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Incredible Bass Playing In Anime

L'Arc~en~ciel made many soundtracks for anime.
Tetsu being true to himself, all of them are remarkable basswise.
He pretty much defined the standard japanese pop rock bass line, which is sort of a mix of Simon Gallup, Mc Cartney and Steve Harris with pick playing, a lot of melodic elements and extensive use of triads.
GTO (at 1/00) is my favorite. A jewel from start to the end.

 
Haruko-01.jpg





Old school...
 
There are some talented musicians involved for sure but I can't help feeling like I've heard most of it before, just in a different packaging. It feels like most of the songs are just a pastiche of various styles/genres but with different production values. More up-tempo and with more intense arrangements/mixing but not really that exiting or groundbreaking IMO. Having said that, a lot of interesting music is happening in Japan these days and I know I've only scratched the surface.
Because these are openings for shows, they aren't going to be super ground breaking. Their idea is to convey an idea and pitch the show, not take the music world by storm.

One interesting facet of Japanese music is their obsession with upbeat choruses. It doesn't matter where the intro or verse is, the chorus ends up in nearly the same place 80% of the time. They eat that up.

I enjoy that they respect the bass enough to make it more audible than in most western music today. The bass gets buried and stuck going rudimentary playing in too much music.
 
Indeed, opening and closing themes have to be somawhat consensual.
Background tracks are often more inventive.
There are many very creative writers of anime music that have their own style.
It's not very bass oriented but you can start with the mother of all confusing soundtracks.
There isn't a single tune in Akira that remotely sounds like anything else ever produced.

 
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Despite being a grown @$$ man, I have plummeted down an anime rabbit hole over the last two years. The shame of that aside...

Plenty of Japanese "grown @$$ [men]" (and women) enjoy anime...It's just a medium for telling a story, nothing to be ashamed of if you enjoy it lol. I get the stigma though, the shame is naysayers can't see it for what it is :meh:

Ok, enough of my social commentary....here's a couple I'll toss in :bassist:

Chatmonchy - Just Between Us (Kuragehime OP)


Houkago Tea Time - Don't Say Lazy (K-On! Season 1 ED)
Not the most complicated bassline, but sounds cool and the song is great.
 
I watch a lot of anime and I am a huge Black Clover fan :D There's a lot of anime themes that I'm not sure is an actual bass ... a lot sound like a bass guitar VSTi like a Solemn Tones Kraken or Loki....same thing with guitar




My 17 yr old listens to a lot of this music. Man, the arrangements are intense sometimes. Admittedly I've only heard most of it in the car, not really digging deep, but I agree much (most?) of it sounds like virtual instruments to me. I picture one guy sitting there doing the entire thing except the vox. That's just my generalization of course (but I compose w virtual stuff all the time for my job - full arrangements from rock to orchestral--so I know what's possible). Alternatively, on some the production style has made any live instruments feel like virtual instruments the way things are quantized and processed. I'm not knocking it, mind you. People love it, that's what counts.
 
Longtime anime lover here as well! Some really great stuff has been posted already and I wanted to add some more fuel to the fire.

I remember getting super excited seeing Thundercat post about being a character in Carole & Tuesday. Super rad show that revolves around the music industry.


Also, the soundtrack from Yasuke is worth checking out! Produced by Flying Lotus, and I'm pretty sure that Thundercat is featured heavily on this soundtrack.


And lastly for the people in the back, a blue Ric bass (4001?) is basically a character in FLCL
 
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Mob Psycho 100, season 2 - epic OP, the bass (and guitar) work is incredible. But you're right, frequently find anime to have sick instrumentals. Trigun also has a pretty sick opening, it's more guitar than bass, but damn the groove slaps.