 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything one piece. And today it's time to get into something that people have been asking me to do ever since I began the channel and, you know, haven't really gotten around to, which is a ranking of all of the anime openings. So as many of you know, I'm quite critical in regards to the anime, however the openings aren't by far one of my favorite aspects of the adaptation. They usually contain some pretty solid animation and for the most part it's just really great music, much of which becomes incorporated into my permanent listening rotation. So I'm very excited to be sharing my thoughts on this influential music here today. Before I get started though, just a few notes about how I'm going to be ranking these. There are technically 22 anime openings, but two of those are just alternate versions of We Are, being the remix and the straw hat version respectively. Neither of which I'll be including here today because I think that they're a waste of time and space. So we're only going to be talking about We Are once instead of three times, meaning that we have a grand total of 20 openings to be ranked instead. And you know what, if you're really desperate for the sake of completion to rank the other two We Are's then just consider them 21st and 22nd in no particular order. But in this particular video we are going to begin by ranking openings 20 all the way down to 11. Also this probably goes without saying, but because this is the internet I'll do it anyway, I should point out that this is quite probably going to be the most subjective video I have ever made. Everything will be entirely dependent on what appeals to me and me alone through music and aesthetics. So just you know, keep that in mind as we go and feel free to share your own opinion in the comments, just do so in a civil way. But with that out of the way, let's begin. Welcome to the official Grand Line Review Anime Opening Rankings. Number 20. Kaze Osagashite. Alright so we're starting out quite negatively here because this is quite possibly the only one piece opening that I dislike with an extreme passion. So Kaze Osagashite is the 12th opening which covered the little East Blue filler arc which is already not a fond memory in regards to this opening, but it also went on to cover most of Impel Down and even the very beginnings of Marineford and therein lies my main problem. In terms of the song itself, it's just not for me. It's far too light and peppy and all sorts of oooh yay! Kind of the epitome of what I hate about Japanese music actually. But with that said, it's not a bad song. I can see why people like it and that's cool. But my issue is that it was absolutely the worst possible choice of music to be paired with Impel Down and Marineford which are two of the most serious arcs ever featured in the series. You know they're dark climactic and this opening makes them look like a fun little adventure into the land of candies with my personal favorite horrible piece of contrast being that part I mentioned before that goes whoo whoo! And you just see this grumpy ass Hannibal saluting with his terrifying looking guards in the background and it's it's so horrendously thought out. I mean in my mind an opening is supposed to warm you up for the episode you're about to watch. It's meant to set the tone and hype you up for the show. This opening makes me feel like I'm about to watch a slice of life anime designed for preteens not plunge into the depths of one piece hell and commence some of the most brutal events we've ever seen in the series and I guess if I wanted to be an artsy wanker I could make the argument that the opening was chose to purposely contrast the dark events and provide a bit of levity at this point in the series but even if that was the case I think it fails astoundingly and it really should not be associated with one piece let alone impel down and marine food so shame on you kaze osugashite shame on you. Number 19. Jungle pee so immediately let me just say that jungle pee suits my musical taste a whole world more than kaze osugashite and absolutely everything on this list from here on out will but it's still not quite my cup of tea specifically in regards to the male vocals something about them just sounds odd enough to my ears but the musical substance is actually quite enjoyable it's nice and energetic but not overly super kawaii crazy cake I have to say that one reason why I probably don't enjoy this opening as much as every other is because of its association with the thriller parka which was when I stopped watching the one piece anime regularly and made the switch to pure manga so I think that my general dissatisfaction of the time comes into this somewhat probably my favorite part of the opening though is the slower portion near the end where the thousand sunny is flying through the air right before leaping into that final chorus that is a pretty damn beautiful moment but for the rest of the opening I could give or take it quite easily there's nothing hugely special about it to me but there's also nothing majorly detrimental either so I guess jungle pee just sits very firmly in the meh camp for me number 18 we can so here we will have the first mention of Hiroshi Kitotani and we will see his music a couple more times as this goes on but I think that this is not only the worst song of his featured in the series but also the poorest animation to couple it with in regards to the song it lands in a very frustrating area that Asia loves to pursue which is what I refer to as soft rock which if I was to describe it as a feeling then I would say it's a lot like when a musician wants to inject a ton of energy into a song but at the same time it's 11 p.m and their neighbors will complain so they