Best Anime Song Contest: Separated or combined?
 

As you might or might not know, we're planning to hold a "Best Anime Song Contest" pretty soon after the "Best Videogame Song Contest" has been finished. Now there has been some discussion about how to organize the contest.

As for now, I am offering two different options:

(1) Separate contests for OP/ED and BGM
(2) Combined contest for OP/ED and BGM

If you are willing to offer anything else, you're welcome!

Thanks.

I think clarification is needed as to whether insert tracks that are played in the middle of the show that are neither featured as an opening or ending track qualifies for the OP/ED category or the BGM category.

Once that's sorted out, I'll throw in my vote.

I think separating the two will be better, as there are more than enough songs/bgm tracks for two contests.

I voted "Other" simply because of insert songs. Perhaps we could have categories for BGM, OP/ED, and insert songs? I dunno. Otherwise, I would have voted for the first option (separate categories).

I suppose mixing them would work. It should play out just like the whole Best Song Contest did. BSC doesn't discriminate vocals & instrumentals, so BASC shouldn't do so either (at least I think so). So I'm all for combining the two into one uber bracket.

I think the majority of well known anime music comes from OP/ED so I don't see a reason why they shouldn't figure into the mix. If anything (usually) and anime's OP theme is the theme people go by.

It wouldn't be fair since J-pop is a different category than pure BGM...

instead of making the categories op/ed and bgms, maybe we can call it vocals and non-vocals? vocals can then include image songs or insert songs besides just op/eds

So openings/endings that don't have vocals (such as Xenosaga's opening) will be in the BGM category?

The flaw with combining is that there are songs that will automatically get votes simply for not having vocals.

That said, combining the two is the more interesting choice overall. Variety is good, even at the need to compare apples to grapefruits. I can't say I'd approach an all-BGM contest with same enthusiasm as an all-OP/ED one, since I much prefer game BGM to anime BGM, but generally like a lot of anime OP/ED songs I come across.

Also, I vote yes on using insert songs as well.

He has a good point about insert songs. I think the OP/ED portion should be clarified to include insert songs at the very least.

As soon as that's clarified, I'll be voting for separate brackets, since I think that will allow other people who don't really listen to the music can at least participate in the voting for BGM tracks (as listening to the vocal tracks can be more of an acquired taste.)

I've changed "OP/ED" to "Vocals". I think that was Mush's original intention when creating the poll, anyway.

Hiro: I think it should be placed in the BGM bracket, due to reasons stated by Goldfish and Merv.

So, are all released materials included in the contest? I'm wondering where do image albums, remixes, and character songs fit into this, if at all?

Not sure I agree with this personally, but anyway, I guess "BGM" should be renamed to "Music" or "Instrumentals" then. Not really background music if it's never played during the show.

I would've been interested in seeing how far Cowboy Bebop's opening goes against vocal tracks, but I guess that won't be happening now.

I'm more interested to see how English songs like Blue and Rain from Cowboy Bebop fare against the J-pop stuff.

So wait, now we are going so far as to seperate vocal tracks from BGM tracks? Would that mean that vocal tracks that do not appear as OP/ED be grouped together as well?

That seems like a fair compromise to me, as it would balance the distribution of fammilar OP/ED themes and unfammilar vocal tracks.

That was my original idea, Excrono, I wanted a seperate contest for OP/ED themes, no matter whether vocal or not, but we're still in the process of figuring things out, so the last word has not been spoken yet.

In that case, shall we group insert/image songs with OP/ED themes (including non-vocal OP/ED)?

I think that would be a good idea. That would also keep our vocalphobia suffering people interested.

Wait, this question wasn't really answered directly, but it seems from the updated poll that image songs are now included? I had assumed that this contest would be similar to the VGM one in that alternate arrangements would not be allowed (even if it was official), please correct me if I'm wrong. I would think that image albums would qualify as an "arrangement" since they sometimes don't even make it into the show. Character image songs are even more likely to not be included since they're usually just a part of some drama CD or something.

What's the final say on this, folks? I guess I'm probably being a little anal here, but I would like everything out in black and white.

