In Fall 2024, the majority of anime fans are enamored with Science SARU’s incredible adaptation ofYukinobu Tatsu’s hit mangaDANDADAN, and the opening theme and sequence by the same duo that gave us that viralMashleopening theme, Creepy Nuts.
While most may consider the issue of the best opening of the Fall to be a closed case, there’s an anime opening sequence that is definitely a contender for best anime opening of Fall 2024, if not, the best opening this year. So what makes the opening toKimi wa Meido-san (You Are Ms. Servant)so unique and special?
About You Are Ms. Servant
Yor Forger, Is That You?
You Are Ms. Servantfollows 16-year-old Hitoyoshi Yokoya, who wakes up one day to a beautifulnameless girl wearing a maid costumestanding at his front door. Shereveals herself to be a professional assassin, sent to the Yokoya household by her mentor, and she offers her services to the boy. Hitoyoshi is obviously creeped out by her occupation, especially when she proves to him that she has the skillset necessary for it, so he sends her away.
When he realizes she forgot something at his house, Hitoyoshi races out to catch up with her, nearly getting hit by a truck in the process. With her swift reflexes, the maid assassin saves his life, and he decides to take her in. However, while she is an extremely skilled assassin and insanely athletic, the girl has no experience in housekeeping or homemaking whatsoever, and shows signs of being stunted in her childhood. Hitoyoshi accepts her and decides to give her the name “Yuki”, based on her Chinese name “Xue”, meaning “snow”.
We wrote this song for the anime, “You Are Ms. Servant.” Just like the story in the anime, it depicts the conflicts of a former assassin who ends up working as a maid in a normal household—an unusual situation. Even if you’re not a former assassin, I think some parts are relatable since we all grow up in environments special to us. tricot’s music itself is often seen as “unusual”, which I think made it a perfect fit for us as well.
The series is based on the manga written and illustrated by Shotan, serialized on Shogakukan’s Sunday Webry manga website since June 2020. The anime is produced by staff at Felix Film (MF Ghost), with Ayumu Watanabe (director,upcomingWitch Hat Atelieranime) serving as director and sound director; series composition by Deko Akao (series composition,Komi Can’t Communicate); character designs by Tomoyasu Kurashima (key animation,Barakamon) art direction by Masanori Nishiyama; CGI direction by Masaomi Suzuki; Masanori Nishiyama responsible for art setting; colour design by Chiharu Tanaka; editing by Kiyoshi Hirose; Yūsuke Yamamoto as director of photography and Michiru Ogiwara as the main animator.
The cast ofYou Are Ms. Servantincludes Reina Ueda as Yuki; 17-year-old Toshiki Kumagai as Hitoyoshi Yokoya; Lynn as Grace; Konomi Inagaki as Naka Hikage; and Hikaru Iida as Riko Yokoya. As mentioned before, the opening theme is “Call” by tricot,a wildly successful math rock bandfrom Kyoto, the fans of whom have waited over a decade for their sound to herald an anime series. With over 100 shows performed across the US and Europe since their inception in 2010, tricot is one of the most prolific bands in Japan with a thriving international fanbase.
The Brilliance of the Opening Sequence
A Highly Experimental Visual Delight
What makes the opening toYou Are Ms. Servantthe best of Fall 2024 is a combination of tricot’s eclectic blend of complex time signatures that are essential to math rock, lead singer Ikkyū Nakajima’s incredible vocals and lyrics, which fit the series' core themes, and of course, the visuals of the opening sequence. It isn’t just 2D animation or a series of cuts from the show edited together over music, or even characters doing cool dances.
It has a scrapbook feel, combining all kinds of media together to create a highly textured visual experience. The individual responsible for storyboarding this opening is Saho Nanjo of qootain, the 2D and 3D animation studio behind the 6th opening ofChainsaw Man. There are parts that appear to have been made from actual isometric models made from papier-mâché, with scenes of Yuki’s new neighbourhood where a figurine resembling her is surrounded by blank models made from crumpled paper reminiscent of the ending sequence tothe 2011 anime Eden of the East. There are plenty of cutouts and a generous use of stop motion, with some of the models also painted with watercolours, not to mention the inclusion of live-action photos and videos.
Sliding on my toes, I don’t know the warmth I stumbled into
You take away the danger, and steal the anxiety from me.
A perfect balance
La-ta-ta-ta, with you, I feel like I could dance,
The view I used to see, it’s so different now
From now on and always,
Even if we find our separate happiness by now,
The Thematic Significance
A Beautiful Multimedia Masterpiece of an Opening
Visually, the opening communicates the feeling of isolation and disconnection from the basic warmth that is generally associated with normal, fulfilling lives as she appears alone in much of it. In fact, the only characters from the anime that appear in the opening are Yuki and Hitoyoshi, who appear separately for the majority of the opening prior to the chorus. The bridge of the song finally shows them together, with stop motion animated papier-mâché models of the charactersdancing together ballroom style, a manner of dance that communicates a level of intimacy between the characters augmented by the fact that they are the only two in the whole opening – as if the opening is a world just for them. The warmer aspects are brought into view when Hitoyoshi gets up from the audience seats of a play featuring a marionette-like version of Yuki dancing mindlessly before being brought into the light by Hitoyoshi.
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Director
Ayumu Watanabe
The happiness that Yuki has found with Hitoyoshi is expressed through the spontaneous blooming of flowers at their feet towards the end of the sequence – a concept that also comes up in the lyrics of theDANDADANopening, and is an expression of how Yuki sees Hitoyoshi as a being of such goodness that he manifests beauty around him because of how he has enabled her to enjoy mundane aspects of life.
The constant juxtaposition between realistic elements andthe “motion manga” style, as well as the scrapbook cut-out style is incredibly well-executed, but beyond that, there’s a highly enjoyable part of the sequence when the chorus drops, with a fluid watercolor animation of Yuki running, with a blurry still connecting the opening to the interesting mirage-like ending sequence. The unique approach to the sequence and its use of multiple forms of artistic media together creates one of the most visually striking anime openings made this year, and the song choice is perfect for the series as it is fully tapped into the emotions that charge the series' central relationship, making for a great first anime theme song for tricot.
