BT: Some may argue that the mother of all dancing endings (if not any longer the most famous) may instead be one of the first—if not the first—of its kind. The first ending for Urusei Yatsura. Just Lum doing her little hip-shaking two-step to Uchuu wa Taihen da (roughly, “Space is Super Weird!”). Doesn’t get any more to the point: simple, fun, catchy.
BG: A great example of the two going together would be Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu. A lot of the characters involved in the song both singing and dancing, backed up by background characters dancing too.
GBS: With that, we might be all tapped out on dancing endings. Perhaps we could use some variety.
BG: More variety, eh? I mentioned earlier about how the Squid Girl TV series endings had interesting little variations from episode to episode. Sometimes they put a lot more effort than that with the endings, and actually feature multiple different ending animations and songs, in some cases there may be a different one for every episode.
Inu X Boku Secret Service is one example of a series with multiple endings. First, it follows the common practice of playing the opening as the ending for the first episode.
GBS: We seem to get this happening more and more often these days. A passing fad or here to stay? I wonder…
BG: Then, it alternates between a variety of character-specific endings with songs sung by the voice actor of the character. In this regard, it harkens back to my comments on character appeal, but multiple endings allow even more characters to get some focus. Again, different outfits and hairstyles featured in Karuta’s ending, with an emphasis on her love of sweets in both song and visuals. Miketsukami’s obsession with Ririchiyo is front and center in his ending, with photos of her everywhere including in his secret room.
GBS: Sincere adoration or…creepy stalker? You make the call.
BG: And there’s a funny one with Kagerou’s need to divide everything into S and M camps. I think it’s neat when credits are well-integrated into an ending, and this is an example of one that has fun with that.
BT: So I’ve been wondering where I could mention both a unique and quite special ending, and this may be as good a place as any. It’s for the second half of Nichijou (My Ordinary Life), and it has two creative components: first, the detailed side-scrolling townscape with almost all the characters moving within it, another great execution of the show’s art design (seeming to reference Yamato-e tradition here), starting during a rain storm in the first half before finishing in the sunlight. That alone is an impressive piece of animation design deserving notice, but on the subject of multiple or different ending songs, each of the thirteen episodes featuring the ending uses a different piece of music—traditional school chorus music or folk songs—sung by various combinations of the voice cast in character, or by singer Sayaka Sasaki. Each one feels, more so than any other ending I’ve mentioned, like a small movie. Amazing stuff.
GBS: An idiosyncratic ending for an idiosyncratic show. I would have expected nothing less from Nichijou.
I wonder how much input the music company that’s usually on board as part of the production committee has in this regard. If they want to sell a whole set of CD singles…does that lead to alternating/multiple EDs? Perhaps not in every case, as I remember The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya had a whole slew of character versions of Hare hare yukai, yet there was only the one ending for the season, set to the “standard” version of the ending theme.
BG: Inu x Boku SS went the opposite route. Even though it had multiple endings, the songs were only available as pack-in extras with the home video release, not as separately purchasable CD singles.
GBS: That seems rather odd but…I don’t run a Japanese distribution company so perhaps there’s some logic I’m overlooking.
