Recently I’d been on a search for “good opening from recent non-anime cartoons,” recent being the operative word here, so no Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors or Batman: The Animated Series. As I asked friends and looked around myself, nothing really came to mind, and I had to wonder why that was the case. Eventually, I realized that what I was looking for wasn’t necessarily a “good” opening, but rather a “dramatic” one. At that point, it was obvious why I was having so much trouble: dramatic cartoons just aren’t really part of the current landscape. Then I remembered Oban Star Racers, the French-Japanese collaborative animation, and it led me down a more interesting path.

Of all the countries that aired Oban, America was the only one to have a completely different song used in its opening. Every other country which aired Oban, be it France, Japan, Germany, or whatever got essentially the same song, localized and translated to their respective languages. They all share the same animation. So I felt, why not compare them?

American

Japanese (keep in mind that the French version for example has the same tune)

And a Youtube Doubler link for good measure.

I think what bothers me about the American opening is that it doesn’t bother to capture the feel of the show. It’s as if the song was trying to trick the viewer into thinking Oban was something completely different, though not quite in a Nelvana Cardcaptors kind of way.

I honestly don’t know where I’m going with all this, and I don’t have a super-important point to make. Consider this post the first step to something. What that is, I have no idea.