I generally enjoy all anime songs but what I enjoy more are those anime songs that have a vibe similar to that of western music.

Personally I consider typical anime songs to have one or any combination of the following tones: optimistic, childish, adventurous, cheering, mischievous. This is understandable as most animes depict stories of ‘ideal’ worlds or non-existent universes with supernatural beings and/or powers.

I feel like western songs are more realistic. They sing around something that is experienced by almost everyone. They have a tone that could be incorporated as background music to certain life situations without feeling out of place. Maybe it is pretty obvious since they are not created for animated forms of media, but are different nonetheless.

I am in search for songs that have the best of both worlds. Songs from anime openings or endings (maybe even from the OST) which have a more realistic or ‘cinematic’ vibe like that of western music.

Some examples I could provide to get you the general of what I am talking about are:

  1. All ‘Attack on Titan’ openings except ‘Red Swan’
  2. Akuma no Ko (Attack on Titan Ed7)
  3. Mukanjyo (Vinland Saga Op1)
  4. CHAINSAW BLOOD (Chainsaw Man Ed1)
  5. First Death (Chainsaw Man Ed7)
  6. VIOLENCE (Chainsaw Man Ed11)
  7. Hydra (Overlord Ed2)
  8. Silent Solitude (Overlord Ed3)
  9. VORACITY (Overlord Op3)
  10. Vivid Vice (Jujustu Kaisen Op2)

Few disclaimers:

  1. I am not a big anime fan, so it’s reasonable that my examples are pretty limited.
  2. No, I don’t love rock to have majority of the above songs in that genre. I like songs by One Direction and Taylor Swift too, but I could not find an equivalent song from any anime I watched so far.
  3. I won’t consider what the lyrics say. They may be in Japanese or English or both and may have a completely opposite theme to the song, but the song itself is what I am looking for.