A survey has revealed the Top 20 anime theme songs as chosen by international fans

The anime industry has a long history of astounding productions, aided in part by their collaboration with multiple other industries in Japan that have elevated the medium. From groundbreaking animation techniques and technology to some of the best voice acting in the world, and of course, a giant boost both to and from the music industry. Whenever you talk about anime you can’t forget about their opening and ending songs, themes that become ingrained in your mind and at the same time expand your taste in music due to its huge variety. So which are the best themes?

The answer will obviously change depending on where you ask the question, but Asahi TV has at least one list of songs that have been chosen as “the best”: the TV network performed a global survey where fans from outside Japan chose their favorite anime songs.

Of course, surprising absolutely no one, Evangelion’s “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis” is well cemented at the top of the list as the best of the best of the best.

But the rest of the list doesn’t stray too much from what you might expect, as it includes almost all of the most iconic or popular anime of various eras in the anime industry. There are even three spots reserved for Attack on Titan, and of course, Dragon Ball Z and Digimon Adventure are there. Take a look:

The 20 best anime songs (according to worldwide fans)

But how does this compare with Japanese audiences themselves? Back in 2020, Otakomu launched their own survey online to try to figure out the answer themselves, with over 130,000 Japanese fans casting their votes to create the ultimate list. While that was four years ago, the list wouldn’t have changed that much, with it being filled with absolute classics. We won’t go over the entire list, but these are the top 10:

All in all, the lists share quite a few entries, but we’re still incredibly surprised (and slightly offended) at the fact that Gurren Lagann’s Sorairo Days is nowhere to be seen.