Yeah, this was eating me up a bit. Will we be rejecting "Full Size" versions of the OP/ED, and going so far as looking at the context of each piece of BGM to see if it was used in the series? I know a dilemma would arise if we applied this to OP/ED but not BGM as most BGM is used only in part in the actual series. Or will we just be allowing everything from the album, within reason (disallowing licensed tracks, blatant arrangements, etc)?

Perhaps I am over thinking it. My hope would be that we wouldn't be too restrictive and deny full versions of the OP/ED that actually were used in part, as they shouldn't be measured by the VGM standard which doesn’t really take partial tracks into acount.

try the separated opening from endings, you will have better results, ay leasy in my opinion

Whyyyyyyyyy? >_>; I'd figure Vocals & BGMs. Differentiating Image songs from OP/EDs and OPs from EDs gets things weird.

Anime music is NOT VGM.

They rarely do arrangements of anime music, so "image albums" are quite different from what you're thinking since the music/songs in them are often original. And contrary to what you think, character image songs are very often used in the shows themselves (they need to sell copies, after all).

And songs are going to be full length where possible (there are some without a full length version, and some that never had TV versions published.)

Is your understanding of "image songs" a little different than this one? I've always went with this definition myself.

Which animes are you thinking of? I guess maybe I just haven't seen that much anime or maybe the ones I have just happened to not use these "character image songs"?

Note that Nausicaa.net's definition applies only to Studio Ghibli albums =)

One example for the second part of your post: The recent Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, where two image songs were performed in an episode.

And to substantiate it with a few more examples, we have Hana Emi To Kasumi Kusa which appears in Kasimasi (somewhat obscure) and of course, Love Hina's Yakusoku and Egao no mirai e (which is anything but an obscure series).

I just always viewed songs like the one that was played in Haruhi as insert songs. However, I had a chat with Bigblah on IRC and he classifies ones like that as both an insert song and a character image song, so it's all cleared up now.

For the record, zzeroparticle, I have not seen Love Hina (although yes, I know of it, certainly not an obscure secures indeed) or Kasimasi (which I have also heard of but have not seen).

Yeah, and Love Hina used some of the character songs as theme music for some characters such as Shinobu's laundry song. You never heard the lyrical version in the series but every now and then the music would pop up as background music for Shinobu if she was working hard or something. Been a while since I've seen the series so I can't remember if there were any other examples of this.

I'm voting for separate contests. Op/Ed is mostly Jpop while BGM is not. I'd like to have them not compete with each other.

Now that I've seen everything spelled out, I think there is a case for a seperate BGM contest.

One question though: would the contests be simultaneous?

I vote for seperating the insert songs and vocal OP/ED. They seem to me to be on different caliburs, primarily in popularity. It'd be more fair that way.

I might just be confused here, but if an image song appears in the middle of an anime episode, wouldn't it considered an insert song at that point? I'd like to know Bigblah's explanation on the subject.

He classified those as both being an insert song and a character image song when he was talking to me.

At first I said that it should be combined, but I've changed my mind; seperating vocal tracks would be more fair. I think that both parts should be held simultaneously, though (maybe in rounds with 8 vocal and 8 instrumental pairings).

I think that's an even better idea--rather than trying to hash out what counts as OP/ED and BGM, why not just make one contest all for vocals and another all for instrumentals?

I vote for separated, because it'll be easier and more simple to handle than it would be mixed.

Hello, any chance this Anime contest is going to start soon?

I mean, I just stumbled on Lupin 3 Jazz and I would have never found this incredible music without sheer coincidence. This contest should be all about sharing music with each other. Just like I stumbled on IDOLA and Wind of Phantom in the VGM contest.

I voted for all together, but actually, when you separate them naturally there will be more music, more to learn and all! The more contests, the better.

PS: why is there less interest in anime music than vgm music? Anime music is much more interesting than VGM...

Oh ho ho ho

Anyway, I'll give this some thought when my current obligations are over. Maybe in mid-December.

All right it's equally interesting due to the technology of music sampling. But in the past anime had more orchestration and then it was more interesting than VGM.

So what's the deal with this? :/