw and beautifully composed
A perfect match for the series' tragic theme
A global fan favorite with countless covers
The opening track to one of anime's most beloved series, 'Again' by YUI, is a song full of longing, determination, and hope. It sets the perfect tone for Edward and Alphonse Elric's journey of redemption and sacrifice.
Why It Hits Different: Lyrics resonate with themes of loss and purpose
Seamlessly tied to the anime's core plot
A strong female voice leading a shonen hit
Among the many iconic Naruto openings, 'Silhouette' stands out. Played during the Fourth Great Ninja War arc, the song's energetic tempo and introspective lyrics reflect Naruto's growth and the weight of his destiny.
Why It Hits Different: Combines emotional reflection with high energy
Captures the legacy and evolution of the series
A fan favorite for both lyrics and visuals
Dark, dramatic, and powerful, 'The World' is the perfect match for the psychological tension of Death Note. From the first ominous notes, the song builds anticipation and mirrors the mental battle between Light and L.
Why It Hits Different: Dramatic vocals and heavy instrumentation
Stylish visuals that elevate suspense
Defines the early tone of the series perfectly
Despite its upbeat melody, 'A Cruel Angel's Thesis' is attached to one of the most emotionally complex anime ever made. This iconic opening became a pop culture phenomenon in Japan and is instantly recognizable around the world.
Why It Hits Different: High contrast between song tone and show theme
Evokes deep nostalgia for anime fans globally
One of the most covered anime songs ever
'My Dearest' opens Guilty Crown with orchestral elegance and electronic edge. Its poetic lyrics and sweeping melodies perfectly represent the show's themes of love, power, and sacrifice.
Why It Hits Different: Blends symphonic and modern styles beautifully
Lyrics that mirror the emotional journey of the characters
A powerful and cinematic listening experience
Arguably the most unique anime opening of all time, 'Tank!' is a jazz-funk instrumental masterpiece that introduces Cowboy Bebop with high-energy, saxophone-fueled flair. It's not just an opening it's a vibe.
Why It Hits Different: No lyrics needed the music does all the talking
Bold, stylish animation synchronized with the beat
Sets a cool, mature tone for the series
Another fan-favorite from the Naruto series, 'Blue Bird' is a beautifully composed track that's both hopeful and bittersweet. It marks one of the turning points in the anime and resonates deeply with fans.
Why It Hits Different: Evokes themes of freedom and self-discovery
Strong vocals with emotional depth
Often cited as one of Naruto's best OPs
'Colors' brings energy and rebellion to the forefront. FLOW's high-energy track introduces the complex world of Code Geass, hinting at the chaos and charisma of Lelouch's revolutionary path.
Why It Hits Different: Instantly energizing and unforgettable
Matches the bold spirit of the anime
Became a defining anthem for Code Geass fans
Anime opening songs do more than just hype us for what's to come they become part of our emotional connection to the story. Whether they make us cry, pump us up, or take us back in time, these songs truly hit different.
From the intensity of Gurenge to the jazzy brilliance of Tank!, these openings are unforgettable not just because of their sound, but because of the memories, emotions, and journeys they represent. So next time you hear that familiar opening, don't skip it feel it.
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Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle is about to pass a Studio Ghibli classic on its march up the list of highest-grossing movies in Japan
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Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle is about to pass a Studio Ghibli classic on its march up the list of highest-grossing movies in Japan

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. New anime movie Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle is continuing to break box office records as it continues to be Japan's number one movie for the third week in a row. In fact, the movie, officially titled Demon Slayer: Kimetsi no Yaiba Infinity Castle, has entered the list of the 'Top 10 All-Time Box Office Films in Japan' as found by Crunchyroll. With 17.63 yen grossed so far, Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle sits at number 10, right behind Howl's Moving Castle with 19.6 billion yen, becoming the seventh top-grossing Japanese animated film to date. The new movie is certainly following in the footsteps of its predecessor, Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train, which currently tops the list. However, Infinity Castle may even beat Mugen Train. The new movie was only released in Japan on July 18 and has already struck up over 17 billion yen in just over two weeks. That's 112% more than Mugen Train earned at the same stage. Released in 2020, Demon Slayer – The Movie: Mugen Train earned a whopping 40.75 billion yen domestically (over $275 million) throughout its theatrical run, beating out Spirited Away and James Cameron's Titanic. But, it wouldn't be too big of a surprise if Mugen Train was replaced, as Infinity Castle has already broken the record for the fastest Japanese film to reach the 10 billion mark. Directed by Haruo Sotozaki, the movie follows Tanjiro Kamado, who turns to a life of demon hunting with the Demon Slayer Corps after his sister was turned into one of the monsters. However, in Infinity Castle, Tanjiro faces his biggest challenge yet as he is plunged into a demon's stronghold known as the Infinity Castle in a bid to save the head of the Corps. The movie is the first of an upcoming trilogy based on the Infinity Castle arc from the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba manga. Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle is a sequel to the fourth season of the Demon Slayer anime series. Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle will hit US and UK cinemas on September 12, 2025. For more, check out the best anime you should be watching right now, and keep up to date with new anime heading your way.

