Compared to mechs crushing cities, wizards incinerating trolls, and space pirates plundering the cosmos, singers and musicians seem like unlikely anime stars. Done right, however, a pop idol climbing to fame, an indie band struggling to write their killer ballad while surviving high school, or a piano prodigy reconnecting to their art can be as captivating as any other subject in anime.The best music anime elevates its art and music alike, playing sound and image off one another to provide viewers with a uniquely engrossing experience. Some grand and flashy, others quiet and introspective, the music anime genre offers up some of the medium's best.
10 Detroit Metal City
Soichi Negishi is the lead singer of blackened death metal band Detroit Metal City but hates his stage persona. His band's violent and hateful lyrics stand in stark contrast to the off-stage reality of an ordinary, tender college student who just wants to listen to Swedish pop.
This tension between Soichi's true self and stage persona gives Detroit Metal City strong momentum and narrative intensity. While his fans worship the demonic figure he pretends to be, Negishi rages against the career he depends upon to make ends meet. Detroit Metal City doesn't have one of the best anime theme songs, but it's a strong intro for the fun to come.
9 Sound Of The Sky
In a post-apocalyptic world thrown back to the technological standards of the early- to mid-1900s by war, young Kanata Sorami is inspired to join the Helvetian Army as a bugler after witnessing an enigmatic trumpeter perform "Amazing Grace." The major draw of Sound of the Sky is its fascinating, richly developed setting of Seize and Helvetia, while Sergeant Major Rio Kazumiya and Kanata's other comrades push Kanata in expected (and not so expected) ways, moving the story along at a brisk pace.
"Hikari no Senritsu," the opening theme by Kalafina, is bright and energetic without losing its necessary weight, and the show's other music rises time and again to the bar set by its opening. At only 12 episodes in length, Sound of the Sky is an anime perfectly suited for binging.
8 Long Live! School Idol Project
Love Live! School Idol Project is as thoroughly J-Pop a musical experience as viewers are likely to find. For those that enjoy saccharine girl groups with synchronized costumes and elaborately choreographed dance numbers, Love Live! will not disappoint. Honoka Kosaka and her friends form a high school idol group to bring attention to the school to keep it from being shut down due to lack of enrollment.
Their group, μ's (pronounced "Muse"), is in many ways the J-Pop power team, and their music in Love Live! is some of the most infectious in anime. Those that hear it are unlikely to ever get the chorus of "No brand girls" out of their ears.
7 Hibike! Euphonium
Unlike the small, pop ensembles of Love Live!, Hibike! Euphonium features classical music performed by an entire orchestra, following euphonium player Kumiko Ouma and his high school concert band. The series's love of music is evident in the level of detail in the instruments, as it is in the movement of the musicians as they play. Fingers skate, dart, and glide across strings and keys, and the thunder of the drums resonates through every frame.
That attention to detail, combined with the quick-cut editing and expert direction, creates orchestral performance scenes as dynamic and impactful as any shonen fight.
6 The Idolmaster
The Idolmaster is part of a sprawling media franchise that includes life sim and rhythm video games as well as anime and movies. Setting aside the bizarre alt-universe adaptation Idolmaster: Xenoglossia, a series that reimagines the idols as mecha pilots, the A-1 Pictures series is a faithful adaptation, focusing on 765 Productions and its pop idol hopefuls and producer.
Through the story of young singer Haruka Amami, the series grapples with the price one must pay for music stardom, making it one of the best idol anime. Though melodramatic, the series captures the highs and lows of adolescent friendship as well as the excitement of chasing one's dreams.
5 K-On!
K-On! is one of the most famous music anime for a reason. Its songs, driven by fast guitars and punchy vocals, hit harder than the band's traditionally soft lyrics would suggest. Straddling the line between J-Pop and pop-punk, the music of Ho-kago Tea Time is relentlessly engaging. "Go! Go! Maniac," the second season's opening theme, elevates the entire intro to one of the catchiest and most energetic in all of anime.
The premise of five high school girls who meet in the Light Music Club and discover that their musical interests lie in a rowdier direction is unoriginal, as is K-On!'s generic art style and formulaic plot, but these weaknesses don't stop it from succeeding as a slice-of-life anime. Furthermore, the music is fantastic; when someone wants ear candy, few beat K-On!
4 Kids On The Slope
Created and directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, best known for Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, Kids on the Slope approaches perfection. Its ambiance and characterization are ideally suited to one another, and the animations of its musicians are spectacular. The Episode Seven medley in Kids on the Slope is one of the genre's best and by itself justifies a watch.
Rather than the pop and rock that largely dominate the genre, Kids on the Slope focuses on jazz, as its introverted protagonist Kaoru Nishimi falls for a freer, more creative style of performance, and in doing so finds himself. The deeper Kaoru falls in love with jazz, the deeper his friendship with his delinquent friend Sentaro Kawabuchi becomes, giving the anime its real heart.
3 Carole And Tuesday
An example of cinema that is emotional without being manipulative, Carole and Tuesday is the second series by Shinichiro Watanabe appearing here. Taking place on a terraformed Mars, this unlikely sci-fi yarn brings together working-class orphan Carole with runaway rich girl Tuesday, and the rest is bliss. The animation is gorgeous, the character designs vivid, and the show does representation right, with a black lead character who is realistically portrayed and given genuine human substance.
It is songs like "The Loneliest Girl" that help make Carole and Tuesday one of the best anime of the 2010s, and the musical laundry scene is best left unspoiled. Nothing about its depiction of female friendship feels contrived or exploitative. The characters are simply given room to be themselves and make music, the two things they do best.
2 Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad
Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad has three incredible things: its music, its art, and Beck, a legendarily adorable misfit of a dog. Worth watching for its rainy cover of the Beatles' "I've Got a Feeling" alone, Beck is a tour de force.
Based on Harold Sakuishi's 1999-2008 manga, Beck tells the story of Yukio "Koyuki" Tanaka and the friends with whom he forms a rock band after meeting guitar prodigy Ryusuke Minami. Despite this familiar premise, Beck refuses to rest on cliche and defies anime tropes. No other anime nails the crunchy, lo-fi club feel of struggling musicians on the road the way that Beck does.
1 NANA
Ai Yazawa's Nana is about the chance meeting of two women, both named Nana, which leads to musical chemistry when the pair decide to become roommates. Nana Komatsu naively follows her boyfriend to Tokyo after he is accepted into art college, while Nana Osaki goes to the city hoping to make the leap from popular punk act to outright stardom. The 47 episodes of the 2006-2007 series chronicle the women's friendship as they chase their dream of musical success.
The first episode's opening theme, "Rose" by Anna Tsuchiya, sets a rattling, triumphant tone for the remainder of the series, shaking viewers and forcing them to pay attention. From unique art and character designs to graceful narrative development to the lavish music around which the series pivots, Nana is perfection, and unquestionably one of the best shojo anime.