Song of the Summer – This Week in Anime

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There may not be a Top 40 “song of the summer” for 2025, but Coop and Chris have some good anime options!

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.

Undead Murder Farce, Symphogear, Fairy Ranmaru, and Red Garden are available on Crunchyroll. The Rose of Versailles movie is on Netflix. Revolutionary Girl Utena is available on YouTube. All Macross series are on Hulu. Revue Starlight is available on HIDIVE.

Chris

Coop, it looks like the absolute cursed confluence of weebs and theater kids is set to happen sooner rather than later, as we got word of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera getting optioned for an anime adaptation! Now my first thought was that this could lead us to looking at other anime incarnations of the Phantom, but the only ones I could think of were a tool of a 2-Star Assassin from Fate/Grand Order and the admittedly hot version from Undead Murder Farce.

Slim pickings, so maybe it’s best to broaden our scope a bit.

Coop

As cursed a pairing that might be (both in theory and application), it seems to me that the stage and animation have always been in conversation, Chris. For an inverse of Phantom, in which an anime has been adapted for the stage, look at the Frank Wildhorn-composed Death Note and Your Lie in April musicals. Deeper than that, anime has probably taken cues from the stage since the medium’s inception. Starting with Noh, Kabuki, and other traditional Japanese stage arts, before evolving with the emergence of the Takarazuka Revue, experimental theater, and Western productions. You could easily argue that the birth of 2.5D stage shows is the culmination of this relationship.

© © ビーパパス・さいとうちほ／小学館・少革委員会・テレビ東京 © ミュージカル「少女革命ウテナ」製作委員会

And yes, Chris, before you ask, I was a theater major.

I didn’t major in it, but I took theater all through high school and college, and I’ve always been a big fan! Small wonder I still love both local productions and the larger-than-life theatricality of mediums like tokusatsu. What’s not to enjoy about Kamen Rider Blade‘s rock-opera opening?

But that might be a medium too far for the focus of this column, and as you pointed out, anime and musical theater have intertwined plenty before the Phantom got a chance to drop a chandelier on the stage. Live adaptations of everything from Bleach to The Prince of Tennis, yes, but also whole anime that qualify as musicals in their own right!

Not to mention series and films that might not technically be musicals, but have tunes that regularly punctuate their most emotional moments.

I won’t hear “Kakusei” and NOT think of Lio’s rampage in the back half of Promare…or NOT see this as the opening number to Dirty Pair: Project Eden.

Dirty Pair: Project Eden is one I think of as qualifying as “musical-adjacent.” In practice, it’s more like a collection of animated music videos with story connective tissue. Not unlike a less-dense version of INTERSTELLA 5555, now that I think about it.

Almost a musical!

Similar to those earlier examples, INTERSTELLA 5555 sits on the edge of becoming a Jukebox Musical. But to be considered one, you’d probably need a wider spread of tunes from various artists… Like this little flick made by Toei Animation in 1986!

As long as we’re doing the typical TWIA thing of debating definitions, I’ll contend that, rad as it is, The Transformers: The Movie is neither anime nor a musical. To me, a “musical” is defined by the characters themselves bursting into the songs, if not diegetically, at least on-screen in some capacity. Having an omnipresent soundtrack blasting does not make a musical, no matter how hard that Kick Axe Spectre General cover of “Nothin’s Gonna Stand In Our Way” goes.

Now, this does naturally lead into a discussion of one of the most recent anime “musicals” to pop up, and one I was thus disappointed at the handling of (in multiple ways)! The Rose of Versailles on Netflix was sold to me as a “musical” when it dropped, but in truth it’s closer to Project Eden up there, with the songs playing over glorified music videos with lyrics being sung in the background.

I’ll give it points for attempting to condense such a grand story into a two-and-a-half-hour movie, but The Rose of Versailles doesn’t exactly work in this form for me. Which is a shame for more than a few reasons, but chiefly: I’m sure the illustrious ladies of the Takarazuka Revue have thoroughly cracked this nut on the musical end of things.

coop-02 — © Ikeda Riyoko Production © Takarazuka Revue © Takarazuka Creative Arts

Secondly, there’s this other musical involving the French Revolution that serves as a perfect example of how to adapt a dense work for the same runtime.

coop-03 — © Cameron Mackintosh Overseas Limited

In hindsight, maybe playing on that stage meant that The Rose of Versailles was always going to come up short.