'Weapons' Breaks New Ground When It Comes to Kids in Horror
'Weapons' Breaks New Ground When It Comes to Kids in Horror

Time​ Magazine

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  • Time​ Magazine

'Weapons' Breaks New Ground When It Comes to Kids in Horror

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Weapons. It's 2:17 a.m. in Maybrook, Penn., and the parents of Justine Gandy's (Julia Garner) first grade class do not know where their children are. Neither do the police, nor the Ring cameras affixed to the facades on several neighborhood homes, though at least the latter capture footage of kids bounding through their front doors, arms splayed like wings, into early morning's opaque embrace. No other evidence, nary a clue or a hint, of the little ones' whereabouts or motives is left in their wake. One moment, they're sound asleep in their beds; the next, gone without a trace or a reason. Weapons, the sophomore film from Barbarian director Zach Cregger, opens amid the fallout of this awful mass disappearance. The community's response is intense: panicked and bereaved mothers and fathers turn on Justine, indirectly a victim herself; misguided outrage blinds them to the real menace operating unimpeded in their midst. Cregger deliberately opens his audience's eyes over the movie's two hours, allowing them an omniscient view of events unfolding as individual characters experience the plot like gameshow contestants sticking their hands into the same mystery box: it's a mouse; no, it's a chinchilla; no, it's a tarantula. It's actually not at all what we come to expect. Cregger constructs a monster that shares DNA (and a fashion sense) with Pennywise the Dancing Clown from Andy Muschietti's two-part adaptation of Stephen King's It, but a very different modus operandi; around that monster, he spins a tale that fits right into horror cinema's broader child-centered niche, where kids punish their parents and subsidiary grownups, or are used to punish them, or are otherwise prey for an eldritch predator the adults are nigh helpless to stop. What compels movies like these varies, but typically is rooted in children's vulnerability or their parents' protectionary shortcomings. The world is a dangerous place. Parents are supposed to shield our young from those dangers. A quick glance at what the world looks like today suggests that we've dropped the ball, and horror films like It, as well as its contemporary peers, prod at that particular nerve ending: Jason Eisener's Kids vs. Aliens (2022), Eskil Vogt's The Innocents (2021), Kyle Edward Ball's Skinamarink (2022), Christian Tafdrup's Speak No Evil (2022) and James Watkins' 2024 remake, Samuel Bodin's Cobweb (2023), Roxanne Benjamin's There's Something Wrong with the Children (2023), David Hebrero's Everyone Will Burn (2022), and Demián Rugna's When Evil Lurks (2023). Of these, few end on what one might construe as upbeat notes; instances of young'uns overcoming their tormentors come with caveats. Weapons plays along the same lines in this sub-genre's sandbox, too, denying easy catharsis after wracking viewers' nerves with its combination of pitch-black humor, abject grief, and superbly conducted jump scares. Two films into his solo directing career, Cregger has established himself as an artist who uses convention as a whoopee cushion. (Technically, his first directing gig was the dramatically tonally distinct sex comedy Miss March, a joint effort between him and the late Trevor Moore, both of them members of the New York City comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U'Know.) Weapons is his version of both/and reasoning: it is bleak, nihilistic, confounding, and deeply frightening, as well as hilarious, empathetic, and, by the end, optimistic, though optimism in horror usually amounts to table scraps. We take what we can get. Compared to Skinamarink, and most of all When Evil Lurks, the decade's best example of the 'kids punish parents' category, Weapons is a feast; there's light to dispel darkness in the climax, though Cregger adjusts the dimmer slightly to avoid illuminating the whole picture. Even once the movie's over, we still don't understand Gladys (Amy Madigan, terrifying in her cloying sweetness), the fiend responsible for the children's disappearance and all ensuant bloodshed. We don't know for sure what will become of them once they're freed from her thrall, despite the helpful voiceover from Cregger's anonymous narrator (Scarlett Sher) assuring us that some of the kids recover from the catatonia Gladys inflicted on them. We don't know where Gladys learned her witchcraft, or why, or from whom, or whether they might go looking for her. All of this is to say that we only have scant confidence that the kids will, in fact, be all right, though grant that Weapons makes no gestures toward potential 'what ifs' by the time the credits roll. Cregger maintains the film's self-containment. There