tone it down and then we get stuff like we can coming out of that and it's really frustrating because we can has a lot of potential as a song it's catchy as hell but it never really escalates into any real substance it very much stays at the same level for me and so I don't really think it has any musical depth and in terms of animation look this one's a bit deceptive at first glance it can look pretty schmick but if you take even a slightly more lingering look we can falls apart pretty quickly and Toei's trademark let's call it quality comes through so for example one of my favorite parts of said quality is when we have this like four second panning shot of the ship and Nami is just standing there the entire time gaping open mouth and just steering the ship slightly right and then immediately slightly left to where it began the rest of her body is entirely static that is the animation at play and people are going to call this nitpicky but this is just one example the opening is full of crap like that and it's a death by a thousand cut scenario with that said there is some decent animation around the end where the monster trio were taking on Jack and Kaido so it's definitely not all bad and I do really want to like it it just doesn't give me enough to invest into to me it's a shallow experience both musically and visually but to its credit it is at least still a catchy one number 17 bon voyage now to be completely honest with you I am shocked that bon voyage is this far down the list I quite like this song especially the super chilled opening with the glimpse of the straw hats and their various items in that holiday setting I think it was able to do the exact opposite of Kazuyo Sagashite and properly amp you up for the events of skypeer it retains a nice spirit of classic one-piece adventure as well but I guess where it does falter for me is that the song doesn't ever completely hook me like I enjoy it especially the beginning as I mentioned but it always ends up losing me at some stage and I can't ever remember where that stage is I guess it just doesn't have the added oomph that I'm looking for musically which is a shame because the visuals for the most part are quite wonderfully presented and there are lots of cute little stylistic choices that are made so it's really weird because while I remember bon voyage quite fondly I think it just gets lost in the sea of one-piece openings that I flat out prefer more for musical aesthetic or whatever reason it may be it is a solid opening though and I think its placement this far down the list is a compliment for everything to come number 16 crazy rainbow next up we have the opening that covered most of any slobby and returned four to seven now at the time I had a huge gripe with this opening because it replaced one that I really really enjoyed and that one didn't even get to run for half of the episodes that crazy rainbow went on to represent so this one it was a very hard sell for me but I did eventually come around to it in reality this opening is a lot of fun musically it's very adventurous and I think appropriately reflects the spirit of one-piece but I do have a similar issue as I did with we can which is that crazy rainbow is a bit soft for my liking given that it does use some pretty rocking guitar and drum attempts but at the same time crazy rainbow is not pretending to be a rock hit it focuses a lot more on horns and percussion which gives it a nice unique identity of its own and a sound that I have rather shockingly begun to appreciate quite a bit I mean it's not something that I would go out of my way to listen to but I am more than happy to have it playing as part of a giant one-piece playlist and the only other thing I'll mention is that crazy rainbow was the first of the long two minute and 30 second openings which were now very used to in the series but that was very jarring at the time because everything before it was sitting around the minute 30 mark as a result I think that some of the animation of crazy rainbow does purposely drag out and even become quite static at several points which is not great but it is what it is I guess number 15 share the world here's another funky one a song that I really did not like at first because of its unique sound it was really jarring when I initially heard it but the chorus is really the saving grace here because it's such a beautiful sound that can somehow at once encompass the feeling of adventure but also reflect serious events which is shown as it gets used when Luffy is surfing and having fun as well as when Luffy is coming across Boa Hancock which is much more dramatic but works really well in my opinion my favorite part is probably the first verse though where the straw hats are all introduced one by one with the names coming up on screen with that like nice zoom in and contrast shift all in time with the music it's an incredibly simple but very effective device I really do wish that more one-piece openings specifically created and edited visuals to the beat of music because it is a much more powerful experience I mean so long as it's not this that is so I'm actually not sure what more to say about share the world I guess it's a solid opening not my favorite by any means but there is a lot like about both visually and musically so why not number 15 sounds pretty good to me number 14 wake up so here's a song that hits me very much more solidly you'll probably find a trend in that music I like tends to be very high energy but wake up is particularly fun to me because it has both male and female vocals and they accomplish very different goals within the music and then come together to form a mighty chorus honestly I really enjoy this song so much so that the opening in general could be ranked so much higher than it is