I can see how they thought to go this direction. Musical montages, on paper, make for an effective way to speed through periods and emotional character arcs in a way that more rigid writing would take too long doing. Just coast on the musical vibes. But you can only see a few extremely brisk numbers of Oscar and Marie and pals vamping around to music about how conflicted they are, followed by another four years passing as a caption before the one trick starts to wear thin.

Would it have been more tenable with the characters directly belting out the lyrics on-screen? Hard to say, but I think it at least would’ve been more entertaining.

I’m inclined to agree with you. Honestly, the film reminded me so much of my time with compilation flicks like the Mobile Suit Gundam Trilogy and Tomorrow’s Joe. Specifically, in that they’re so intensely paced that the viewer is watching plot points on screen rather than being allowed to breathe alongside the characters throughout their experiences. Coincidentally, that’s the strength of a good musical number—it allows the audience to get a bead on a character as they let out everything on their mind. It felt more like ensemble numbers were prioritized to move the plot along. For instance, Oscar and Marie Antoinette could’ve had an intense duet in their last meeting, but that didn’t happen.

It all makes me feel as if they weren’t able to fully commit to the musical aspect of the film. Because when a show can nail a number, the entire emotional experience is made better for it. For as talented as Hiroyuki Sawano and Kohta Yamamoto are, I wouldn’t say they’re the right composers for a proper, old-style musical.

As highlighted in the likes of Promare, Sawano’s music has the theatricality to play for stage styles. And that’s been tried in pieces that committed a bit more than The Rose of Versailles. Just a few years ago, for instance, One Piece itself brought a pseudo-musical indulgence in Film Red, with singer Ado providing several insert songs with a host of artists, Sawano included.

I agree on the theatricality of Sawano’s tunes, but perhaps it was a bit of a mismatch of thematicity—at least for me. It’s probably an unfair comparison to make, but my brain goes to the sound of Sondheim’s works (specifically Into the Woods) or again, Les Mis, when it comes to grand, sweeping musicals. Then again, that line of thinking is probably a bit limiting if a creative is looking to strictly follow those well-traveled paths.
When you hear the people singing the song of angry men, it’s sometimes hard to get it out of your head, Chris.

At least most of the singing in Versailles sounds better than Russell Crowe.

You do see a lot of would-be musical anime not going quite all-in on the presentation. I’ll always go to bat for Fairy Ranmaru, but even its fabulous musical interludes stop short of having the characters sing the lyrics right there with their mouths.

Conversely, our illustrious editor Lynzee alerted us to the mid-2000s Gonzo joint Red Garden, a fascinating piece with its musical inclinations. I’m motivated to check out more of it, but among everything else this show has going on in the opening episodes I sampled, the musical elements are largely limited to a few scattered laments by the cast about their supernatural circumstances.

© 2006 GONZO / RED GARDEN PRODUCTION COMMITTEE	© 2006 GONZO / RED GARDEN PRODUCTION COMMITTEE
© 2006 GONZO / RED GARDEN PRODUCTION COMMITTEE	© 2006 GONZO / RED GARDEN PRODUCTION COMMITTEE

This one fascinated me with its focused use of these laments. Especially because these tunes come out with no explanation, nor does the narrative try to figure one out either. I love that these girls are just letting their emotions out, and the first episode of Red Garden shows that they’ve got plenty on their minds.

© 2006 GONZO / RED GARDEN PRODUCTION COMMITTEE

Few and far between as they are, they’re exactly what I expect from the musical craft: characters with emotions that get so big they transcend regular line delivery and overflow out as song. It’s a perfect compliment to the chaotic happenings of girls learning they’re walking corpses and having to fight dog-legged monster men. I love how even the mysterious handler lady gets in on it.

chris13 — © 2006 GONZO / RED GARDEN PRODUCTION COMMITTEE

chris14 — © 2006 GONZO / RED GARDEN PRODUCTION COMMITTEE

This reminds me of when my professors once told me something to the effect of, “Breaking out into song makes no sense, but if it’s a strong, uncontrollable outburst of emotion, that action will be way more believable to the audience.”

I can’t think of a better example of this concept in practice than Revue Starlight and its film follow-up. When it comes to a battle of wills through song, it’s hard to beat a breakup song that’s punctuated by a fleet of semi trucks that are sent flying at both parties

See, now we’re getting to the real shit. Revue Starlight neatly falls into the category of “anime about stage performers,” and it even ties into its run of live theatrical stage shows, so it makes sense it’d go all-in on the musicality of it all. The murder of your fellow performers has never been so much fun to sing along to!

I love how the dueling musical numbers are something the girls are more directed to do in the TV series, but by the time of Revue Starlight The Movie, they’re all so bursting with unresolved tensions that they soon effectively self-sort into fights where they’ve got to riotously resolve things through lovingly loaded lyrics.