will be no Weapons 2. (Hopefully. If there is: It will be titled Weapon$.) This is a hard tack away from the type of resolutions seen in movies like When Evil Lurks, which Rugna could just as easily have called When Evil Prevails: as that film draws to a close, brothers Pedro (Ezequiel Rodríguez) and Jimi (Demián Salomon) are left alive by the entity they spend the movie hunting, to serve as witnesses to the entity's birth as well as their own colossal screw-ups—their failure to act quickly enough, to heed common sense, and to listen to experts chief among them. Everyone who dies in the film—and everyone does die, including Santino (Marcelo Michinaux), Pedro's young son—does so because Pedro and Jimi act without thought given to consequences, much less to rationality. They know, in Rugna's fictionalized world where demons are real and possession is treated as a public safety issue in the same vein as house fires or robberies, that killing a person who is host to an evil spirit means spreading that spirit's influence like a virus; but they behave as if ignorant of this common knowledge. What vile carnage they provoke through their stupidity coheres into a metaphor for the incoming generation's judgment of the presiding one: When Evil Lurks is about the profound dereliction of duty by society's adults to properly safeguard the world, and them, from harm. In real-life terms, 'harm' could be climate change, gun violence, food insecurity, infectious disease, and trafficking, and Cregger uses Weapons to tap into the same anxieties we feel as parents every single day, because to be a parent is to live with fear. Mercifully—because that sounds like an awful way to wake up and go to bed every single day—fear is the beam on an emotional sliding scale. What we fear, and how much, and when, ebbs and flows depending on the day, the time, the last soul-corroding headline we read between brushing our teeth and taking our littles to summer camp. Sometimes, fear is just a sudden rush of recollection that you forgot the swim goggles while prepping your child's backpack—a venial sin rather than a mortal one. Other times, though, it's an electric arc that spurs our catastrophization: what if the bus flips over on the way to camp? What if he develops heat stroke? What if she slips beneath the lake surface and her counselors don't notice? What if a lunatic strolls up to the daycare and indiscriminately opens fire with the rifle he bought at Walmart? What if? The not-knowing that's intrinsic to parenthood is inverted in Weapons: something has happened to Maybrook's kids, but there's no 'if,' just 'what.' Archer Graf (Josh Brolin) knows that his boy ran away from home, along with his classmates, seen in the film's opening sequence, a pre-dawn frolic that, deprived of context, reads as liberating, and practically joyful. The film, of course, is no such thing, though we do return to a version of that sensation of freedom in the climax, when Gladys' spell is broken and Justine's class chases her down, feral and screaming, an outraged pack of hyenas pulverizing lawns, barreling through window walls, and tearing down fences in their pursuit. Well before these kids fall upon Gladys, Cregger makes it clear that she has used black magic for the sake of extending her life. She's terminally ill. Abducting the children abates her illness. (The mechanics of 'how' go unexplained, and that's for the better. It's magic. Enough said.) But where another movie, like When Evil Lurks, puts the burden of solving the problem on adults, who dramatically screw things up, Weapons gives that task to the youth, or one youth: Alex (Cary Christopher), Gladys' nephew, the only child in Justine's class who didn't vanish. He's been reluctantly serving Gladys, who holds his parents (Whitmer Thomas, Callie Schuttera) hostage with magic, threatening their lives if he disobeys. In Weapons' frantic climax, Alex uses her magic against her, reclaiming what she's taken from him—his mother, his father, his friends—in a moment of righteous comeuppance. Catharsis is watching as a decrepit fiend is literally ripped to pieces by the same people they've subjugated and stolen from. In reality, the majority of us would settle for seeing the billionaires and corrupt elected officials currently driving the worst perils facing us, and our children, locked up and sent to prison; a collective sigh of satisfied relief was heard around the globe the day Harvey Weinstein received his life sentence. Weapons, being a horror film, comes with a few catches at the end, but that alone differentiates it from movies like When Evil Lurks and Skinamarink, where no catch is needed because the monster wins. Calling Weapons' ending a victory is perhaps somewhat generous, what with the matter of all the dead people left to account for, even Gladys. But the small victory that Cregger's characters eke out here sets his film apart from its peers in wicked style.