except that I think the visuals chosen to accompany it are letting it down significantly so wake up is probably best remembered as the 15th anniversary song which meant that the Straw Huts were all given special nifty anniversary outfits all of whom I hate with the exception of Robin and probably Sanji's otherwise I think they're all an eyesore and do not belong in one piece and really ruins any kind of immersion in the world for me another thing I'm not a huge fan of is the break in the middle where Blackbeard gets to Zer-ha-ha and be anonymous and then Luffy talks as well it's just it's all a bit cringy for my tastes and it was also a questionable decision to animate the monster trio fighting Sakazuki, Fujitora, Anki-Zaru but that last part doesn't bother me anywhere near as much as the outfits in the talking if not for those two things I think that wake up would definitely be in my top 10 to be honest but we do have those two things so what can you do number 13 Ikariye going way back to the classic days now Ikariye was the opening that covered the tail end of the albaster saga as well as Jaya and a surprising amount of skype here it spanned an awfully long time and actually fun fact it spoiled Robin joining the crew for anime only fans who were eagerly watching the conclusion of the alabaster arc good times but that said this opening is pretty great and 53 episodes of it was a pleasure and I guess the main factor behind that is that he Ikariye knows exactly what it is it's a song about adventure and the visuals given match it perfectly it's not some weird scenario where the animators have tried to force in current events or greater figures of the world it focuses purely on the straw hat sailing encountering natural problems and just having fun on their adventure and I love that it basically shows you what one piece is between major arcs and ignites a desire for exploration which really gets you or at least it really gets me pretty pumped for an episode especially those that took place on skype here it was definitely less appropriate for alabaster though I will say that still this is a brilliant opening and my favorite part of it has to be the montage where the straw hats are all doing their thing in the beginning and leading to the next one in a great fluid manner and there's actual animation involved rather than predominantly static figures and it just gives this opening that wonderful zest of life number 12 we are all right I feel like I'm going to get crucified for this but yeah we are isn't even in my own personal top 10 one-piece openings that's just uh that's just something we're all going to have to come to terms with pretty quickly what I will say is that if I had to choose one opening to perfectly represent what one piece is in terms of feel of the story, the world and the characters we are would definitely be it it's undeniably brilliant even with the tacky sound effects involved and there's definitely no flaw that I can really point to within this song it's just that in this case I really think it's a simple situation where I personally like every other opening more for whatever individual reason that may be we are is a fantastic great singalong tune but there are other openings that have just hit me so much harder and one of those just so happens to be number 11 believe moving straight into the second opening and I was pretty in love with this from the first moment I saw and heard it the song is an unashamed product of its time I mean you would never hear anything like this in the modern day it has that leftover 90s dance beat going on which gives it both a sense of energy and nostalgia that I really appreciate I also think it starts out really strongly speeding across the ocean then giving us a quick recap of the world and its characters and then finally launching into a full on high energy quest that makes me immediately want to board a pirate ship and find the one piece and the crazy thing is that as much as I've complained about lazy animation and some of the past openings on this list believe is quite possibly one of the most guilty offenders in regards to that believe takes incredible advantage of still images as well as a lot of reused footage from the series itself but it makes it work with the still images it does so by absolutely bombarding you with characters in the opening and with the reused footage they've selected very musically appropriate snippets and given them a classic quad screen effect which just enhances the energy even more so I will say that yeah believe is certainly lazy but at least it has some great artistic direction behind it and that is really all it needs and what a lot of modern day openings are sorely missing and that is why believe sits very comfortably here in the number 11 spot but that pretty much does it for part one of the Grand Line review anime opening rankings we will be covering the top 10 very soon which I'm very excited for because each and every one of those songs are ones that I listen to regularly and feel very passionately about so look forward to that for now if you enjoyed this video and the content this channel produced in general then please do consider donating to the Grand Line review patreon because the support of all of your amazing people is what continues to make this channel possible and if you'd like to see more videos like this but applied to other anime manga series then please do check out my second channel new world review for all of your wider needs and if you'd like to join the fun at any time then please do head over to my discord server where a wide array of shenanigan retakes place on a daily basis and finally please do comment with your own favorite openings in the series this has been the Grand Line review and I'll see you next time