These clashes did so much to address my only real issue with the series itself—these girls are way too nice to each other. There’s too little jealousy or friction between the members of the 99th class. Perhaps there’s an air of sportsmanlike rivalry shown, but theater kids (especially teenagers) are brutal—one-upsmanship is more of the mo in reality. I was thrilled to see The Movie address that issue right away by upping the angst immediately.

It’s extremely cathartic, especially in how it embraces the craft of staging, lighting, and technical theater that’s so impressive in these productions, while also embracing the animated medium to show interpretations of those that would be hell to orchestrate in real life.

© Project Revue Starlight	© Project Revue Starlight
© Project Revue Starlight	© Project Revue Starlight

Also appropriately for the theater, it’s freaking homoerotic.

The sheer amount of songs, sword fights, and lesbians on display is reminiscent of another rather theatrical series.

© 1997 BE-PAPAS/CHIHO SAITO/SHOGAKUKAN • SHOKAKU • TV TOKYO

As Steve mentioned when we talked about it at length earlier this year, Revolutionary Girl Utena goes all in with its theatrical imagery. Aside from the overwhelming influence of Shūji Terayama and J. A. Seazer, there’s a fair bit of exploration with the concept of a stage itself, with series’ dueling grounds. At first, it feels very much like a blank canvas for stage combat, but abstracts over time with the introduction of increasingly bizarre set pieces and props starting in the Black Rose Saga.

coop-09 — © 1997 BE-PAPAS/CHIHO SAITO/SHOGAKUKAN • SHOKAKU • TV TOKYO

If Utena were a theater person, they’d be the designer who obsesses over how to best shatter the audience’s conceptions of the stage. Be it through set design, the lighting, or the use of projections. However, the series itself is very keen on cluing in the audience to be suspicious of whoever’s running it all back in the booth.

Though more focused on more traditional musical fare, Revue Starlight shares so much of this specific strain of DNA I’m scratching at here. Then again, Starlight’s director, Tomohiro Furukawa, worked under Utena director Kunihiko Ikuhara before staging his own animated play.

You can see how Furukawa was influenced by Ikuhara’s appreciation of stage aesthetics in his staging of Revue Starlight. But I think Starlight also gives away Furukawa’s base love of musical theater, alongside a critical eye toward the star system of the Takarazuka Revue itself. Also a giraffe.

It, along with Utena, stands as an example of the myriad ways music and theatricality influence anime, while spurring it in some cases to become a musical itself.

Absolutely! The constant conversation between both media makes for more creatively diverse works in general. Perhaps it doesn’t always result in a winner of a musical, like the aforementioned Rose of Versailles or the lackluster Ryoma! The Prince of Tennis, but that back-and-forth keeps those juices flowing. I’d say the Macross series is probably a happy medium between the musical adjacent works we’ve mentioned and a full-on musical.

It’s very hard for me to watch the finale of Macross Frontier: The Wings of Farewell and not feel that explosive outpouring of emotions we’ve been coming back to again and again.

The franchise has been doing it for ages, specifically playing with the use of diegetic music in-universe, and the characters are overpowered by emotion enough to deploy it. Some more dramatically than others.

chris24 — © 1994 BIGWEST/MACROSS 7 PROJECT

Have you ever seen the power of song pierce an asteroid, dear reader? Watch Macross 7 and you will.

Though speaking of latter-day Macross studio Satelight, to say nothing of the power of song punching through rocks, I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up my actual favorite anime musical.

It’s time to update the ranking of the world’s highest mountains once again.

Symphogear can be a lot dumber than some of the other emotionally dense plays we’ve talked about thus far, but it’s no less theater than any of them. It’s great because it’s truly a musical in the most varied sense, with not just fully sung-in-universe numbers for the mecha-armor fights, but also outlandish idol performances, emotional karaoke indulgences, and of course, stirring ballads on the important subject of beef stroganoff.

It’s how I learned that you don’t HAVE TO put beef in your stroganoff.

Blasting off from the same launchpad that provided some of that Macross, it’s one more reminder that anime musicals, while not extra common, encompass enough variety to be worth perusing their playbill. We didn’t even get the chance to look at Dance with Devils or Nerima Daikon Brothers (no thanks to it not officially streaming anywhere), or touch on how much the rap battles of Hypnosis Mic let it count in this arena. All of you have to check out Inu-Oh if you haven’t yet, it’s a whole treatise on the transcendent power of musical performance!