What to Stream: Vanessa Kirby, Maroon 5, Madden NFL 26, Alicia Silverstone and 'The Chicken Sisters'
What to Stream: Vanessa Kirby, Maroon 5, Madden NFL 26, Alicia Silverstone and 'The Chicken Sisters'

San Francisco Chronicle​

timea day ago

  • San Francisco Chronicle​

What to Stream: Vanessa Kirby, Maroon 5, Madden NFL 26, Alicia Silverstone and 'The Chicken Sisters'

Vanessa Kirby starring in a gritty film about the aspirations of home ownership, 'Night Always Comes,' and Maroon 5 releasing their eighth studio album with songs featuring Lil Wayne and Blackpink's LISA are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you. Also among the streaming offerings worth your time, as selected by The Associated Press' entertainment journalists: Alicia Silverstone leading a new TV crime drama called 'Irish Blood.,' the multigenerational, wholesome drama 'The Chicken Sisters' rolls out its second season on Hallmark and EA Sports jumps aboard the artificial intelligence bandwagon with Madden NFL 26. New movies to stream from Aug. 11-17 — Isaiah Saxon's 'The Legend of Ochi' (streaming Friday, Aug. 15 on HBO Max) is a handcrafted fantasy throwback seeking to conjure the kind of magic once found in movies like 'The Never Ending Story.' The A24 film stars Helena Zengel as Yuri, a girl who runs away from the forest home she shared with her father (Willem Dafoe) and brother (Finn Wolfhard). She leaves with a baby Ochi, a creature hunted her father. In her review, AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr wrote that 'The Legend of Ochi' 'has the feeling of a film you might have stumbled on and loved as a kid.' — Vanessa Kirby may be one of the standout performers of the summer blockbuster 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps,' but she also stars in a gritty new film about the aspirations of home ownership. In 'Night Always Comes' (Thursday on Netflix), Kirby plays a woman going to extreme lengths to secure a home for her family. The movie, directed by Benjamin Caron and adapted from Willy Vlautin's best-selling novel, takes place over a single night. — AP Film Writer Jake Coyle New music to stream from Aug. 11-17 — Maroon 5 will release their eighth studio album, 'Love is Like,' on Friday, Aug. 15, via Interscope Records. Expect smooth, funky pop music — like the sultry 'All Night.' Singer Adam Levine and Co. continue their trend of unexpected and delightful collaborations as well, with songs featuring Lil Wayne, Sexyy Red and Blackpink's LISA. You read that correctly. — Clifford Antone opened Antone's, one of the most storied music venues in Austin, Texas, with an inaugural performance by the King of Zydeco, Clifton Chenier in 1975. In the decades since, Antone's has become the stuff of mythology; a performance space that embraces its history and looks towards its future. On Friday, a new box set from New West Records seeks to celebrate Antone's legacy with 'Antone's: 50 Years of the Blues.' — AP Music Writer Maria Sherman New series to stream from Aug. 11-17 — The multigenerational, wholesome drama 'The Chicken Sisters" rolls out its second season on Hallmark. The series stars Schuyler Fisk, Lea Thompson, Wendie Malick and Genevieve Angelson as family members in a small town divided over their rival fried chicken businesses. It's based on a novel of the same name. The series streams new episodes beginning Monday on Hallmark+. — Alicia Silverstone leads the new crime drama called 'Irish Blood.' She plays Fiona, a woman who has been led to believe her father abandoned her as a child — and has carried around some heavy emotional baggage ever since. When she learns the truth is more complicated — not to mention dangerous — she heads to Ireland to investigate. The premiere of the six-part show drops Monday on Acorn TV. — A new one for the kiddos is the Disney Jr. series 'Iron Man and his Awesome Friends,' coming to Disney+. The first 10 episodes drop Tuesday. The show follows besties and fellow geniuses, Tony Stark, Riri Williams and Amadeus Cho, who team up to solve problems. — Chris Hemsworth continues his quest to live a healthier, more present, and longer life in a second season of 'Limitless," now called 'Limitless: Live Better Now.' The three-part docuseries sees Hemsworth learn more about brain power (with help from his friend and recording artist Ed Sheeran), risk and pain. The three episodes stream on Hulu and Disney+ beginning Friday, Aug. 15. — Alicia Rancilio New video games to play from Aug. 11-17 — EA Sports is jumping aboard the artificial intelligence bandwagon with Madden NFL 26, promising 'a new AI-powered machine learning system trained by real play calls and game situations over nearly a decade.' The most intriguing additions are QB DNA and Coach DNA — so, for example, if you're playing the Kansas City Chiefs, you'll see the kind of moves you'd expect from Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid. As always, the goal is to get ever closer to real-life football, with more dynamic weather effects, more details from pro stadiums and the return (at last!) of team mascots. The cover model this season is Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley, who'll be ready to start leaping over defenders Thursday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S, Switch 2 and PC.

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