10 Songs I Wish Were Anime Themes - part 4 (Patreon)

GO!GO!7188 were one of the very first Japanese bands of whom I ever became an active fan, and while I’m not one hundred percent certain, I THINK “Aa Seishun” is the first song of theirs I ever heard. Whether it was at a convention panel or the result of blindly fumbling across YouTube, I couldn’t tell ya, but it’s their song that I have the most nostalgic feels for. The timing’s certainly right for it to make a massive impact on me. My first deep dive into contemporary Japanese Rock coincided with the peak of the Garage Rock revival, and “Aa Seishun” fits neatly into both categories. The full GO!GO!7188 discography defies easy categorization, ranging from Punk primitivism to artsy Prog Rock experimentalism, sometimes in the same song. “Aa Seishun,” however, can absolutely be pinned down as a modern Group Sounds revival, built upon the same Ventures-esque Surf foundation of Japan’s first big Rock boom. It’s not a full-on retro exercise like the works of The Captains or Kinoko Hotel (Turkey’s drumming alone gives away that this is an early-aughts song) but the minor key melody and Dick Dale guitar breaks still give it an unmistakable 60s/Surf vibe. Oh, and it’s also by a band with two girls playing guitars right up front. So, basically, it’s everything I was into at the time. Although GO!GO!7188 haven’t been active together since 2012, I still try to find every excuse I can to give them a shout out, so of COURSE I found a way to squeeze them into this fictional anime theme blog series!

While “Aa Seishun” is a pretty rocking song, I’m thinking this is another Ending Theme rather than an opener. I dunno, there’s just something about the minor key, traditional Japanese-sounding melody that brings to mind one of those EDs that are mostly longs shots of the main characters staring off into the distance while the wind blows their hair around. Bonus points if they’re perched on something really high up, and the sun’s setting. And the last shot would be all the main characters’ trademark accessory items in a pile or something. Maybe it’s just because this song is so deeply attached to a specific moment in time for me, but every time I try to imagine “Aa Seishun” in an anime, I automatically flash back to the closing credits of Naruto or some other shonen action show.  I’d frequently catch the tail end of those shows on Toonami while waiting for Adult Swim to start, so I guess that’s why my mind jumps to their closing rather than opening sequence. Also, those shows would really splurge on fluid, dynamic, action-packed OPENINGS but then have to cut back on the closing and do something much more ponderous and static. At least, I THINK that’s why my brain is working this way.

But what KIND of Shonen action show would have this song close it out? Well, “Aa Seishun” has a very obvious Surf influence, so something involving surfing and waves and the ocean seems like a nice, obvious fit. And because the melody has such a distinctively traditional Japanese feel to it, it makes sense that this anime would be about a subject matter that’s ALSO distinctively Japanese. And truly, what subject could be more distinctively, traditionally Japanese than ninjas? So… Surf Ninjas? YES, I KNOW THERE WAS ALREADY A MOVIE CALLED “SURF NINJAS.” SHUT UP. I CAN COME UP WITH A WAY BETTER NINJAS-WHO-SURF IDEA THAN THAT 90S CRAP SO LET’S DO THIS.

Okay, first of all, let’s acknowledge the facts: “Surfjutsu” is an objectively terrible name. For the purposes of imagining a Shonen series marketed to kids, let’s pretend the actual Japanese name was something entirely different, but the English distributors didn’t like it and decided to “Glitter Force” the show for its international release. Yeah, that’s it! “Surfjutsu” is a clever satire of bad dubbers, not just me being too unimaginative to come up with a better ninja/surfing pun! Sure! Let’s go with that!

Struggles with the name aside, the Shonen tropes fell together pretty quickly on this one. It’s a post-apocalyptic future where some mysterious cataclysm not only melted the ice caps and fried most technology, but also threw several extra moons up in the sky. All that extra gravity on top of the extra water means crazy big waves unpredictably crashing all over the place, and on top of all the more obvious problems, that makes transportation really difficult. One needs lightning quick reflexes to cope with the constantly shifting waves, not to mention dealing with the pirates and barbarians that inevitably rise up after the apocalypse. Clearly, the answer here is to train people from their early teens to be ninjas on surfboards. It’s so obvious, I don’t even know why I bothered to explain it.

From there, the characters and story can cover the various tropes: Everyone’s training at the “other” surf ninja school, the one for everyone who couldn’t get into the fancy “elite” school. There’s the naturally gifted slacker who probably could have made it into the elite school if she cared enough to actually try instead of goofing off and coasting on her innate skill. There’s the youngest member of the elite school’s founding family who deliberately enrolled in the looser school to make a name for herself without her family’s help. There’s the lowly commoner prodigy who by all rights SHOULD have been admitted into the elite school, but wasn’t let in because they don’t take his kind. They’d all hate each other, of course (slacker kid hates the two workaholics for not partying more, commoner kid hates the other two for blowing off the school he desperately tried to join, prodigal kids is just generally moody about everything) which means they inevitably form a tight-knit unit. And then there’s a dozen or so fellow students and teachers who the fanbase inevitably likes way more than ANY of the main cast, but who always end up on the sidelines while those three hog all the screen time. And speaking of plot, this series would no doubt start off with a series of short, energetic, self-contained adventures as our main characters go off on training missions, getting into fights with other Waterworld ninjas and riding no-doubt-awkwardly-cg waves. And then it’d probably get reeeaaallly bogged down and drawn out as the Big Bad shows up and some myth arc takes over the plot and drags on for yeeeaaars. (because that’s totally never happened to my comics and I can absolutely throw shade) Oh, and the anime would definitely be full of filler arcs.

And just to bring everything back around, the background music would be an anachronistic blend of traditional Japanese music and electric Surf. Ever since the earliest days of the Eleki boom, people have observed that the reverb-drenched guitars of Surf Rock fits surprisingly well with the sharp twang of old-fashioned Japanese instruments. Some especially hard-thinking music historians have speculated this to be the reason why The Ventures were the original Big In Japan group… even though the fact they were an instrumental act was almost certainly the biggest factor. Still, an anachronistic mix of rock and traditional music would fit our post-apocalyptic surf ninja show quite nicely. Imagine classic taiko drums and nohkan flutes, but instead of a shamisen or koto there’s a Fender guitar. And, of course, for the opening and closing themes, the show would go full-on rock with licensed songs like “Aa Sheisun.” In fact, if we REALLY want a combination of traditional and modern, we could also throw in another GO!GO!7188 song, “Ukifune” as a big action moment song. Or heck, just throw out the Surf/fusion thing and use GO!GO!7188 songs for the whole show! They could be this show’s version of the pillows! Come on, fictional production company that only exists in my head! DO IT!